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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

“Wouldn't You Know It” by Aisha Hashmi

Submitted to Contest #31

Wouldn’t you know it. Out of milk. Again. How many times had Tom asked his wife to tell him when they needed something? Now, he would either have to go to corner store to buy some, or drink his coffee black. The thought of black coffee made him shudder. Okay then, to the store it was. Grabbing his jacket off the chair he always hung it on, he grabbed his phone. He called up the stairs, “Jean, I am going to the store across the street to get some milk. I’ll be back in a few.” Jean said, “Oh, I am so sorry. I use...

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“Turning the Corner” by Andrew Kemmer

Submitted to Contest #31

Another day to step out into the world. Immediately he hears a splash and feels the cold seep between his toes. Across the street, his neighbor comes out at the same time and notices, once again, that the man has become a victim of the pesky puddle at the bottom of the steps. The neighbor never really even bothers to look over at the man’s steps anymore. Maybe if he had plants or flowers they would soak up some of the standing water. Just before he hears the anticipated cursing under the breath of why can life never ...

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“James Would Have Never Survived” by Zara Noor

Submitted to Contest #31

James' car whirled around a corner, seeding up to soon join the usual intersection where he waited an hour minimum every dayIt was the routine. Every day, tired and feeling excruciatingly low after work, he spent from seven o'clock till eight o'clock on the road, half of the time taken up on this very street.He was sick of it. Especially today. James The Boss, made him not only write up a report of the finances of the company during the whole year, but also made him do (as he did every two days) his personal frivolous activities which meant ...

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“The Long Commute” by Tedi Carey

Submitted to Contest #31

It was mid August and mid afternoon. I had just finished my last training session for the week. The drive home started out just like any other commute...slow and crawling down the 101 freeway towards Gilroy, CA. I had hoped to beat the majority of the weekend travelers who thought that if they got an early start that they, too, would beat the traffic. In the end, they only added to the nightmare commute that I endured every Friday afternoon and every holiday eve. When would people realize that if they waited until after the regu...

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“A Fortuitous Meeting” by Ashley Fernandes

Submitted to Contest #31

*This story is inspired by Dr. Seuss’s story of how he experienced rejection by twenty-seven publishers. He was taking his manuscript home to burn when he took a different route instead of the usual way to his house. On that road, he ran into an old school acquaintance who happened to be in the children’s publishing industry, and he showed him his manuscript. All because of that fortuitous meeting, Dr. Seuss went on to become a bestselling children’s author.'If I'd been going down the other side of Madison Avenue, I'd be in the dry-cleaning ...

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“Parking Lot Encounter” by Jess Schira

Submitted to Contest #31

Christmas was only a few short weeks away, but the weather didn’t seem to have gotten the message. Instead of snowing it was like someone had failed to completely shut-off some giant cosmic tab allowing rain to drip steadily down all week. The result was that even the holiday decorations were wet and depressing. The dismal weather was taking a toll on everyone. People were shorter tempered than normal. If something didn't change, it was going to be a miserable holiday season.Carolyn’s shoes slapped against the wet sidewalk while her mind wan...

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“Doing Laundry Around the World and Back” by Ronda Everson

Submitted to Contest #31

Doing laundry is something we all have to do, but many of us don't realize there are different ways of doing it all over the globe. When I was a little girl living in Morocco when my dad worked at the embassy, my mother had one of those old washing machines with a roller. I loved helping her do the laundry and putting the clothes through the roller. However, the Araba women didn't have those washing machines. They were doing something different. They were stomping on their clothes. In our village, there was a stream that ran through the ...

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“The Dress” by Merissa Harde

Submitted to Contest #31

Doing her teenage daughter’s laundry was a tedious activity she usually put off until the weekend. It was a pile of denim jeans, T-shirts, sundresses, and the occasional dressy outfit she wore the weekend before while out with friends. Sometimes she poured herself a glass of red wine while she did; her way of rewarding herself. However, that weekend she had chosen a Sunday, right after breakfast, while her daughter studied in her bedroom. Soon, her daughter would do her own laundry, when she went off to college, but until then it didn’t both...

