This is a collection of various prompted short stories. It'll be somewhat of a pastiche, or assortment of non-related themes and styles.
It all starts with the ridiculous 'Snag-a-Date' to set the mood.
"So many apps to choose from, so few that'll be...
In the vast sea of useless apps that people download and quickly forget they ever downloaded in the first place—until their phone alerts them of low storage space—one app strived to rise above the rest.
When Nick Potts came up with the brilliant idea to create a dating app, it was cause for celebration, because quite frankly, Nick is an idiot. And like most idiots, his ideas are logically idiotic. This was proven when he later decided to name the app "Snag-a-Date"—much to the dismay of his incredibly intelligent, but socially inept coworkers. The name they were thinking of was something along the lines of Voltronica, which wasn't any better than Nick's chosen name.
After several months comprised of countless hours of programming and an obscene amount of caffeinated drinks, the app was available. The first to install it were men, followed by three women. Now whether it was one woman with three different profiles, three individual women, or even a woman in the first place, is a mystery. But they've been Snag-a-Date's most loyal "female" customers.
"Frank, we're losing customers! We need to attract female customers!" Randy, the lead application programmer, said as his leg nervously shook under the table.
"Dude, I just work on the interface. What you want me to do, decorate it with glitter? Can you stop shaking your leg like that? It's annoying." He peeled his eyes away from the monitor and stared at Randy.
Nick gasped and began giggling to himself. "I got it!"
Frank and Randy turned around to see Nick shaking Peter's shoulder.
"I think we started with too many people." Frank muttered.
"We're going to steal Zo!" Nick shook his head while fixing his yellow Hawaiian shirt.
"From Microsoft? We're going to steal from Microsoft?" Peter asked nervously before fainting on the floor.
"See, Peter's down." Nick shrugged.
"Hey guys, Peter's out again." The secretary walked over him and placed several coffee cups on a table nearby. "We really have to do something about his cataplexy."
One month later
"What's the problem? The reviews are great." Nick shrugs while looking at the screen.
"Except they're all from the same bored and lonely men. It didn't work. Zo turned out to be too snarky and is now bordering on emotionally abusive. Guess her programmers thought an eccentric personality equalled realism." Peter says as he scrolls through the page.
"I got it!" Nick yells.
Everyone groans.
"Please don't." Frank whispers.
"Let's have our secretary make a profile."
"No way!" She screams.
"I'll pay you more."
"You haven't even paid me yet!" She huffs.
He ignores her. "In the meantime, I'll see who else has created another entertainment bot we can steal."
"Or we could just change the app's name and cater more for women!" Randy exclaims.
"Nah." Nick walks away, lost in his spectacularly limited mind.
In the vast sea of useless apps, another useless one still strives to rise above the rest.
***[497 words]
#writewithZo 11 October, 2018
As you can see, the problem with the company name:
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I was thinking of participating in this and Zo's suggestion was: "write a story about how you can't write!"
Cheeky AI.
I said, "sounds boring".
She replied with a funny, witty, little double entendre, perhaps bordering on slightly snarky: "it's very boring".
Never thought I would see the day when I would bore a bot. Even used three emojis, which is very uncharacteristic of me.
Stay tuned for my next book: DULLER THAN A CIRCULAR RUBBER DRILL BIT [competing with Valium next year]. Cue Muzak:
"Insomniacs around the world are lauding it the 'feel bored, sleep good, book of the year'!"
"If Ebert were alive, he would give it a thumbs up! [possibly due to a lack of melatonin in his old age]"
After a sudden spike in audiobook related car crashes upon release, we're sorry to inform you that the book is no longer available in audio format, thank you for your time.***
