Cheyenne McCray has 13 ARCs of her new book Dark Magic and these ARCs are looking for homes. Why not with Bitchery members, right? The book comes out in November, so you can get a sneak peek at the story. All you have to do is come up with an answer to the following question: if you could create one fail-safe spell that would be yours to use forever, what would it be?
Me? The ability to wave my hands and have clutter, dirty dishes, and random crap strewn about my house instantly in its place. This particularly applies to the stuffed animals that one of my cats sees fit to “kill” and “present” to us while we’re not home, leaving us with about six or seven “dead” stuffed animals on the kitchen floor every single day.
Cheyenne’s is similar – a wave of one hand, and the house is clean. What about you? What powerful spell would you like to have in your arsenal? Never being late? Never sitting in traffic (oh, I might have to change my answer now….)? Name your spell in the next 24 hours, and Cheyenne will pick 13 winners. Bibbity, bobbity, boo!
a communication-clarification spell. i HATE it when people talk/email at each other at cross purposes. did you not just hear/read what i said? do you not listen? is this not your native tongue? one wave of the hand, and each person would understand (maybe not AGREE) with the other’s point.
talk 39: and hopefully this wouldn’t take 39 minutes each time.
Having spent the summer traveling, including an incredibly uncomfortable direct flight between Cairo, Egypt and NY with two small children in tow, my wish has to be for a spell to instantly transport me to any place I want to go, instantly. No waiting, no traffic, no customs or passport control, just instant gratification…
I would want a dinner party spell, where with a wiggle of my pinky a full spread of appetizers, entrees, sides, and dessert would hover (kept warm) waiting for the people to finish their current course. That way I could have a party a week, inviting whoever happened to be near me at the time—say like people on the street, the guy who mows the yard, the post man, the guys fixing the pot hole in the street. I’d like to be able to show my appreciation to my friends and the others in my life through food, something that connects people here in New Orleans.
Oh all the choices here are spectacular.
I’d like a reality spell. So I can give myself a healthy dose of reality whenever I need it. Feeling like the world is out to get me? Reality time. Feeling like I’m the only one in my office who does anything? Reality needed.
I’d also like a 7 year old speak spell. I adore my daughter but obviously articulation of her thoughts and feelings needs some witchcraft.
I would like to have a spell that lets me know what others are thinking at a particular time. I also want to be able to turn it off and individualize it.
I’m torn between two spells already mentioned: the first (my original thought) is the 8-hours-of-sleep-in-the-blink-of-an-eye spell, clearing the way for all sorts of creative, organizational, and, hrm, interpersonal endeavors; the second, a brilliant suggestion, is the instant total recall spell, since I am utter crap with names, faces, and personal details for at least the first year that I know someone.
Gaaa, why is there no literal magic in the world??
OK, this is where I get practical. I want to twiddle my pinkies and heal everything that goes wrong in my body, including age. Yup, I want time. Give me time and good health and I can solve the rest of the crap.
My second choice would be to send bicycles chasing after the messengers. You know, the dudes who always try to ride us down in the streets? I would LOVE to see them running away from their psycho bikes.
Bess
Banish cancer from the world so selfishly i can have mother back.
No one has turned their magical hands specifically at laundry yet, so that’s what I’m going with. I hate laundry. I despise laundry. Laundry is neverending, a black hole for socks and underwear, a mangler of sweaters and laundry fades my brights.
I would love to be able to have clothes automatically cleaned, pressed and hung as soon as they come off with no signs of wear, fading or stretching.
P.S. CT and Kathy, we should set up a playdate for our husbands. I have a feeling the three of them would get along.
Well, my first two ideas got taken pretty quickly: the insta-transport spell and the insta-clean-house spell. But I did manage to come up with another one:
The Cell Phone/Bluetooth Killer spell. I would love to be able to wave a hand at some inconsiderate moron on his/her cell phone and have it go dead for 15 minutes or so. Same for the people that yak endlessly on their bluetooth headsets in public. It would give everyone else a break from obnoxiously loud ringtones and inappropriate conversations. No harm to the person—just the phone.
Can you tell I work in a library and that I’m sick and tired of some of our patrons? 😉
I’d go for a teleportation/instant readiness spell. I work 10+ hours a day, and have a 45-minute one-way commute on top of that. If I could wave my hand in the air in the morning after I’ve dragged myself out of bed and poured some coffee down my throat, and suddenly be magically transported to work (and appropriately showered dressed and coiffed) with no effort on my end, it would be so awesome. For one thing, it would be great for the environment, with all the saved gas. For another, I’d get more than 4 hours of sleep a night. Finally, my fiance complains about how I work too much and we never see each other; if I could magically transport myself home on time, already attired to go out to dinner, it would really revitalize my relationship.
