Publisher: 100 Word Stories
Weekly Challenge: 1048
Topic: Give Up
Submitted: May 24, 2026
Published: May 24, 2026
Participants: 7 total
Recommended Topic: Who, Me?
A jolly “Ho-ho-ho” came from behind, followed by “Hidey ho, neighbor!”
“Hello, Santa,” little Timmy replied.
“Why the long face?” Santa asked.
Timmy showed him a block of wood. “I’m building a pinewood derby car, but I have no tools.”
Santa put his hands on his waist and made grunting sounds, followed by the order: “Never give up. Never surrender!”
Santa went into his bag and grabbed a few presents, handing them over. Timmy quickly ripped open the packages, finding a chainsaw, angle grinder, nail gun, industrial CNC router, plasma cutter, and a flame thrower, while Santa shouted, “More power!”
About the 100 Word Stories Weekly Challenge
About the 100 Word Stories Weekly Challenge
100 Word Stories
…And, as always, keep it brief!
The 100 Word Stories Weekly Challenge was (and still is) hosted by Laurence Simon—better known in Second Life as Crap Mariner—who built a wonderfully strange, tight-knit community around storytelling discipline.
Originally, he started a daily random theme on ScriberOptics via 100words on May 13, 2005, based on a photo, using a combination of everyone’s submitted words rather than posting a single topic. He would write short 100-word stories featuring recurring characters, such as Abraham Lincoln and the Mustard Man.
In June 2005, he then spun the stories into their own subdomain from his personal blog at podcasting.isfullofcrap.com, featuring multiple authors and guest entries. Rather than daily challenges, he settled for weekly challenges, which were due on April 21, 2006, for the topic “Bunnies!” It was published on April 22, 2006. He continued each week posting a topic and invited people to write a story of 100 or [sic]Less Nessman 2.0 words long. Most participants went for exactly 100. It was a form of microfiction—a subset of flash fiction—where the limitation wasn’t restrictive but creatively freeing. Within those 100 words, stories could be funny, heartfelt, surreal, absurd, reflective, or unexpectedly powerful.
Laurence encouraged contributors not just to write but to perform. He always invited people to record themselves reading their stories and send in the audio so their voices could be part of the experience. If someone didn’t—or couldn’t—he gladly read their story for them. Sometimes he even used software to alter his voice, adding character variety, humor, or dramatic flair, so every episode felt like a small production rather than just a reading.
The project chose to respond to the creative emptiness of podcasts at the time not with cynicism, but with creativity. Laurence filled the internet with humor, storytelling, discipline, and imagination. Eventually, the project continued under his broader creative umbrella, “One A Day Until I Die,” where he continues to celebrate the joy of storytelling in all its weird and wonderful forms.
Episodes usually feature everyone’s submissions together in one podcast, and listeners vote on their favorites. The weekly winner not only gets bragging rights but also the honor of choosing the next topic—meaning the community itself shaped what came next. Many participants came from overlapping creative spaces: writers, musicians, podcasters, and especially people in Second Life, where the challenge became something of a shared cultural experience. It wasn’t just a writing exercise; it was friendship, collaboration, creative play, and a small but meaningful part of internet history.
I even had the chance to meet Laurence once at the Second Life Community Convention, where he was handing out refrigerator magnets promoting the podcast — including one I still have today on my fridge. It’s a little artifact from a wonderfully weird, wonderfully human creative era.
This project mattered. It still does.
Paper/Wood Floor Theme from an old version of 100 Word Stories Circa 2009
Behind the Story
I seem to be writing many of these stories at the very last minute lately. I woke up earlier than usual and realized I had a few quiet hours before they needed me at church, which felt like just enough time to put together a story for this week’s challenge #1048, “Give Up!”
Even though the phrase sounds fairly negative, my brain immediately jumped to Tim Allen shouting, “Never give up. Never surrender!” from Galaxy Quest. The movie is essentially a loving parody of Star Trek and science fiction fandom in general, and the quote has always stuck with me.
I briefly considered taking the obvious route and writing a Rick Astley “Never Gonna Give You Up” joke instead, but that felt a little too predictable… and technically too wordy for a strict 100-word challenge.
Once I settled on the Tim Allen angle, I decided not to make the story science fiction at all. Instead, I pulled together pieces of different Tim Allen roles and television memories: Home Improvement, The Santa Clause, Galaxy Quest, and the general “more power” energy surrounding all of them.
I liked the idea of creating a ridiculous origin story for Tim the Toolman’s obsession with power tools, so I introduced little Timmy struggling to build a pinewood derby car without any tools of his own.
That led naturally to Santa giving him a present. But what kind of tool would fit the joke? A normal hammer wasn’t funny enough. Tim Taylor never approached tools with moderation, so the answer obviously had to be something absurdly overpowered for a child.
First came the chainsaw.
Then I realized the joke worked even better if the list kept escalating. Nail gun. Angle grinder. Industrial CNC router. Plasma cutter. Flamethrower. Each new tool became more unnecessary and more dangerous for building a tiny pinewood derby car, which made the entire situation increasingly ridiculous.
At some point, the story transformed from “helpful Santa” into “North Pole OSHA violation.”
The introduction was the final piece to fall into place. I combined Santa’s “Ho-ho-ho!” with Wilson Wilson’s famous “Hidey-ho, neighbor!” greeting from Home Improvement. It felt like the perfect setup for the tone of the story while sneaking in another Tim Allen reference for anyone who grew up watching the show.
I also decided to remove the part where Timmy was crying. The story flowed better when he simply looked defeated rather than emotional, which kept the pacing tighter within the 100-word limit. After all, we all know that boys don’t dry.
Once the writing was finished, I moved on to recording the audio version. The first playback sounded terrible, and after a bit of troubleshooting, I realized my recording software was still configured for my telephone exhibit settings at 8 kHz and 16-bit audio. That works fine for vintage telephone simulations, but not so much for spoken-word narration. After switching everything back to 48 kHz and 32-bit, the audio sounded crisp again.
Next came the background music. Normally, I use Google Flow to generate an instrumental track by feeding it the story as the prompt. This time, however, it decided to create vocals and turn the entire thing into a song. Oddly enough, I actually liked the music it generated, so instead of scrapping it, I exported the stems and removed the vocal tracks.
I imported the remaining stems into Audacity and mixed them together using Tracks → Mix → Mix and Render.
There wasn’t much audio editing afterward compared to my usual process. The AI-generated music already shifted naturally from a lighter sound into heavier metal instrumentation right around the moment Santa started handing out the increasingly dangerous tools. Most of my work became simple timing adjustments: aligning the transition with my narration, trimming the beginning and ending, and fading the music in and out cleanly.
By that point, I was finished.
Or so I thought.
Right before sending the story to the host of 100 Word Stories, Grammarly informed me that “flame thrower” should technically be written as one word: “flamethrower.” It also wanted me to add articles like “a” and “an” before each tool in the list.
The problem was that fixing the grammar would change the word count and force me to rerecord the audio.
At that point, time had run out.
So I sent the story anyway, apologized for accidentally turning it into a 99-word story, and hoped nobody at OSHA was listening.