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“Justin's Story” by Mike Garrigan

Submitted to Contest #31

Celia opened the dryer and felt a warmth brush past her face. Justin’s size 4T Oshkosh B’Gosh overalls had been rattling around in there for the past hour. The brass fasteners were probably hot, so Celia avoided folding the overalls.Celia grabbed a t-shirt from the hot jumble of clothing. She held up the shirt and remembered its design. The Force Awakens was Justin’s favorite movie. Celia took him to see it on opening weekend. Celia didn’t know anything about Star Wars but thought that Justin, being a four year old boy, would like it. What k...

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“Abandoned and Stolen (based off true events)” by Claudia Cook

Submitted to Contest #31

It's the day I had been dreading for weeks. Laundry Day I hated doing laundry. But there's only so long it can pile up before it starts falling out of the basket or smelling up the room. I think I would much instead prefer my room smell of lavender, not sweaty bras and tee shirts. Gathering up my laundry pods and basket, I began making my way to the basement of my dormitory. The basement of my dorm wasn't as creepy as one might think unless you went down there during October. I entered the laundry room or hang out area, my ea...

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“Sad Portrait of a 20-Something Doing Laundry” by Daniel Brown

Submitted to Contest #31

There are no fucking idiosyncracies with doing laundry. A spin cycle will always be a spin cycle, you’ll always wash your uniform with your bed sheets and towels and washcloths on cold and low spin for 23 minutes. You’ll dry the massive amalgam of wet things for 40 minutes or 55 if you aren’t doing laundry at the last minute as usual. You’ll fold clothes at your latest convenience while you're enthralled with music or some 20-minute video about a quirky big city girl with biting wit and short brown hair moving to be a quirky big city gi...

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“Shibusa” by Frankie Jackson

Submitted to Contest #31

It's been 8,423 minutes since my son has spoken to me. Everyone tells me it’s normal, common even, for fourteen-year-olds to lock themselves in their rooms and ignore their parents, but I don’t believe it. This can’t be normal.Go away. I don’t want to eat.These are the only words he ever says to me these days. When I first heard them, it was like an arrow to the chest, sharp, precise, and barbed. But now…now, I’m just thankful to hear his voice. There are some days where there’s nothing at all. I treasure his denials in this barren wasteland...

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“Mid-Cycle” by Christopher Hudson

Submitted to Contest #31

On the second Tuesday of every month, Mr. Ajax went to the local Tilt-A-Wash Laundromat where he did his routine laundry. His apartment complex, Friendly Palms, didn’t have any washer or dryer hook-ups, nor did it have any units for public use. All it had was a lot of palm trees and tacky stone tiles placed almost randomly along a poorly kept complex garden. It was an insult to Mr. Ajax that he had to be seen passing the awful display on his journey to the laundromat or the grocery store or anywhere he chose to make his presence known. He wo...

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“Stained Red” by Jena Pisani

Submitted to Contest #31

Twenty years of life and I don’t really remember the first time I did laundry. I must have been young because my father always told me a girl grows into a woman and that meant laundry was my midday snack. Proper nourishment for a growing girl, like I’ll have dishes for dinner and ill vacuum for dessert. I learned the art of laundering before most kids can pronounce washer. I was folding clothes before my family began folding in on itself. A mundane task, repetitive motions keeping some stability from washing away. The mixed load seeping colo...

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“Love flies free” by Blake Johnson

Submitted to Contest #31

She enters the room to see an overwhelming mound of clothes piled up on the bed from the days before when she still hadn't felt up to doing them. Dishes wrapped around her room already littered with snacks she had devoured and didn't have the care to get up and throw away. She felt as if everything around her was ganging up on her, making her feel weak and tired. Did it matter if the laundry was folded? Would it be fine here a few more days? The twins ran around the house laughing and running together around their mother as she stood before ...

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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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