Oh, What a Night!

Happy 2019, everyone! It’s a new year, the holidays are over and we’re back to our regularly scheduled grind. I, like I’m sure many of you, have several new resolutions for this new year. Big plans, big, huge! And now I must prove to myself that I can keep to my schedule; prove that I can keep my promises to myself.

So, here’s some good news I can share with you: I started a new blog series! Well, I’m trying to. Before the new year, I wrote a blog post “Our History” and one of my resolutions is to stick to it and follow through with that idea. If you are following my blogs (Hi, future me coming back to reread our material and making sure it doesn’t suck!) then I encourage you to keep an eye out for those. I will still be working through my prompt book and responding to those via blog (which is what you are reading now). Anything I post for the new series will have a title beginning with “Our History:” so there will, hopefully, be minimal confusion.

One big goal for this new year is to write, write, write! I want to get my fingers moving with words that I want to share. Maybe I’ll even find another subject to start blogging about. And you know what? I think the more, the better!

I could go on and on about what I hope to get out of 2019, but you (whoever you are) came to read my prompt blog. So let’s dive in…..

Plan a “murder mystery” dinner party. Create the diner menu and the guest list, and design the murder plot.

Whenever I think of murder mystery, I generally think about the movie “Clue.” If you haven’t seen this movie, I highly recommend that you do. It’s based off the board game and it’s one of my favorite movies to watch. The plot of the movie basically follows a murder mystery dinner theme, but with real deaths involved and a whole bunch of comedy.

I’ve always really enjoyed playing murder mystery games. I hope I’m not the only one who thinks it’s fun to become a different character and try and solve a crime. In fact, one of my closest friends has a birthday near Halloween and I almost created a murder mystery game to play at her party. Maybe for her birthday this year, we can use this one!

Okay, so for this game, we will need at least six guests:

• Anicka Parker
• Walter Jones
• Samantha Reeves
• Anthony Adams
• Helena Bell
• Clara Cook

The dinner doesn’t need to be extremely fancy, but there should be at least two main courses for guests to choose from. Here’s what I have in mind for dinner:

Appetizer:

• Cheese and Crackers

Main Course: 

• Chicken Parmesan
• Spinach Artichoke Lasagna  

Sides:

• Roasted Asparagus
• Garlic Bread Sticks

Beverages:

• Water
• Iced Tea
• Lemonade

Dessert:

• Vanilla Ice Cream with Brownie

(Here’s where this gets complicated. We need an original plot. We need something that will truly make this a mystery. It’s no fun if you can easily figure it out. You know what? I don’t think I’m going to tell you who the murderer is. Now it’s fun!)

PLOT:

Helena Bell is the CEO of a large corporation is Seattle, Washington. The company, Bell Corp recently went through a transition while partnering with a new company, Harvington Inc. Due to the transition, Helena has some new members on her team of chief officers and wants to start things off on the right foot. She decides to host a dinner party at her house.

Helena prepares her invitations. First, she must invite her chief operating officer Walter Jones. He was from Harvington company and was brought in during the transition. It would be very important for he and Helena to get along.

Next is Clara Cook, the chief financial officer. Helena had worked with Clara for years. It would be a good opportunity for Clara to meet new members and set an example of a true Bell Corp employee.

Of course, Helena can’t forget her trusty communications officer, Anika Parker. The CCO was slightly newer to the team and has only been with Bell Corp for three years. Nevertheless, Anika was sociable and would make good company for the party.

Helena decided she should also have her chief technology officer there as well. Samantha Reeves was the company’s first ever female technology officer. She came highly recommended from Harvington. Helena was excited to get to know Samantha as they both held positions typically occupied by men.

Lastly, Helena wrote an invitation to Anthony Adams. If they began talking business at this dinner, she wanted to be sure her chief analytics officer was present. Anthony was another acquisition from Harvington. Helena had heard of his work well before the partnership. Anthony had a strong reputation for his work at several different Silicon Valley companies. Helena couldn’t wait to see what he could do for Bell Corp.

A week later, Helena prepared dinner for her guests. One-by-one they showed up and began conversing in the living room before dinner. As they spoke, they nibbled on the cheese and crackers their host had set out for them. At seven o’clock, Helena announced to her guests that dinner was ready and they all moved into the dinning room to eat.

Anicka, being a vegetarian, ate the lasagna rather than the chicken. The others took their preference, or a mix of the two along with the sides. Helena was pleased the the conversations flowed very easily and was beginning to think that all would be well for her company. After dessert, everyone was full and headed back into the living room to chat.

At random points throughout the evening, the guests were distracted and away from the dinning or living room. Walter had received an important phone call and stepped into the backyard. Anthony had excused himself to use the restroom, twice. Clara had made friends with Helena’s cat and was using a string to play with it in the office, then later went outside to lite a cigarette. Helena had been in the kitchen preparing dessert and in deep conversation with Samantha and Anicka until a car alarm out front had Samantha running out with her keys. Anicka had stepped into the other room to call her children and tell them goodnight.

Late in the evening, the living room conversation was thriving until Anicka said, “Where’s Samantha?” They all looked around realizing that one of their party was missing. Helena got up and went to knock on the bathroom door, but it was vacant. Together they searched the house until they heard Anthony say “Oh my God” as he stared into the guest bedroom.

Lying partially at the end of the bed with the rest of her splayed out on the floor, was Samantha’s body. This was definitely not the night that Helena had planned.

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I can’t wait to play this game! You wouldn’t believe the solution I came up with for who killed Samantha and why. If you think you know who did it, comment your guess!

As for me, I think I will actually end up creating this version. In order to truly play, we’d need each player’s background cards and motives. Either way, I think there’s a great story here. I hope you enjoyed it!