prompt
It’s fall and pumpkin spice is everywhere. A local coffee shop has some great new recipes and there’s been a lot of buzz about it—only, if you’ve indulged you may find yourself with some unusual side effects. Due to some very defective pumpkins (and who knows what else), pumpkin spice lovers are suffering from nausea, vomiting and—perhaps worst of all—your skin has turned orange on top of it all. Thankfully the discoloration and illness seems to wear off within a few hours, but you probably shouldn’t go back for a second cup.

Word Count: 578



She was livid! Absolutely red with anger… or orange as the case was. To think a simple morning treat of a pumpkin spice mocha coffee would make her a bedridden invalid who was ORANGE! She was a god damn oompa loompa! She was a brighter orange than the nutcase who was president! The only good thing that came of this insanity was that she worked from home and no one got to see her huddled on the floor of her bathroom under a fluffy blanket, hiding from all the mirrors so she didn’t have to see her bizarre skin tone. The only night clothes she had that didn’t clash with the garish color was the black silk negligee and that was not something to wear when one was worshiping the porcelain goddess.

Shannon nearly cried as her stomach viciously twisted and she had to lunge off of the floor for the porcelain bowl where she proceeded to rid her body of everything she had eaten for the past year and a half. Food passingly sucked a** and it was even worse when you were ORANGE! Did she forget to mention that she was orange? Because she was orange! For God’s sake, her skin clashed with her red and black bathroom! She looked like a white haired pumpkin! And with her hair tipped in green the resemblance with the large gourd was even more pronounced.

She could do this! She was a strong, independent woman who didn’t take s**t from anyone!

The pep talk didn’t help at all as she slumped back down to the floor, crawling back into her blanket. Not even her rainy day, perfectly worn, pink flannel pj’s made her feel better. Being sick sucked. Mentally grumbling to herself, swearing vengeance on the coffee shop and whoever did this, Shannon observed the back of her hand. Orange… a disgusting color. She liked her creamy coffee colored skin. Her Halle Barryesq coloring with the shocking white hair. It was a look. One she cultivated by dying her hair tips random colors ever since her hair when completely white when she was 18. Right now it was green but in a few months she would change it, maybe to blue… possibly to blood red. At one time she had even thought of doing orange but there was no way in hell she would do so now! She didn’t even think she would be able to drink orange juice anymore.

How did one actually turn orange anyway? It wasn’t like she ate a metric ton of carrots… she really only had them with salads so what caused this strange phenomenon? It was tempting to call Alex but it didn’t seem like something to bother the cutie about… and she sure as s**t didn’t want to call Ryan. Blech. Not about this.

It was almost like she invited it when her phone started to chirp. The caller ID was for an ex boytoy, one that didn’t really know how to take a ‘get lost’ properly. He kept calling and texting every so often. Shannon personally thought he only reached out to her when he wasn’t getting any and normally she would just send him to voicemail but not today.

With a growl she answered the phone, “If you value your life you will leave me the ******** alone!” and promptly hung up. She wasn’t in the mood for his s**t and besides… she was no one’s second choice. No! Ones!