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Looking for a steady supply of funny short stories? Every week thousands of writers submit stories to our writing contest.

8930+ Funny Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. The world can get dreary and overwhelming, so when you’re looking to have a good laugh, take a scroll through our free collection of funny short stories.

Funny Short Stories – Page 7 of 596

Are you ready?

Submitted to Contest #299

Hey, honey, I’m home!I know it’s late, and you are probably wondering what happened.Let me explain.We had to have a meeting today about the number of workers who would be let go by the end of the month. Now, you know that my ass was on the line as it is, so I did not want them to think that I was getting soft on company policy. I had to go out there and actually meet with the crew and tell them that despite all of their hard work, the company would be downsizing and then, wouldn’t you know it, they got pretty angry with me and told me to get...

20 likes 17 comments 17
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Poor Mr. Whiskers

Submitted to Contest #299

Poor Mr. Whiskers…My mom said that every time I tell a story, start from “the big beginning”. I will try to do that now.Mom said that we were going to take a very big trip and I got excited and she said don’t be excited because you will have to go to the bathroom and I just put you in your favourite coat and hat with those boots (my feet hurt). I did not get that excited, but I was happy that we were taking the trip, but where was dad? Dad had to work that week and we could not take a trip with him so we should just enjoy it and maybe not te...

11 likes 2 comments 2
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In Pursuit of Rest

Submitted to Contest #299

Gina sat in the waiting room, finger tips on her lips, biting tediously at her jagged nails. She pulled on her sweatshirt wrapping it tightly around her shoulder blades. Slouching, her shoulder blades poked away from her back like tiny wings tucked under her skin. She sipped mildly from a lukewarm cup of coffee. The foolishness of drinking coffee before a dentist appointment wandered idly through her thoughts and left without a trace. She blinked, her eyelids dragging across her eyeballs like a feather through syrup. Her vision slightly blu...

6 likes 2 comments 2
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The Magnificent Temper of Catherine the Great

Submitted to Contest #299

“Sharpen those minds, folks. It’s test time!”Hark, the holy master doth cry. Seriously though, how do they expect us to be excited about our futures when they use discount Eugene Levy as the personification of a fulfilled education? I stare at him as he stops at my desk, licking a grotesque finger onto a stapled manifesto of misery while a sickly smile spreads on his sagging face like a delightful disease. He leaves a spot of saliva on my paper as he slithers onto his next victim. I am simultaneously mortified and mystified by this meagre m...

6 likes 1 comment 1
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Showtime!

Submitted to Contest #299

Of all the things you could let guide your path through life, spite was one of the most underrated. There was a specific kind of fire inside oneself you could get from throwing an achievement in someone’s face that you could never recreate from optimism or carefully rational decision making. It wasn’t a positive mindset or a desire to change the world that got me out of bed each morning – it was bile. I was the product of bloody-minded stubbornness and pathological antagonism, of parents who gave me both too much rope and not enough of it. T...

5 likes 1 comment 1
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Seemed Great on Paper

Submitted to Contest #299

Things often are better on paper than in reality… especially when you are dating. I was a hopeful young college grad starting my career in public relations in the 1980s. My boss wanted to set me up on a blind date with this guy that worked for her husband.I wouldn’t normally have thought this was a good idea, but this was in the shadow of the dastardly 1986 Newsweek cover story that claimed they had data to prove that if you were a college-educated career woman and weren’t married by age 30, you’d have a less than 10% chance of making it to...

4 likes 0 comments 0
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The Urgent Meeting

Submitted to Contest #299

I’ve always maintained that everything worth knowing about a man can be determined from the way he introduces himself. Strong deliberate eye contact; a firm, two-second handshake; a brief and to-the-point insertion of one’s name: ‘Charles Whitworth,’ leaving a decisive pause for them to give theirs. No ‘Pleasure to meet you’. That surely remains to be seen. Serious people don’t waste time with niceties, or small talk, or flattery. They certainly don’t worry themselves about the opinions of perfect strangers.It's for this crucial reason that...

7 likes 1 comment 1
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The Orchid of Siam

Submitted to Contest #299

We were in San Francisco producing a commercial for Curzatol, another one of those expensive drugs for a “disease” that didn’t exist before someone invented a prescription to treat it. We were the employees of an ad agency––an art director, a copy writer, a television producer and a video director. Our mission was to find a patient ambassador. You know what a patient ambassador is. You see them every time you turn on the TV. “My name is [insert: something bland and forgettable, like Meg] and I’m living with [insert: affliction] of [insert: o...

