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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#19: Talking Shop

While Black Friday and Cyber Monday might be behind us, there are still weeks of shopping ahead as many of us gear up for Christmas.

While Hallmark holiday movies might have us believe that holiday shopping is a relaxed and cheerful activity that involves dipping into quaint shops with a hot chocolate in one hand and a bag of goodies in the other — we know the truth. Often, holiday shopping is a chaotic, several hour-long excursion through a packed mall, where you down cups of coffee just to keep yourself going. Or maybe you prefer to shop online, from the serene comfort of your couch. Finally, perhaps you avoid the whole thing altogether, because, like the Grinch, you know that "Christmas doesn't come from a store."

Whatever the case, it's clear that shopping can conjure up a range of emotions in different people. And your challenge this week is to capture those very emotions in a short story about... shopping!

This week's prompts

Write a short story about someone in the middle of a very long and busy retail shift.

Funny – 41 stories

Write a short story about someone searching for the perfect gift for their partner.

Romance – 60 stories

Write a short story about someone watching a convincing infomercial.

Funny – 20 stories

Write a short story about a shop that takes place over a span of years.

Narrative – 41 stories

Write a short story about someone based on their shopping list.

Character – 49 stories

Stories

“Relax” by Mike Garrigan

Submitted to Contest #19

The day after my vasectomy, Diane bounced through the door with a copy of Norman Dacey’s How to Avoid Probate. That afternoon, while I convalesced at home with a bag of frozen peas, she went to an estate planning luncheon. “We can set up a living trust and save tons of money!” she said. “Prostate?” I asked.“Probate, silly,” she said. $5,000 later, we had this huge binder of incomprehensible documents. Diane was a runner. I liked that she had her own thing apart from us. She did races all the time. Sometimes, they’d be in ...

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“A Procrastinators Christmas List” by Annette Spenner

Submitted to Contest #19

It happens every year. I don’t know how, but it always seems to sneak up on me. You would think at my age I would know better. I’ve pleaded with myself every single year not to wait until the last minute to start my Christmas shopping. I will have all my shopping completed before Thanksgiving. Yes! I will sit at that table with my family and I will smile and be most thankful that I won’t be the one out there this year fighting the crowds, trying to find a parking space, waiting in long lines until my feet a...

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“Shopping Curriculum” by Keith Manos

Submitted to Contest #19

Teaching rule #1: Formulate the curricular objective. That’s a fancy academic expression that simply means to create a goal. Every teacher – even the newbies like me – knows that, and every administrator checks for it when he or she does an observation to evaluate a teacher. The objective is what you want to accomplish by the end of a lesson. Call it a single to-do task for the day. Like today in Algebra 2, my objective was to solve one variable linear function, a typical lesson for the beginning of the school year. &nb...

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“A Little Adveture” by Shannon Meyers

Submitted to Contest #19

Bread. An apple. A bottle of milk.A treat. All denoted as pictures for ease’s sake. Odette waddled through the marketplace, waving at the vendors, stopping to pet street cats and stopping to pick two pretty flowers. She smiled and held it in her tiny hand. Tulips were her favorite. Oh! That’s right! Papa said she could get a treat of her choice after she got everything on the list. She had nearly forgotten looking at the tulips. She pulled out a piece of parchment and laid it on the ground. She pointed to each picture. “Bread....

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“Dinner for Anny” by Craig S

Submitted to Contest #19

You might think it would have been a dreary and overcast day. It may have been windy or rainy. You might think you would need a coat against the drizzle or scarf against the cold. In reality, the day was splendid. There were a few white, fluffy clouds floating on a light breeze accompanying this cheerfully warm spring day. The weather was absolutely perfect as the old man looked out his living room window. He had woken early this morning the same as every morning for the last sixty plus years of his adult life.&...

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“Shopping Day.” by Monika Anderson

Submitted to Contest #19

Tiny stretches as he leans back in his chair, beads of sweat drip down his nose onto his gut that is poking thru his old, and ribbed tank top. Despite his small name Tiny was quite large, and even had a big voice to go with his small stature name. Some teased his name referred to having a small penis, usually Tiny would either join in the laughter, or with enough beer in his system he would whip it out and prove whoever dared challenge his size, wrong. With a labored grunt to ...

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“The List” by Edward Munro

Submitted to Contest #19

Jacob turned the truck off and stared out the windshield at the hardware store nestled between other smaller shops. The cab of the pickup started getting cold quickly as the heat stopped pumping out of the vents. He didn’t remember driving to the hardware store, but that didn’t bother him as he didn’t remember a lot of things these days. Not remembering why he drove to the hardware store bothered him.“Why am I here?” he asked the man sitting in the passenger seat. The man reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a folded piece of yellow l...

