The @#$%^&! Kapinskis

By Shelli Wright

A Movie Length Tale™ from Aisle Seat Books™.

It’s true, you can’t choose your family. But you can choose to pretend they’re all dead... like Joe does until a canceled flight forces him to reunite with the dysfunctional family he’s kept secret from his very pregnant wife. Now all he wants is to get out of there as fast as he can and leave his past behind. But the past has other plans.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aisle Seat Books
• Release date: May 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9781935655763

Book preview

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A Movie Length

Comedy Tale

For Readers

13 and up.

Written by

Shelli Wright.

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Lyme, New Hampshire

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Copyright © 2013 Shelli Wright

All rights reserved.

ISBN-13: 978-1-935655-76-3

ISBN-10: 1-935655-76-0

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013940843

Published by Aisle Seat Books, an imprint of

GrayBooks LLC

1 Main Street

Lyme, New Hampshire 03768

www.Tales2Film.com

www.AisleSeatBooks.com

Electronic Edition

About Tales2Film™ and Aisle Seat Books™

Read a good movie lately?

Every good movie starts with a script, and every good script tells a riveting story. Long before the actors are chosen and the filming starts, a writer sits down, crafts that story, and submits it for consideration by the producers, directors, and other creative talents in the film industry. It can take a long time. A script may spend years making the rounds before getting the elusive Hollywood green light. If it ever does. Some of the greatest movies ever written are ones that none of us will ever see on the screen.

Tales2Film finds the best of those not-yet-produced tales and brings them to you as Movie Length Tales™ just as the writer envisaged them. Each of the tales in this series has been converted by the script’s writer from the technical shorthand of screenplay format into the familiar prose format you see here, a process called novelization.

These little books are not novels, or even novellas. Think of them as written movies. Like the screenplays they come from, each is presented in real time, written in the present tense to allow you to see the movie’s scenes in your mind’s eye as if they were unfolding on a theater’s screen before you.

So. Here’s a movie. Take your favorite aisle seat and enjoy it.

And when it’s over, take a look at out Featured Previews in the back of this book. Your next Movie Length Tale™ is already here...

Now Showing:

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Comedy

Ages 13 and up

Theater lights dim.

Fade in:

A chilly east coast suburban neighborhood bustles with fall holiday activity. People head home with groceries. Others leave home with suitcases…

A friendly guy in his early thirties, wearing an Army uniform, throws a suitcase in the trunk of his car and slams it shut. He looks like the kind of person strangers trust with their babies.

He whistles and heads toward an apartment building with a bouquet of flowers and a smile.

Neighbors are happy to greet him as they pass by.

Have a nice day, Joe, says a young lady.

See you after Thanksgiving, Joe, nods a couple.

Clearly, he’s well liked here. A 60-year-old lady and her man-child son approach.

Joe, I want you to meet my son, says the elderly woman. To her own son she says, This is the nice young man who fixed my dishwasher. And he’s going to have a baby. And his wife just got her degree in psychology.

Maybe you can tell my son how to find a girlfriend who doesn’t dance on tables, she says to Joe.

The Son rolls his eyes. Nice to meet you, Joe. Are you off to visit family for the holidays?

The Neighbor Lady winces.

No, says Joe. They’re all dead.

The son, a little stunned asks, All of them?

Car crash when I was in high school, says Joe.

I thought it was a boating accident? the woman half asks.

Right, Joe remembers. It was. I tend to block out the details. He shakes off the trauma and smiles, Well, have a nice holiday!

Joe bounces off into the building.

>>

Inside Joe’s modest apartment, Thanksgiving has exploded all over the place. Faux autumn leaves, baskets of fruit, candles, and twiggy wreaths abound. Joe’s sweet, 30-year-old, Midwestern wife walks into the room preceded by her very pregnant belly. She’s busy nesting, boxes in hand.

Hi honey, how was your day? she asks him as he hands her flowers and gives her a simultaneous kiss and touch of the belly.

Pretty good, he replies.

Why are you bringing me flowers? What’s wrong? she asks.

Nothing’s wrong, Laura.

Joe… She knows there’s something.

My C.O. is sending me to Boston tonight, he admits.

But it’s almost Thanksgiving, Joe!

I know. But an opportunity in SoCom just came up. I’ll be back tomorrow night. And we’ll wake up on Thanksgiving morning together.

Laura looks nervous.

You want me to get stationed somewhere stable, right? he goes on. The sooner I pick a station, the sooner we can buy a house and you can start your practice.

She knows he’s right. You’ll be back tomorrow night?

He puts his hand on her swollen belly and smiles. I’ll be back tomorrow night. In time to have our first family Thanksgiving.

LATER:

Joe is the nervous passenger inside his friend’s car.

Thanks for the lift, man.

No problem, the friend says sincerely. And I’ll check on Laura every hour. Which relaxes Joe a bit.

Joe’s cell phone rings, and it shows BLOCKED NUMBER. He gives the phone a dirty look. Doesn’t answer. The phone stops. His friend looks at him with a question mark and Joe just turns the radio up.

The cell phone rings again. Shows NBC STUDIOS. Joe gives the phone a funny look. Turns the radio down and answers.

Hello?

>>

A late 50s man with thinning hair and an outdated polyester shirt sits at a laminate kitchen table circa 1970. He looks at the display of a machine attached to the phone, which reads NBC STUDIOS and says:

People always answer when they think there’s a chance they might be on TV. He twists the Rolex on