4 likes 0 comments 0
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The Setup

Submitted to Contest #299

“I don’t think I’ll ever laugh again,” the boy said. “It’ll take some time but I promise you will.” Ellis wanted to explain that — when deconstructed — comedy is all about pain. It’s an oxymoron, but when you laugh, it’s about coming to grips with something painful and howling in its face. But the boy was still too young to understand this concept. That conversation remained a few years down the road. Ellis wished he could take the boy’s pain away, the same as he could for strangers when he stood in front of a microphone. That routine wou...

4 likes 0 comments 0
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Royal the Dancing Sea Lion on the Ship Destiny's Dreams

Submitted to Contest #299

Royal the Sea Lion knew he could out-blubber all the other sea lions. He could out-roar them too. He loved the satisfaction of hearing his own guttural voice echoing over the ocean."So musical," he thought.He hauled his 1000 pounds of wobbling blubber across the sand to the ocean with ripples bouncing. He paused, and raised his head and neck in his favorite pose so he could be admired."Aaarrrrrgggghhh."He sent a raspy bark across the the water.Then he erupted like a volcano and spewed out another one even louder."AAAAaaaaaaarrrrrgggh." He si...

29 likes 21 comments 21
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Climbing the Ranks of the Third Grade

Submitted to Contest #299

The lunchroom is always so loud. I go to a pretty small school, so it’s surprising how much noise a little bit of students are able to make. Everyone’s either playing games, jumping around, or yelling across the room about the funny thing the kid sitting next to them just did. Despite how much they all talk, I can't seem to find out what makes some of them cool and popular. It must be something unspoken, or maybe an exclusive club they’re a part of. I barely talk though. I just eat my lunch and laugh when everyone else is laughing, even when...

4 likes 4 comments 4
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Cold Plunge Standoff

Submitted to Contest #299

"Hey babe! Hosting a little gathering Saturday—super chill, just 30ish folks and some mindful snacks!"I stare at Angela's text like it just sneezed on my phone. Thirty people isn't a gathering. It's a viral event with guacamole.I never fully re-entered the atmosphere after it. The Pause. The Great Global Timeout. That glorious, terrible stretch when pants were optional, solitude was patriotic, and nobody expected you to show up—especially not in person.Some people bounced back like overcorrected economies. They went to brunch. Hugged strange...

11 likes 6 comments 6
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The Senior Center

Submitted to Contest #299

Libby sighed as she parked at her grandmother’s house.“I’m a horrible human being,” she muttered to herself. “I can’t believe it’s been six weeks since I visited Gran…”She snapped out of her guilty reverie as someone rapped on the car window and called her name. It was Annie, her grandmother’s friend of many years.“Annie! I was miles away, sorry.”Annie eyed her in concern. She was a petite lady with snow white hair and piercing blue eyes.“I’m here to see your grandmother. I’ve been trying to visit most days.”“I feel terrible. I’ve been meani...

4 likes 4 comments 4
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Excuses for the State of My (Unfinished) Life

Submitted to Contest #299

Monday: Grand IntentionsAt 8:59 a.m. on Monday, I’m already late for the weekly Zoom meeting of my writing group, “Rough Drafts Anonymous.” The name is supposed to be a joke. Sometimes it feels like prophecy.I log in just in time to see Marcie’s face filling the screen, makeup immaculate, coffee mug color-coordinated with her sweater. Shari, as always, is sitting at an angle that reveals the tornado behind her: piles of books, laundry, an actual violin case. Jasmine has that look like she’s about to say something profound or admit she hasn’t...

7 likes 4 comments 4
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Wrong Side of the Bed

Submitted to Contest #299

7:30 a.m. (Some Monday morning)It was bad enough that another Monday snuck around the corner again. What made things ten times as bad was the rain and dreariness Pete viewed through his bedroom window upon awakening."God damn it."Pete yawned, craned his neck from left to right, popping and creaking along the way."Fucking Mondays," he rumbled and rolled to the edge of his bed.He yawned again, this time with a louder extension of the "awwwwww' sound, and leaned to the nightstand on 2 feet from his head. His hand blindly snatched for his Winst...

4 likes 1 comment 1
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RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

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