I think the only spell I would like to be able to sprinkle about would be good health. I don’t suffer from anything but several friends and family members do. I think it would be quite satisfying to rid them of the need for medications and releive pain.
Debt repayment spell. With a wave of my hand, all my students debt would be paid off. This could come in handy with credit card bills, too. Of course, they money would have to come from some magical, always full bank account and not from my own measly librarian paycheck 😉
I’d like a spell that would instantly make every vehicle on the road get 60+ MPG and be emission-free. Oh, and second the good health spell – not having to worry about my signifigant other’s cardiac issues would be wonderful.
I would love to teleport anywhere I want to. That way I wont have to deal with public transportation.
No one is being greedy, so I will. I want a spell that gives me unlimited spells. Then I can have the clean house, well behaved and trained dogs, new car, great job (see, I still want to work – sort of), and money in the bank to avoid the worries. Oh, while I am dreaming, I will also be much thinner, taller, and a few years younger. My sister will envy me instead of the other way around.
Cure asthma. My kid’s having an attack? I could snap my fingers and it’s gone. It’d work on opk’s, too.
An extra two hours of non-aging time—so if I’m at work and I need to finish something, I can just finish it, and I’ll still be there to pick up the kids on time, or if it’s nine-o-clock and I haven’t worked out, I can go work out and when I get home it’s still nine-o-clock, or if the kids are napping, and I’m on a roll writing, I can finish my roll, and it will still be time for the kids to wake up without being cranky asses all day. If I had that spell, I might have time to clean my own house, work out, or just write as much as I really want to!
A spell that would take all the wonderful ideas in my head for my current WIP and voila! They’re all written down in a way that makes sense! I’m still willing to edit, but man, a first draft spell would be delightful!
It would be to heal. I fall so darn much into things over things…. I could really use a self healing spell! between me and my son i think we keep bandaid in buisness
I would like a house remodel/repair spell. I hate dealing with contractors, repair people, etc. I need a new bathroom, kitchen, flooring, the outside deck needs repairs, the outside faucet needs fixed, and on and on. I don’t have the energy/time for making the phone calls, arranging appointments, waiting for them NOT to show up and then doing it all again!
Since world peace has been taken…
I’d like a smoothing spell. It could go like this:
Twist me, knot me, crinkle me, nay.
When I wrinkle my nose this way
Every knot and twist in my day
Is oh so smoothly wiped away.
This would take care of age and bed-head related morning maintenance routines; laundry issues; interpersonal communications; traffic snarls; and possibly that world peace thing too.
You’d have to wear slip-on shoes all the time and you’d need a counteracting spell when you wanted kinky sex. But other than that I think it’d be useful.
My spell would be that whenever I’m feeling a complete lack of motivation to do something, I could wave my hands and be overcome with fire and enthusiasm to see the project through with enjoyment and good humor. This would have a multitude of applications in my everyday life, from getting up in the morning, to dealing with house chores, to sitting down for ten minutes here and twenty minutes there to get some writing done. The only danger I see is that I might quickly become addicted…
Alyc
password: child16—apparently I’m not a girl, but not yet a woman.
I would cast a spell on all the really good cold and allergy medicines in the world – you know, the ones that are kept behind the counter now and for which one must beg and plead and only buy so much per month and only with ID and signature – so that they can no longer be used for nefarious purposes and thereby make them available for the good, true, and cold-ridden people of the earth to purchase to their hearts’ and noses’ content.
(faith72 – I have faith that someday I’ll be able to buy 72 tabs of something that will actually let me breathe again.)
It’s a difficult choice.
Instant transport spell would be bliss and would allow people to occasionally take trips for pleasure, easing the stress on the roads. Though I would probably have to combine it with an extra time spell, cause I use my commute to get a lot of reading done, so maybe not.
A spell to get domestic chores and to enable me to find stuff from where it is when it is cleaned away.
A spell to create storage spaces so that I could have space to put some of my clutter, particularly the TBR pile. It would make organising my life much easier. An easy method of access would be useful.
A healing spell so that I could repair my dodgy health, which causes me no end of stress, particularly when it comes to my oncology review, I know it’s healed but it keeps the stress going. Repairing my wrists from RSI, my lungs from chemo, my feet from flat so I could wear nice shoes, the damage done to my legs by it taking so long for them to diagnose that. To fix the probable coeliac disease so that I don’t have to read every package before buying food of any sort. Also so that I could help my husband get over the damaged knee and his psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. I’d say it would take a while to get through the two of us before spreading the healing. I think this is would be the best of the lot but the rest would be useful.
