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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#31: The Ordinary

The very last line of the NBC sitcom The Office is spoken by former receptionist Pam Beasley. She says: "There’s a lot of beauty in ordinary things. Isn’t that kind of the point?"

This week's writing prompts embrace that sentiment, and challenge you to write stories that take ordinary, everyday tasks and turn them into meaningful pieces of short fiction.

This week's prompts

Write a short story about someone doing laundry.

Adults – 94 stories

Write a short story about someone tending to their garden.

Spring – 77 stories

Write a short story about someone cooking dinner.

Nonfiction – 56 stories

Write a short story about someone going to the corner store to buy an everyday item.

Nonfiction – 64 stories

Write a short story about someone heading home from work.

Nonfiction – 81 stories

Stories

“Sometimes You Just Have To Let Go....” by Juanita Ellingson

Submitted to Contest #31

All I could do was shake my head and decide if I should laugh or cry. It had been a long crazy day and this just seemed to top it all off. You wouldn’t think laundry would be this exciting, but it was. It was an ordinary day, my laundry day. I usually enjoy a nice quiet house cleaning day. However today was slightly different. My teenage daughter was home from school and in an odd mood to help. Now in her defence I usually handle the family laundry and all the house cleaning duties, they can do it, but I just like my way better. Some woul...

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“Laundry Day” by T. Pat

Submitted to Contest #31

It’s Tuesday—laundry day. Molly drags herself out of bed, long brown hair cascading down to hide her haggard face. Every week is the same. Get up, dig through piles of sweaty, dirty clothing, and fold the heaping piles of lavender smelling laundry the washer produces. Molly hates lavender. She can still remember the first time Susan thrust the plant into her arms, beaming from ear to ear.“It looks like little fairies pasted flowers on top of each other!” She had exclaimed joyfully as the scent filled Molly’s nose.Back then the smell was calm...

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“Guitar Strings” by Michelle Anderson

Submitted to Contest #31

He was your typical creepy musician living off the beaten path. No less, women loved to gain his attention as he was still a musician. Talented, charming, with tattoos... they loved when he showered them with attention. Gargoyles guarding his hundred year old house on the hill looked down to see who would be next to visit him. He rarely came out before noon and was up all hours of the night...This particular night was their laundry night. He had gotten so angry with that hazel eyed woman who frustrated his senses and stirred his desires des...

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“Laleh and Laundry” by Zara Noor

Submitted to Contest #31

The raindrops hit the kitchen windows like bullets, frightening Laleh every time they did. But again, it wasn't the weather's fault. No. Laleh should have known better than to do her laundry at two am on a Friday night.Wishing she was deaf, she pressed her lips hard enough to draw blood. The pastel yellow basket full of dirty clothes lay in front of her, watching her with bleak eyes, waiting and waiting. The plethora of different coloured fabric mocked silently, whispering softly how Laleh simply didn't have the determination to do laundry w...

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“The Secret of the Missing Socks” by Romeo Lee

Submitted to Contest #31

Timmy was never the smartest, fastest or strongest child. It always seemed that everything in his life took a turn for the worst. This is his third foster home he's been in since his mother dies, and his father committed suicide shortly after. Timmy sits on his cot in the basement. The rats scurry along the floor brushing against the skinny sticks he calls legs. " Timmy it's laundry day!" The wicked old lady masquerading as his mother pushes a basket full of dirty laundry down the stairs. Timmy is able to move out the way th...

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“The Wash House” by Peter Larsen

Submitted to Contest #31

2020The auctioneer licked his lips. Down to the last two bidders. He stood to make a killing on the commission- just a little more spruiking should do the trick.“Ladies and gentleman, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to secure a piece of local history.”A murmur of excitement rippled through the crowd.“This property was owned and occupied by one family for almost 100 years. It has been lovingly cared for and is a time capsule of life as it used to be.”He waited for the gravitas of his speech to sink in to the assembled throng. People ...

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“Laundry Day” by Becky Vanco

Submitted to Contest #31

Pulling a shirt from the laundry basket, Jessie placed it into the washing machine. Looking at each piece, she loaded several plaid shirts. Letting her fingers caress the flannel, she remembered the first meeting between her and her husband.She had been working as a cashier in a grocery store. The two of them had accomplished a wide variety of projects, if you could call it that. They had owned and operated a Dairy Farm where they raised three children. The one thing that kept them going was the love that they had for each other and thei...