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“Cat Food, Instant Coffee and Self Rising Yeast” by Natalie Marie Stefani Rice

Submitted to Contest #19

It was windy on this particular day in May. The early morning traffic seemed unusually light in spite of the Mother's Day holiday that was only just a few days away.I pulled into my regular parking space outside the advertising company I work for. I smiled, looking at the company name in big, bold letters across the picture window. Edgar, Phillips & Associates.My father was James Allen Edgar III. One of the most recognized gentlemen in his field. To this day; no one in the advertising industry could hold a candle to him. He built this c...

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“The Lists of Love” by Joe Parrillo

Submitted to Contest #19

Simon Barks went down his list methodically, “White wine, asparagus, potatoes, garlic, pumpernickle bread, cherry cheesecake, Sumatra coffee, whole bean of course, candles, matches. I think that’s it.” In the condo directly below Simon’s, Felicia Francone was writing her own shopping list out. The items weren’t nearly as elegant but each one was written with love. She was having her widowed mother over for dinner tomorrow. Being Italian, the Sunday menu always included pasta, meatballs, salad, Italian bread and red wine—all t...

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“Margaret's List” by Rebecca Shipp

Submitted to Contest #19

Margaret looked at herself in the mirror one more time. She tucked a few stray strands of hair behind her ear and sighed. When had her hair become so gray? Back in the old days, it seemed gray hair had been a sign of something. A right to honor. But on her, it didn’t seem worthy of anything so great. Just another sign that she had survived. Shaking her head at her reflection, she stepped to the door. There was no one to say goodbye to. The house was empty, and it had been for awhile. She was the only one left of her family. Her parents...

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“Rabbit Blood on Aisle 9” by Anjana Saravanan

Submitted to Contest #19

It was Jude’s idea to let the kid tag along. Why, was beyond him. There was a fundamental lack of understanding between him and the girl, and it wasn’t because of the generational gap bullshit that people were always going on about, it was because the kid was a stupid piece of shit. He sometimes looked at her and wondered how his sperm had ended up serving such a use.Yes, the cantankerous-old-man trope fit him like a glove, and he relished it.Food Mart trips could be dangerous, which is what he reminded Jude that morning as she served him ne...

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“24-Hour Shift” by London Pheonix

Submitted to Contest #19

12:00 A.M.Walking into the store I work in at 12:00 A.M. means one of four things.You're either depressed, high, dead or just an employee starting a typical 24-hour shift.In my case, I've got the wonderful blessing of working at the store. "Welcome to our store." Tara greeted me with a smile. "Please come in, Felix. Emilia has just started sorting the milk cartons."I entered. "But milk is-""You snooze, you lose." She said, still keeping up that smile on her face. This meant I would most likely be given another product that still hasn't come ...

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“Tis the Season” by Sheryl Saldivar

Submitted to Contest #19

It was the worst time of the year, Christmastime, at least it is when you work retail. You work long hours with maybe a thirty minute break if you're lucky, deal with rude customers and their kids who run amok throughout the store taking things off the shelves and leaving them wherever they please. It was Christmas Eve and I had already been working four hours of a nine hour shift when my supervisor came over to me asking if I could possibly stay an extra hour over my shift, one of the other cashier's had called out and they needed someone t...

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“A Master's Work is Hardly Done” by Shannon Meyers

Submitted to Contest #19

During the hot winds, it seemed as if every green adventurer would tumble into her shoppe. She could hear the ding of a small chime once, twice, three times before she could finish putting back the jars she’d needed to complete the last order. There would be no chaos on her watch. As soon as Kalipsi could taste the heat in the air that morning, she knew the kind of day it would be. “Master,” Merek called for her. The boy was young, and a budding artisan but too unsure of his own skill. When Kalipsi came out, there was a line to the door...

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“Holiday Shift” by Cari Morgan

Submitted to Contest #19

“What should I get the kids?”“The board game would be a family gift for us all, or I could just stick to something I know they would all like”“The boots I have been wanting all year are finally on sale, we have just got to go check out Shoe Lot after this.”These are all examples of things you should expect to hear if you work in a mall, especially during the Christmas season - that is when it’s the worst. I sighed, sitting down my mop, wiping the sweat off of my forehead - as they liked to keep the heat at around a solid eighty-nine degrees,...

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$50

Prize money

211

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Dec 13, 2019 EST

Won by Kelsey Marlett 🏆

Title: Man-Eater

Submissions must be between 1,000 - 3,000 words and will be approved and published on Reedsy Prompts within 7 days of the contest closing.

Read the full terms & conditions or check out the FAQ if you have any questions!

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