Canning Season

Trifecta: Week Ninety-Seven

Congrats to last weeks winners!  This will be my first Trifecta post in too long.  I've been sneaking into the Trifextra Weekend, cause 33 words has seemed more do-able.  I do hope I got the gist of this week's prompt correct.
And here it is:

This week's prompt word is inspired by a less-than-inspiring few weeks in the life of at least one (no more than three) Trifecta editor(s).  If this type of language is not your thing, don't worry.  There aren't too many more swear words with third definitions in our dictionary, so we can guarantee Trifecta won't always be not safe for work.  If it is your thing, well, give us your best.

ASS

1. (noun): any of several hardy gregarious African or Asian perissodactyl mammals (genus Equus) smaller than the horse and having long ears; especially : an African mammal (E. asinus) that is the ancestor of the donkey

2.  (noun):
a. often vulgar : buttocks —often used in emphatic reference to a specific person <get your ass over here> <saved my ass>
b. often vulgar : anus

3. (adverb/adjective) often vulgar—often used as a postpositive intensive especially with words of derogatory implication <fancy-ass>

Don't worry about the big, three-dollar-word language of 'postpositive intensive'.  Basically, we are asking for something similar to the example.  Think: pansy-ass, fancy-ass, smart-ass, dumb-ass.  This week, your prompt word may be used, as in the above examples, as a suffix.  We aren't hung up on the 'postpositive' aspect of this definition, and you don't need to be either.  (Though it's really not difficult to figure out.)

- See more at: http://www.trifectawritingchallenge.com/#sthash.phPoWZpm.dpuf


I loved Grams to death.  As a boy of nine, nothing was better than sitting in her kitchen eating her homemade apple pie, warm from the oven, with a giant scoop of vanilla ice cream on it.

As much as I loved Grams, I hated her cellar.  I hated it from the ratty-ass wooden door that was tucked in the corner next to her old wheezy fridge to the dirt floor at the bottom of the creaky steps.

There was something down there.  My mother rolled her eyes.  My dad said to grow up.  Gram just said it was a cellar and the only thing down there was jars, full and empty.

I spent two weeks at Grams my tenth summer.  We ate warm pie and played cards and picked apples.

Picking apples meant canning apples. Which meant getting jars, from the cellar.

Grams could tell I wasn't keen on the idea, but she just shooed me along with the assurance nothing was down there except the jars.

It was the sixth trip that was the "charm", I was feeling cocky by then.  There wasn't anything down here.  I was just a kid last year when I thought that.

Just as I was thumbing my nose at that silly nine year old, I felt a cold hand on my arm.  I spun around to my worst fear. 

A face red as flame with long jagged teeth framing a forked tongue.  I tried to inhale enough breath to form a shriek, but choked on my fear.  The monster gripped my arm tighter and began to pull me closer.

I was going to die in Grams cellar.

I heard a sound like a bell being rung.  The thing let go of my arm, and simply melted away.

And there stood Grams, an iron skillet in her hand.  

"C'mon, boy,"  she said, "I told you, there's nothin' here but jars, and the apples are waitin'."