Writer's Challenge from The Red Dress Club:
"Your assignment this week was to write a 26-sentence piece, fiction or non-fiction, with each sentence starting with the letters of the alphabet in order."
95% of this story is fiction.
5% is non-fiction
The non-fiction part?
The actual email at the end.
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A new email from OK Cupid was waiting for Margaret when she got home from work one day.
Brushing past her concerns that this latest email, again, would be written from another loser, she began to open the email but then stopped herself short.
"
Courage is all I need," she told herself, "maybe this next email that awaits me will be from my future husband."
Deciding to put it off, Margaret got up and made herself dinner instead.
Even though she wasn't hungry, dinner would be easier to digest than another piece of correspondence that would crush her hopes and dreams of meeting the right man.
Forever, it seemed, that she had been waiting to meet the man of her dreams and at age 33, her biological clock was ticking.
"
Goosebumps," she told herself as she ate her macaroni and cheese, "I will know that I will have met my future husband if his first email to me gives me goosebumps."
Hastily, she finished her dinner and decided to give the email another attempt.
In her inbox she stared at the subject line, "Hello Cutie" and she wondered if this guy was being charming or stupid.
"Just in case this guy is a jerk, I am going to put this off a little while longer," she told herself as she got up and away from the computer, once again.
Karen, her older sister, who met her husband right out of college, and never had to deal with this, just then, called Margaret on the phone.
"Little sister," said the soothing voice over the line, "how are you?"
"
Miserable," Margaret replied.
"
Never give up hope," Karen encouraged her as she knew exactly what Margaret was talking about.
"Obviously you have never been through this long of a waiting period, or you wouldn't be so cheery," Margaret snapped back.
"
Please, girl," Karen said, "do you think being married is easier than being single?
Quite the contrary!"
"
Really, I don't have time for this lecture right now," Margaret said and hung up the phone.
She looked at the stuffed animal on her bed that looked like a cross between a skunk and a Zebra.
"
Tell me what to do Xavier," she asked the stuffed pet.
"
Undo your past heartbreak and open this email," Xavier told her.
"
Very well," Margaret said, and clicked it open and read it.
"Wow, you are beautiful, we should get coffee sometime and by the way, do you smoke weed?"
Xavier and Margaret locked eyes at each other as she pounded the delete button on her keyboard.
"You are definitely a skunk," she told Xavier.
"Zebra, darling, I am a Zebra and never give up on love," he told her as Margaret got up and walked away.
