Out of Standard

Bishop Snowman and the Spice Posse.  Copyrighted, Isadora Gruye Photography.

Greetings Garden Dwellers!

American toads and followers, consider me your Thanksgiving benefactor, here for the Wednesday Out of Standard, and you better believe I will back tomorrow to launch a new interview series.   Non-Americans, consider me your special hostess for a mid-week near the end of November.

Let’s get a move on to Out of Standard.

One Wednesday each month, Kerry allows me to take the reigns and steer us off course.  I will set before you a challenge to defy the conventions of a particular theme.  You will be called upon to find new places in the everyday, but there is a twist: in order to complete each challenge, you will also be asked to share something about yourself with the IGWRT community.  

Today’s challenge falls the Wednesday before Thanksgiving: a holiday Americans spend giving thanks for the bountiful harvest and friendly stewardship which will sustain them through the cold winter months ahead.  Since most food is made in laboratories, and most Americans communicate via text message or social networking sites, the day is really more about eating heaps of food.  Here on the north plain, we double up on starches, stuff turkeys with sausage, and menu items with any nutritional value are drenched in cream of mushroom soup and fried onion strings.  The hearty midland Thanksgiving feast was my inspiration for this month’s out of standard.  Let’s focus on a feast of a different sort:

THE GUILTY PLEASURE

We all have one.  but wait.....

Actually, I firmly believe we all have two guilty pleasures:  the one we confess to in public (“All right,” you’ll announce loudly at work, “You caught me!  I read the Hunger Games, and it was really good) and then there is that deep, deep deeply dark guilty indulgence we cover up by admitting to our lesser pleasures (you are comfortable telling your colleagues you liked the Hunger Games, but you do not mention that you write Katniss/Buffy cross over fan-fiction and make your own Katniss dolls with scraps of your own hair--while that is totally natural, you just can’t admit to it, because it’s a little embarrassing).  

And guess, my toads,which one I want you to draw from...bring on the deep dark.

Here are the rules of this month’s challenge:  

1. Admit to your deeply dark guilty pleasure.
2. Write a poem gluttonously inspired by it.  NOTICE: I said gluttonously inspired, which means no light hinting or a slight name drop.  

Take a moment to revel in your secret affinity (much like I will be reveling in green bean casserole and lots of red wine) and bring us back something beyond the standard!   As always, I ask that you write something new for this prompt and not post something you have previously written which conveniently fits the challenge.  

Go now toads, rub your bellies in the muck and bleat delightfully at its deliciousness.