T.L Godfrey
Tinderella
Once upon a time, there lived a very unhappy young girl. She was unhappy because her mother was dead after a freak accident at the glue factory she worked at, and her father had married a woman who was rather mean and had two terrible daughters that were homeschooled because they were kicked out of every school they had attended. Her stepmother never did anything nice for her and made her sleep in the unfinished basement of the new house her father had built. It did not help that this young girl had a terrible hair cut, glasses, and liked obscure 80’s cartoons. She was also forced to wear the old clothes her stepsisters had outgrown and always looked like a ragamuffin orphan.
All she wanted was to be loved and because she was too afraid to talk to the boys at school, she spent hours looking at Tinder matches on her phone. Her stepsisters laughed cruelly at her every time she was caught and began to call her Tinderella.
“No one will ever swipe right on you, Tinderella. They’d throw their phone into the river first.” They would tease her, “that’s why you have no date to Prom tonight.” It was true, she did not have a date to the prom but neither did her stepsisters. They did not even go to the same school as Tinderella but her Stepmother had donated a lot of money to the high school to ensure they could go. They laughed at Tinderella before they rushed off to the salon to get ready for the night. Tinderella went into her basement and cried. Once her tears had dried she went onto Tinder and began to swipe through her matches.
The words her stepsisters had told her rang in her ears. No one was going to swipe right on her. She looked at her profile picture and was unhappy with what she saw; stupid haircut, blackheads, glasses, and braces. In a moment of self-hatred, Tinderella did something she had never done before. She uploaded a picture of a pretty model she found on a stock image site onto her profile.
Before she could regret what she had done and deleted it, she saw that she had a match. Someone had swiped right on her! With shaking hands she swiped right on the handsome boy and they began to chat.
Prince6969: r u going to prom?
LonelyPrincess: No. r u?
Prince6969: That suxs. No date?
LonelyPrincess: No1 asked me. L
Prince6969: wanna go wit me? J
LonelyPrincess: J J JJ
After making plans to meet at the prom that night, Tinderella realized that she was in trouble. The tinder boy had only swiped right because of the fake picture she had put up; he would never have asked her if it was her picture! She began to cry in her unfinished basement because there was no way she could go to prom now.
The sound of her crying drew the attention of a kindly fairy godmother that was living in the crawl space underneath the house. She was trying to watch her shows and couldn’t hear them over Tinderella’s crying. In a huff, she appeared before Tinderella.
“Why are you crying child?” she asked kindly.
“Because I lied on my Tinder profile and now the boy that asked me to prom will hate me when I show up looking like me!” Tinderella’s sobbing caused her face to be red and blotchy and the fairy godmother politely averted her eyes.
“Is that it? Dear child, let’s fix this right now. I don’t want to miss another minute of my show. Tonight we find out that Cindy wasn’t dead at all, but eloped in France!” the fairy godmother took Tinderella’s hands and lifted her to her feet.
“Show me the picture.” Tinderella showed the fairy godmother the picture and she smiled, “Oh this won’t be hard at all. You really are pretty it’s just…really…really deep.” With a wave of her wand, Tinderella was suddenly beautiful. Her hair was curly and bouncy, her teeth were straight and white, her skin was clear, she had in contacts, and her makeup game was strong. Even her clothes were turned into a beautiful prom dress fit for a princess.
“Oh this is wonderful! How can I ever thank-you?”
“Just don’t cry again so loudly. Okay? It’s not becoming of a young lady.” The fairy godmother patted Tinderella on the arm, “ it’s no way to get a man.”
“Oh no, look at the time! I have to get to the prom but I don’t have a ride!”
“Don’t worry, I got you an Uber,” the fairy godmother smiled, “just remember that you have to be home before midnight or else the Uber prices go up and I’m not paying premium fares for you.”
“You are the best fairy godmother I have ever had!” Tinderella squealed as she ran up the stairs and into the waiting Uber. In no time Tinderella was delivered to the Prom and she quickly found her Tinder Prince waiting for her at the entrance.
