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Discover weekly, the best short stories

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

150+ 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 10 of 10

The Adventures of Gavin Pepperdeck

Sydney Moses

Weekly Contest #350

Part 1: The First TacoApril 4th, 1995 The sky sharted on my head as I exited the cab, but when I looked up, I saw that it was just the week-long raging thunderstorm. I went up to my apartment where I’d left the TV on Channel 6 (hoping to round my cable bill to an even number), and saw the Chief of Police being interviewed. “A body was found at the Metro station. We believe he drowned in the flooding,” Hanen said. “It appears to be an accident.” I didn’t buy it, and neither did Phillips. Phillips had been my boss since day one of working at t...

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I Got Published!

Jennifer Parsons

Weekly Contest #350

I Got Published “Oh, guess what? I got published!” my mom exclaims waving a spray can of WD40 and setting in on the counter. “Okay,” I prepare myself for what this might really mean. “Where, Mom?” “Zappos! I wrote a review and they must have liked it so it’s showing at the website.” “Well, it’s not exactly published, Mom.” “Sure, it is,” she says. She frowns, gesturing toward her desktop computer, “look at it for yourself.” Great. I’ve managed to shift her tone from delusionally happy to fighting for her dignity. Good work. My husband whisp...

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Does This Come In Black?

Michael Jefferson

Weekly Contest #350

Having worked for the State Senate, a museum, and several prestigious charities, earning six-figure salaries, I’m embarrassed to admit that when the economy crashed in the late 90s, and I was laid off, I became… A shoe salesman. Rather than take unemployment, I decided to seek out a simple, easy position among the great unwashed until I could land another job in public relations. I nonchalantly applied for a clerk position in the stockroom of Heller’s, a local shoe store. When I was interviewed by Hyram Heller, the smarmy, mercurial owner, h...

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Dino

Weekly Contest #350

DinoI’ve always had a bit of a thing for dinosaurs. From my very first school trip to The Natural History Museum in the early 70’s where, I gazed open-mouthed at ‘Dippy’ the Diplodocus skeleton trying to get my ten year old brain to imagine a world in which this vast creature roamed and grazed the plains of what is now North America, I was hooked. I’d have to wait another twenty years to see this Jurassic wonder made flesh, or rather CGI rendered, in the groundbreaking Jurassic Park movies. Amazingly, I was able to beat Mr Spielberg to the ...

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A Disgruntled Tale from the Mamas of Knotwood Hollow: A Haunting, Almost.

Weekly Contest #350

Nella Nettlesworth knew something was wrong with their cottage on DaisyDot Drive the moment her basil plant came tumbling down the stairs. She was the only one home.She stood from her seat on the couch, chest tightening as she approached the wrecked greenery. It had been one of many plants that had met its untimely end that day. But, before she could investigate, the wooden door opened and shut with a dramatic thud.“Ugh,” Mabel Maywick said, kicking off her boots and nearly stumbling into the coat rack, a wand falling out of her pocket.“Coul...

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First Date

Camden Cleveland

Weekly Contest #350

“So what do you like to do?” Curtis’ date asks from across the restaurant table. He glances up from the menu and smirks. “I’m a writer.” “Oh, that’s cool. Like, blogs or—” “No.” “No?” “Fiction.” He sets the menu down and stretches his fingers, then reclines in the stiff chair with his hands splayed behind his head. “I make worlds,” he says. “I’m something of a god, ya know.” “Oh…” “I make anyone I want, and I can make them do anything I want.” “Hmm.” “I control time, the weather, diseases, war—life. Everything. You are in the pres...

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Mary's Guest

Val Morgan

Weekly Contest #350

MARY’S GUEST “Oh, do come in won’t you.” Mary turned to see a shadowy figure standing in the doorway of her small flat. “You must be the gentleman from the Men’s Shed. Bob did say he would send someone round to do some small jobs for me. He said you would be calling in this morning, and you’ve probably noticed already that the front door is one of the jobs. The latch keeps sticking and I can’t lock it properly.” Her canine companion Fugley, a mud-coloured, medium sized dog of indeterminate heritage, wasn’t so welcoming. He rose from his pos...

