"Switched in the Arcade"

### "Body Swap Arcade"

The pavement was still wet from the morning rain, and the occasional sunbeam struggled to break through the gray sky. I pulled up the hood of my jacket and shoved my hands deep into my pockets, waiting by our usual hangout spot—a chipped, green-and-white diner sign that had seen better days. My anticipation fizzled out into confusion as my buddy Neil's mom's car pulled up instead of his old clunker.

"Uh, hey there," Mrs. Brooks leaned over awkwardly and spoke through the open passenger-side window. "Get in, dude. Yeah, it's me, Neil."

My jaw dropped open like an unhinged trap door, but I climbed into the car cautiously. "Neil? What the heck happened, man?"

Neil—now in the form of his noticeably busty, middle-aged mother—groaned and flipped his new blond hair over his shoulder. "Long story short, my mom bought this weird amulet, and now we're all switched around. Happy Freaky Friday, huh?"

I stifled a laugh—it was either that or scream. "This is insane! How are you even dealing with this?"

Neil rolled his eyes, which now had expertly applied mascara highlighting them. "Barely, dude. You wouldn't believe how people at the restaurant look at us now. Like we've got four heads or something. And, let's not even talk about the arcade. Wanna go there?"

I nodded immediately—it was better than gawking like an idiot. "Yeah, let's go."

When we got to the arcade, Neil made a beeline for our usual favorite: Alien Invaders. He fumbled with the controls, cursing under his breath. "Ugh, these nails. And don't get me started on the... uh... chestular situation. Throws off my entire center of gravity."

I laughed, taking in his struggle. "You'll get used to it, maybe. Hey, can you buy us beer now? Since you’re technically... y'know... 39?"

Neil's eyes lit up mischievously. "Oh, heck yeah. Follow me, little buddy."

We detoured to the nearest convenience store. Neil handed over his mom’s ID with a bored expression that only intensified the absurdity of the situation.

"Here you go, boys," the cashier said, clearly oblivious to the body-snatching antics.

Next stop: the mall. Neil handed me the keys to his mom’s car with a wry smile. "Want to drive, since you’re technically... y’know... not a 39-year-old woman?"

I took them gladly. "Sure, why not?"

At the mall, Neil's interest veered straight towards Victoria's Secret. It was a surreal sight—Neil navigating the store like a pro, lecturing me on bra sizes and styles. "So, a 36C is completely different from a 34D, alright? It's like I've got my mom's weird lingerie encyclopedic knowledge in my brain."

I couldn't resist testing him. "Okay, what's the most comfortable bra brand?"

"Hands down, it's Bali," he said without skipping a beat. "Now, stop questioning me."

A woman passing by gave Neil an admiring look and stopped to chat. Neil shifted into what could only be described as ‘mom mode,’ making pleasant small talk. The whole time, I just stood there, biting my lip to keep from laughing.

When we kept moving, I noticed people staring, especially guys. Neil seemed to enjoy it more than he let on, cuteness aside, he was giving them quite the show. He even caught me staring a few times. "Dude, you’ve developed a thing for MILFs?"

I blushed. "I didn't mean to—"

He chuckled, shaking his head. "It’s fine. Actually, kind of sweet, in a way. Just don't fall in love with me, okay?"

I grinned, knowing how lucky I was to deal with this craziness with my best friend, even if he was stuck in his middle-aged mother’s body. "No promises."

This story was generated by user zach3 with assistance by one of OpenAI’s large-scale language-generation model; prompts used to help generate the story are shown below.

Images were generated with OpenAI's AI system, DALL·E 2, or uploaded by the user.

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