“Oh wow, you look hot.” He said when he saw her, “just like your profile.”
“You too, super hot.” Tinderella responded and then together they went into the prom. As Tinderella and her prince danced, they caught the eye of the wicked stepsisters.
“Who is that with that hot guy?” the asked each other, “does she even go here?” No one was able to answer that because none of them recognized Tinderella.
Tinderella was having so much fun dancing with her Tinder Prince that she almost forgot what the fairy godmother had told her; she had to be back before midnight because the Uber prices were going to go up!
“I’m so sorry, I have to go!” she said to her Tinder Prince.
“I’ll give you a ride home, stay a bit longer.” He begged.
“I can’t! I promised I’d be home before midnight!” and she ran out of the prom so fast she didn’t realize she had dropped her phone on the ground.
“Hey, wait, your phone!” her Tinder Prince yelled as he picked it up but Tinderella was gone. At home, she realized that her phone was missing and quickly used her security feature and locked the phone. She didn’t want some creep going through her things.
Later that evening, when she had cleaned off the makeup and put on her old clothes, her stepsisters came to her to brag about the prom.
“It was so fun.” They said.
“We danced with so much boys.” They lied.
“The hottest boy danced with us. He had green eyes, and brown hair.” Tinderella did not like their lying because she was there and knew they danced with no one. She couldn’t say anything because she didn’t want to be teased and listened to them brag about the fun night they had. When Tinderella went to bed, she realized that without her phone she could never message her Tinder Prince again and she went to bed sad.
The next day, when the mean stepsisters watched Tinderella do their homework, the doorbell followed a loud knock hit against the front door impatiently. The stepsisters jumped up and immediately answered the door. It was the Tinder Prince!
“Hey, this may seem weird, but I went to prom with a girl I met on Tinder and I forgot to ask her name but she left her phone behind,” the stepsisters sighed because he was really hot, “and before the phone locked I saw that the Uber driver dropped her off here. Do you know her?”
The stepsisters began to talk at once, “I’m her! We danced together! It was so romantic! It’s me!” and the Tinder Prince was taken back. The two stepsisters did not look like the girl he had went to prom with at all. They were lumpy, and dumpy, and annoying.
“Uh, okay, if that was really you I went to the prom with. You will know the passcode for the phone, right?” he asked uneasily because he was really hoping he didn’t end up coming all the way to this house to find out his date was actually gross.
“Of course!” the first stepsister said and she snatched the phone from his hand. She quickly entered the wrong code and the phone did not unlock. Out of embarrassment she ran out of the room screaming after throwing the phone on the ground.
“My turn!” said the second stepsister and she picked up the phone. She thought long and hard before attempting to unlock the phone. It did not unlock and just like her sister she screamed out of embarrassment and ran upstairs after shoving the phone back at the Tinder Prince. With a sigh, he was ready to leave without finding his date.
Tinderella, curious as to what made her stepsisters shriek this time, came into the hallway and saw her Tinder Prince.
“Oh, it’s you.” She said in surprise.
“Huh?” he said as he squinted at her. She was wearing gross over sized clothes, glasses, and her hair was up. He did not recognize her at all.
“Hey, that’s my phone!” she said in surprise and snatched it out of his hand. In a quick second she had the phone unlocked and was checking her messages: zero messages but lots of notifications on Tinder because of the fake profile.
“Did we go to prom last night?” he asked, he was still unsure. The girl he was with last night was super beautiful. Tinderella looked up at him in surprise.
“Of course we did!” She retorted, “We danced all night until I had to leave.”
Without saying a word, her Tinder Prince reached forward and pulled her glasses off, took the hair scrunchie out of her hair and gasped. Without the glasses and her hair flowing like a supermodel, he had found his princess.
“Wow, you are hot when you put a little effort into it.” He said in a whisper.
Tinderella and her Tinder Prince kissed and lived happily ever after until college when they broke up because of distance and started dating other people.