Outside their classroom, Douglas was afraid to face Kari.
She had been stunning in her new blue dress and their first formal date went so well — until the disaster.
Facing each other with raised crystal — everything was perfect. He could still taste the rich meal — so wonderful. They synchronized setting down their dessert spoons and leaned back to take deeply-satisfied final breaths. But hers was too much for the zipper. It failed at that moment — explosively.
She arrived and faced him.
“Douglas. Never — mention last night or that dress again. I’ve reduced it to ashes.”
Inspired by a true event and Charli Mill’s Carrot Ranch, #99WordStories
from her Feb. 15, 2022, prompt:
In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about a zipper.
Gary A Wilson Stories 
I can imagine how embarrassing it must have been for them both . I hope they have the kind of rapport that can allow them to get over it. You misspelled ‘Dessert’. It has two S’s.
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Hi Larry.
Thanks for calling that out.
It’s fixed now.
We only sorta recovered. . .
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Oh dear!! Hahaha, I think I would burn that dress too! 😉
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Hi Diana. In the real version of this fictional event, I was not told how the dress was dealt with, but I don’t think I ever saw it again.
How did we ever survive our teenaged years?
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The unreliability of zips. I wonder if the originator realisd the problems he would cause.
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Hi Geoff. Oh yea! When they work – they are wonderful. But when they fail chaos often follows. Let’s just file this under the heading of “unintended consequences” as opposed to under “emerging technologies”.
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What a fun story for this week’s prompt at the Carrot Ranch, Gary.
I hope Douglas did as he was told and never mentioned that dress or night again.
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Hi Hugh. Thanks for giving it a read. This story was fictional of course, but part of the inspiration for it came from a real event after which I’m pretty sure there was some information leakage. Distress happened as did some laughter. Sometimes there are few as irredeemable as teenagers. . . It could not be helped. It was funny.
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Gary, your story made me laugh! Sometimes, shared disasters need to be struck from conversation, though I hope these characters can laugh ten years later!
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Well I can tell you that the young lady I was dating who inspired this story some 50+ years ago grew up to be a wonderful person – but still does NOT want to recall the disaster.
I confess that it does still makes me laugh which is why I couldn’t even think of an alternate take on this prompt.
Fun stuff Charli – many thanks.
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Exploding zippers (I’ve heard them) and screaming buttons (another experienced sound and visual) make great fodder for a story. Thanks a bunch.
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Hi Antoinette.
Ha – exploding zippers and screaming buttons do instantly paint quite a mental image – sounds from written words – remarkable is it not?
Thanks for giving it a read.
😉
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Those zippers, if they don’t you then the seam will! Haha, love it.
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Ha
When Charli posted this prompt – I was stuck. I couldn’t think of anything other than what one zipper did to my date after our very nice first nice dinner. It changed everything. 👀
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Well for being stuck, it was a great success. Haha
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The poor girl. Actually, the dress fared worst of all. Fun story.
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Hi D.
This is a fictional account of an event that actually happened to a neat gal I was dating. It wasn’t as bad for her as depicted in the story, but she was none-too happy about the whole thing and I don’t recall ever seeing her in that dress again.
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Yikes! Reducing it to ashes seems like the only way.
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Hi Sam,
Yea – the real life version of this fictional event was definitely a Yikes scale event. It caught us both by surprise and I was so young and unprepared for such a thing. Chivalry slammed into teenage hormones and havoc resulted.
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I can only imagine.
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“explosively” LOL! I can only continue to hope that I should be lucky enough to have a date like that.
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Hahaha.
Michael, you know we were supposed to grow out of such thoughts, but I’ll confess to having been split minded at the time.
Thanks for sharing a laugh with me.
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Love this. It’s similar to my story, where the zip burst on my new jeans because they were too tight. I ended up butchering them. So I know exactly how this poor girl felt Gary!
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Hi Gloria.
Thanks for giving my story a read.
and oooo, sorry to hear about those jeans.
I hope your, um, exposure wasn’t as bad and depicted in my story.
The real event this story came from was not as bad as my story, but I don’t recall ever seeing her in that dress ever again.
So glad you stopped by. 😉
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Haha. Zipper failures can be embarrassing.
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Hi Irene –
HAHAHA – oooh yes.
She was terribly embarrassed. The real version of this fictional story was not as bad. I felt sorry for her, but was unable to help of course.
Thanks for giving it a read Irene. It’s always a treat to have you stop by.
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