Caption/Fiction Contest: Ends August 15th

Write a caption (one to several sentences) or a short story (under 1000 words) about this painting and and the best entry will win the watercolor.

 Hot Tips, oil on canvas 16"x20"

watercolor on Rives BFK approximately  11"x8.5"

 Purchase the oil painting above

This is based on the The Thematic Apperception Test, or TAT, is a projective measure intended to evaluate a person's patterns of thought, attitudes, observational capacity, and emotional responses to ambiguous test materials. In the case of the TAT, the ambiguous materials consist of a set of cards that portray human figures in a variety of settings and situations. The subject is asked to tell the examiner a story about each card that includes the following elements: the event shown in the picture; what has led up to it; what the characters in the picture are feeling and thinking; and the outcome of the event. 

So watch out what you write or maybe someone will think you're nuts!

Enter in the comments section.

You may want to e-mail me with your contact info so I can send you your prize.  
kenney.mencher@gmail.com
Let me know if you want a catalog!

More contests on this blog and my website:
http://www.kenney-mencher.com/

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This came in by e-mail:

Hot Tip by Patrick Nelson

"Looksee at the time, Pete!" The little man said in a panic. "Crimeny! If we's don't get ourselves to the church in a timely fashion, Mother Superior is gonna fry out livers and serve us to the poor at the soup line."
His borough accent was so thick, it seemed like he was literally chewing on the words before he allowed them to spill forth from his mouth. His comic expression as he did a double-take at his wristwatch was rivaled only by those old stars of vaudville. It appeared to any passers-by that he truly did fear for his innards in regard to their tardiness.
"See here, Antonio, we've an abundance of time before our scheduled rendezvous with the  dear woman." Said the big man standing beside Antonio at the newsstand.
Pietro's use of florid language was so odd for a man of his appearance yet it was eclipsed in its delivery by the fact that he also had the inflection of a native of the streets of Brooklyn and that he gave the impression of having a mouth full of buttered pasta. In addition, his voice was so soft-spoken that the casual listener would have to strain to hear him. If death spoke aloud to you, he would have Pietro's voice.
He glanced at his watch much less gravely than his friend and sighed heavily.
"Antonio, you allow your last encounter with the woman to color your psyche dourly." He whispered. "If perhaps you would have endeavored to heed her warnings about the last task she set before you, you would not be in such a state about our meeting with her today."
He went back to calmly reading his racing form.
Antonio just stared at his friend in disbelief. After a few seconds, he closed his slack jaw and said in a high, squeaky voice, "For Pete's sake, Pete! She so much as told me that I was on the short list and headed for a pine box if I screwed up another job!"
Pietro's girth jiggled up and down slightly and he shook his head almost imperceptibly. These were the only subtle signs that the big man was laughing for he didn't smile when he said, "Antonio, Antonio... You have no need to fear any such thing from the Reverend Mother Elizabeth Cecile."
Pietro was, unlike his friend, not afraid to speak her full name. When anyone dared to discuss her on the street, it was in hushed tones and with sideways glances for she was generally more feared than the deadliest gangsters in all of New York. To speak of her at all was the work of fools who wanted to shed their human toil. Pietro was no fool. He just knew where he stood in the scheme of things, "I need not remind you that she would dare not raise a finger to harm you as I would not allow it. I ask you, who in her employ would be the individual she entrusted with dispatching you?"
Antonio removed his hat, scratched his head and thought that over.
Realizing his slow-witted friend was not coming to any conclusions, he answered for him, "That, Antonio, would be myself. You must by now realize that I would not do such a thing to you or for that matter allow any other person to threaten your life."
This seemed to calm the little man slightly.
 "Yeah, I guess you're right, Pete. It's just sometimes she's so, so, you know?" Searching for the right word, he finally spat out "Mean!"
"Indeed." Was Pietro's reply.
"It's not like I wanted to drop the guy off the bridge!" Antonio protested. "He was heavy! And then those bats were swooping down from the top of the bridge and I coulda swore one got in my pantleg..."
"As you've said multiple times," Pietro interrupted. "But the simple fact remains that the Nun wanted the man scared--not dead."
"Yeah! Don't I know it! But if he just would've went in feet first, he wouldn'tve broken all those bones and he mighta pulled through."
"Ah" Pietro mused, " If 'would-haves' could only become 'dids' then the 'have nots' would have become the 'do haves'."