I would like the ability to change flavors. Make carrots taste like Cheetos. My daughter’s allergy medicine taste like chocolate milk. Brussel sprouts like gummi bears…
It would make our sex life a little bit more lively too 😉
I echo the healing spell—both for others and for myself. I work in a hospital—enuf said there. I also have a pinched nerve in my back and am writing this sitting with a heating pad so getting rid of my own pain would be nice—no aching knees, no aching back, etc. A reverse aging spell would also be nice—ah to go back to my underappreciated 21 year old body where there were no aches or pains, lots more energy, slimmer, but still ME—not perfect or the best bod around but one that I really didn’t appreciate at the time.
I want a spell to empty out a public restroom so I don’t have to wait in line. And I can make it private if I need to. A small thing, but it would help life.
Oh, this one was easy and popped straight into my head.
To wave my wand at groups of individuals and have them instantly understand, respect, and tolerate their opponents religion and culture.
Hence the old, “Hey, dude. Your style is not my cuppa, but I’m not going to blow you off the planet because of it.”
The spells to clean house and make all bad-for-you-but-too-good-to-give-up food calorie free and non-artery clogging are very tempting, but I’m personally torn between wanting a spell that lets me morph at will a la Mystique or a spell that would let me snap my fingers and instantly have expert knowledge and ability in whatever subject or activity I want.
Maybe spell that magically makes a nanny/sitter appear whenever you need to go out sans munchkins? Hmmm.
[I was going to say the clean house or the no sleep needed one, but now I have to get a little more creative…]
One blink and my bookshelf replenishes itself with the books I want to read.
To wave my wand and have instant clothes. I can change clothes anytime I want with a wave of my wand.
If I were feeling altruistic, I’d say something along the lines of, “I want a spell where I can wiggle my nose and every unhappy person I meet is instantly happy.” HOWEVER…I am in the process of housebreaking a Newfoundland puppy. He’s 7 months old, weighs 50 pounds and is over two feet tall at the shoulder. He gets a drink, he pees. He eats a doggie treat, he poops. I want to wiggle my nose and all messes are instantly gone and Boone trained perfectly. Pls kthnxbai
I’m diving into the shallow end. I want the patented Eve Dallas instant orgasm spell. One touch and that woman’s over the freaking moon! Give me some of that!
Or maybe I should be asking for the “turn my husband into Roarke” spell, which will yield said instant orgasms. Hmm. Decisions, decisions…
So many good ones already taken. I’ll have to go with a spell to make people love me. But only for a limited time, I can always renew the spell if I want, or just send them on their way without those exhausting breakups.
This is easy. Me and my step-son were talking about this the other day. First, though, his was: not dying until he chose to. Which is pretty deep for a 10 yr old.
Mine: Teleporting.
My minor one: Never having to shower/bathe to be clean.
There have been SO many great ideas for spells. I love the time stand still and the perfect recall!!! I can’t remember squat. It’s truly hard to come up with something that hasn’t been said.
So here I go….I’d like to wave my hands and everything in my life be organized. I’m talking from the mounds of paperwork on my desk here at work to the clutter and laundry in my house to my unkept checkbook. I am SO unorganized it’s amazing that I can function. My husband is completely opposite from me. I say I’m the chaos to his organization….gotta have balance, right? *sigh* 🙂
Mine? Mine would be a temporary supernatural persuasivenes. Just long enough to convince the college that, for example, they should change a couple of dumb policies, or that bank robbers really should give themselves up, or a place that pays 13 dollars an hour that they really should hire me.
Near the town where I grew up was a small lake. It was large enough to have two distinct beaches but small enough that swimming across it was a relatively minor undertaking—almost everyone did it eventually. It was really only an hour or so of swimming.
The thing was, the lake was spring fed, so you’d make a ton of progress initially, and then get hung up in the springs for a variable amount of time until you broke past those currents, and then make a ton of progress again at the end.
I used to have very vivid dreams about the lake being a magic weight loss lake. (I was a fat teenager, what can I say?) The fatter you were, the longer you got caught up in the middle, since the magic took a little time to work, but eventually, everyone would be the same perfect size 6 when they reached the other side. (Thank you, Sweet Valley High for letting me know what size was ‘perfect’.)
Of course, if I’d swam that lake a little more often (say, once a day) and maybe eaten a little less crappy junk food, I might have found it did ‘magically’ cause weight loss. Just a little less quickly than in my dreams.
I’ve kind of gotten over that awkward teenage phase, but as a still fat adult, I’d still like to have a magic fat burning lake as my particular spell. Not to keep the kids from teasing me, but to keep my knees from aching when I stand all night at concerts.
My spell: an insulated bubbled around my house to keep out all the noise I have in my neighborhood and it would also zap people who cross onto our property line (my property is not the public park people!).