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The Missing Chapstick

Weekly Contest #350

Jessica, a boss babe, spent the last several hours promoting her wellness business, Clarity. Clarity provided healthy protein supplements for a wide variety of clients. Proteins came in many forms. Beverages, sugary treats, water, salty and sweet munchies, and of course, powder. Clarity figured they could revolutionize the world by putting protein in just about anything. She left her job to dedicate herself to her business and would earn more money after recruiting five people to her team. Jessica rolled her head around, cracking her neck....

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Malaysia

Weekly Contest #350

(Trigger Warning: mentions of grooming, eating disorders, drug use, depression.) “So tell me about Malaysia.” I don’t think my therapist fully understands the complexity of that question. Malaysia was two years of my life when I didn’t know whether I had truly lost or found myself. I was teaching at a school that did its best to ignore me. I still vividly remember one day trying to sit with all the other teachers at lunchtime, and they genuinely moved away from me. Like grown 30, 40, 50-year-old women moving tables to escape little 21-year-...

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The Unexpected Return of Petar Knežević

The Old Izbushka

Weekly Contest #350

“It’s 5:05 a.m., and I have to pee.” In Skadarlija—the cobbled, bohemian quarter of Belgrade where the air carried food from kitchens and music from open doors, most of it better than anything he had at home—lived an old man named Petar Knežević, who had reached the age where even his boredom had routines.Yes—this is what happens when a man lives long enough, he thought, groaning as his knees and wrists offered their special good‑morning greeting. He sat up with effort. He had every intention of sleeping in, yet his body had other plans. Chi...

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THE LION OF HAGGARD MIEN: A X-Special Exercise in Inclusivity

Ian Craine

Weekly Contest #350

THE LION OF HAGGARD MIEN- A X-Special Exercise in Inclusivity Once upon a time there was an old lion who lived in a small village somewhere in the South of England called Haggard Mien. It lay snuggled in the Dent Valley between the almost equally small villages of Upper Denture and Lower Denture. There wasn’t much to do in Haggard Mien so the lion spent most of his time either lying under the big oak on the village green or sitting at the bar of the only pub, the Fox and Fabulist, run by the agreeable landlord David Palin-Dromish. Most of t...

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Show and Tell

Weekly Contest #350

“And next up for show and tell is Angie!” I walked up to the front of the classroom and squeezed my hand real tight. Miss Cook smiled at me and gave me a thumbs-up. Miss Cook isn’t really a cook though. She’s really my Kindergarten teacher. Her name is real confusing. I think she should change it to Miss Teacher, but she said that’s not how that works. Anyway, I took my biggest breath and started my story… “The night I got inducted by aliens, I had my dog Bandit with me. He was peeing on the little baby stick tree that my mom wants to grow ...

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Frustration

Andrew Venn

Weekly Contest #350

Include the line ‘I don’t understand’, or ‘I should’ve known’, in your story. IGNORANCE IS BLISS(“No it’s not, it ‘sucks”!) When I was a young kid(“not a baby goat”!), my education began at primary school, and the playground was segregated(“the boys had their half, and the girls had the other half”!) but nobody told me, although I did wonder why all of the girls were hoarded into one particular half, and the boys had their own particular half!Why could this be though? Were the boys that bad? The majority of us washed, “altho...

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An Open Letter to My College’s Transportation and Parking Services (TAPS)

Samantha Elfiqhi

Weekly Contest #350

An Open Letter to my College’s Transportation and Parking Services (TAPS)Dear TAPS, I hope this letter finds you. I do not care if it finds you well, or finds you horribly, or finds you in the form of litter blowing across a deserted parking lot because the students have all gone broke and gone home. I’m not able to reach you by phone. You’re unreachable by email. In person hasn’t worked for me yet either. I know you exist, you leave traces of your presence behind in all corners of our school yet you remain hidden. You’re somehow always on...

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My Love Affair

Atlas Wilder

Weekly Contest #350

My Love Affair by Atlas Wilder Arthur didn't have a midlife crisis. He had a midlife arrest. He stood in the interrogation room, his knees knocking together like maracas, staring at the plastic divider that separated him from the officer who looked as if he’d been chewing on a lemon for a decade. Arthur's knees had never knocked like this before, not even during his disastrous presentation at the regional accounting conference last spring. That time, he'd been merely embarrassed professionally. Tonight, he faced something far worse—humili...

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