Help wanted

I just wasted an entire morning writing a short story for an NPR contest called "Three Minute Fiction". Ugh.

I heard about it while settling into my captain's chair for the day, and I immediately had to give it a whirl. The idea is that you have to write a short story of 600 words or less that begins with the sentence "The nurse left work at five o'clock." You can enter yourself by going to npr.org. The contest ends next week.

The 600 word limit is shorter than most of my blog posts, so after Lorraine's comment on my "short and sweet" item the other day, I thought I'd try it out to see if I could tell a whole story in under 600 words.

Oh, the first prize? An autographed book.

So now, instead of moving forward on Project Y, "A Bad Day For Big Time" is now in the NPR slush pile along with thousands of others (they had over 5,000 entries the last time they did this). I'll let you know how that turns out when the results are announced.

Okay then, I want your help with something. There is an object that appears in Project Y (I have to come up with a title sooner or later). It's a cup or chalice and some people in the story believe it has mystical properties. Teri calls it my "sorting hat" just to tick me off. Anyway, this object gets lost by its owner, and a portion of the story involves the finding and retrieval of said item.

Here's the deal--I came up with an incredibly dumb name for this object, but after a lot of thought and bouncing names off Teri, I have what I think are some less dumb options.

On the upper right hand side of your screen, you'll see a poll. Click on the name that you like best or dislike least from among these choices.

Thank you!