I hope your week is going well. Almost at the weekend. Here is another story challenge for you:
Can you tell a story in 60 words using the following words in it somewhere:
- CULT
- ORANGE
- HOTEL
- FRANTIC
- CHICKEN
- BINGO
- EARS
Here is Last week’s challenge was to write a story in 30 words using the following words in it somewhere:
- NOTE
- DODO
- SKI
- LAMPSHADE
Here are your amusing stories:
The book was old, and inside was a note. The original Darwin Award winner. The last Dodo went for a ski in a lampshade. The rest, you know, is history.
Nicola Daly:
And take note, this season’s must-have accessory is the lampshade hat, modelled here by the delightful Dottie Dodo –
CRASH
– oh dear, I told her not to ski down the catwalk.’
Tassels swinging, Derek the dodo sped past the safety note as so many of his brethren had before.
“Danger of death – lampshades do not provide adequate head protection when skiing”
It was a weekend of drunken brawls, broken lampshades and ignored notes from the owner. Total damage was over $10,000.
Last ski vacation I take with my old college roommates!
Murray Clarke:
Please note: The dodo, a flightless bird that inhabited Mauritius in the 17th century, was fond of skiing. To avoid the sun, it wore a floral lampshade on its head.
“Feed the dodo!” The moment they found this note sticking to a ski in the attic of their late uncle’s house, they heard a scratching noise behind a big lampshade.
As I said earlier, no ski accident would’ve occurred if the dodo in the lampshade wasn’t going down the slope backwards. Note in your report that I wasn’t at fault!
I love naps, the way they string Phantasmagoria together into reality. A note on the last one, a dodo was skiing wearing a lampshade, eating crumpets and playing the harp.
She found a note beneath the lampshade: “Meet me where the dodo once danced.” Confused, she grabbed her skis. At the mountaintop, love returned in prehistoric surprise.
The script note called for Shirley McLane to ski down the run wearing a lampshade. What a dodo she looked like! Well, maybe so, but it won a comedy award!
Fred’s note said to meet him in the hotel lobby. When I got there, that crazy dodo was prancing around with a lampshade on his head skis on his feet.
Sanny M:
Douglas Dodo hid in the second hand shop making use of a lampshade and old pair of skis. He hoped Darwin found his note or his days were numbered.
Bright ideas don’t always come with a lampshade over the bulb. Note to self, don’t be a dodo and try to ski when there is no snow. Crash and burn!
Tony:
Under the lamp, the eye hollows out.
A note hanging, nailed with azure.
Skiing is rolling down the white oblivion.
And the dodo — silent oracle —
swallows the raw suns, laughing…
This little poem talks about the moment when one goes out the day before to enter into sleep, a symbolic and mystical nuance. The child poet goes from a real world, lit and noisy, to an inner world, mute, luminous. Sleep is a form of initiation or transfiguration. We are between the sacred, the dream and poetic delirium as Rimbaud likes to do.
Pete:
Ski Instructor: “You need to keep that Dodo wearing the lampshade at the bar and off of the slopes.”
Note to self: “No more ski trips with extinct flightless birds.”
After waking with a lampshade on my head and laying on ski poles, I made a note to the future. No more drinking with that dodo brain, Roscoe.
Any ski skills I had were as extinct as the Dodo. Mind you, they made a good frame for a novelty lampshade. Note to self: don’t forget, patent the idea!
Mark:
He steps to the mic,
Note in my pocket, dodo in my mind—
I ski through shadows.
Lampshade flickers,
Revealing secrets only night knows.
The Mic Drops
Kate in Cornwall:
As the last note of ‘Jerusalem’ faded away, the WI chairperson announced the winner of the ‘Lampshade made from jam’ competition. Bewildered new member Zofia Dodoski, nonetheless adored British traditions.
Squirreljan:
Dear Mummy, Today, I met a dodo. Now I’m sitting in a ski lift with a lampshade on my head. My notebook is full, please send another one. Love me.
Note to self, the next time you consider dressing up like a Dodo bird to waterski while wearing a lampshade on your head to celebrate the Solstice, please just reconsider!
“No! Terrible idea for a prompt! Do dogs bark for a living? It gets under your skin, does this thing. All the lamps Hades has lit would not redeem it!”
“Take note,” said Dodo Dodkins, ski instructor. “No lampshade poses today.”
“Odd bloke,” I said to the woman next to me.
“Very,” she replied. “I should know. I married him.”
My aunt converted her dodo figurine into a lamp, complete with lampshade. She stuffed a note in it’s beak explaining she would be away practicing on the dry ski slope.
Note dodo ski lampshade
I just made a note in my diary:
21st June 2025.
Saw a Dodo on a set of Ski’s, it careened past my car with a lampshade on its head.
“I dare you to wear this lampshade.”
“But I’ll look like a dodo!”
“No one will take note as you sail off the ski-jump.”
He lied. People laughed for months.
Ski weekend team building: Bring a small household item. Sitting on the chairlift, a lampshade taped to my helmet, I feel like a dodo. Note to self: Find another job.
Horror of the Mountain (A Micro Mystery)
The lampshade swings. Dirty, yellow light spills onto the ski-lodge floor.
A crumpled note, stained red, reads: Beware the beast.
Tapping at the door begins. I peer out… A dodo?
I got drunk at the ski lodge and woke up next to a dodo.
A note from my girlfriend stuck on the lampshade read:
“NEVER CALL AGAIN, YOU SICK LOSER!”
***
Esther Chilton 
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