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“Searching for the Perfect Pop Chip - A Story of Doing and Failing to Do my Laundry” by Zelda Price

Submitted to Contest #31

Every washing machine I have ever used since moving away from home (the first time, that happy hopeful freshman year of college, before the subsequent fallings-apart and starting-overs) has disappointed me. More than they should, perhaps. Even the washing machine that my parents bought that first fall, to replace the one we had for twenty years, our longest-lasting household appliance, did not measure up.I remember visiting on the weekends, walking back inside our house after being away for what felt like a lifetime but could not have been m...

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“It's More Than Laundry” by Katherine Dent

Submitted to Contest #31

It’s not just laundry. It is a heck of a lot more. And I just screwed it up. I hate doing laundry, there’s a fact for you. An honest, non-debatable fact. It takes time, long enough to feel hopeless by spending it just sat on your phone scrolling, and scrolling, and scrolling. And then scrolling some more. But it was too short a time to actually successfully achieve something of a high quality whilst contending with three-minute interruption thoughts of: OHMIGAWD, how am I doing? Is the laundry finished yet? I’m running out of time! AGGHRR! T...

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“The Endless Cycle” by Jordan Madere

Submitted to Contest #31

THE ENDLESS CYCLEJordan MadereThe soft, clunkety drone of the washing machines mulling their whites and colors, and the dryers rhythmically tumbled their sheets and pants and towels all filled the crowded laundromat, cleverly named The Endless Cycle. It was an ambiance that Jennifer hadn’t yet learned to enjoy the comforts of. Instead, she found herself wrapped up in her own thoughts... She’d been doing laundry for hours and was now burdened with memories and broken promises as the fabric of her social life seemed to be overturned. She ...

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“Windows lit from the inside ” by Skye Bailey

Submitted to Contest #31

There was a new girl here today, at the student house next door. The house next to mine hadn't always been a student accommodation house. The middle aged owner had converted it a few years after the small branch of a famous university had opened up in our town. It was easy money. Though, or maybe as a by product of that, he hadn't done any big renovations and thus the boarding house was really just a regular house converted slightly for student use. The rooms were small and old and the insulation was shitty. I know this because my house, nex...

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“Laundry Saturdays ” by Olivia Holliday

Submitted to Contest #31

It’s his weekend again. One weekend on, one weekend off. Two days on, two days off. Rinse repeat, that’s his cycle. Because he only gets every other weekend off, simple ordinary household chores now become strategic missions. He plans his days off with military-like precision. Run and breakfast at 0700 hours, pick up the girls by 0830, off to the laundromat. His ultimate mission? Seeing all of the household tasks are complete while making sure he gives his little girls the attention he knows they have been craving, and if he’s being honest h...

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“The Flowered Graveyard” by Jodie Atkins

Submitted to Contest #31

She love the outdoors; it makes her calm. Especially during her stressful days. She doesn't get up to much, she's been stuck inside for a few months now. She waits patiently from Autumn through to Winter, until it's her favourite month: Spring. As soon as the warm sun touches the grass, she smiles.She opens the back door with white fur stuck to her knees, as the fluffy pooch walks beside her cane. Timidly, she takes her first foot off the step, with her friend following closely by her side. One step, two steps, slowly but surely making her w...

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“windowsill ” by Rachel Castro

Submitted to Contest #31

once every few months, Tyler could get his hands dirty. he never used gardening gloves- he preferred the wet soil against his skin where it could leech out all the bad in his mind.the plants grew, regardless of the world around them. all Tyler had to do was water them sometimes, keep them in a window with lots of sunlight. and they were happy. oblivious to the hate and anger of the world, they climbed towards the sun, more slowly than he could see. sometimes he did try to see them grow. he stared at them for hours, hoping to be as oblivious ...

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“How The World Works” by Steve Forbes

Submitted to Contest #31

Frank reflected on what a peculiar place The North is. Having decided when he first moved there that he would live in his new home for a year before choosing the site of his garden, he remembered that first spring morning looking out his north-facing kitchen window and the shock he felt as he realized that there was sunshine streaming in on his sleep-puffed face and squinting eyes. The sun doesn’t rise in the north! It rises in the east and sets in the west- that’s the proper order of things, that’s how the world works… but t...

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$50

Prize money

372

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Mar 06, 2020 EST

Won by Ariel Kalati 🏆

Title: The Memory Garden

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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