[CHALLENGES #35 and #36] Pull the lever; win a prize.

Just one more week of me, and then multirachael will be back, issuing challenges like Eurystheus.

I figure some of you are ready to vent about politics, and some of you are just ready to forget, so this week you get your choice of challenges:

[C#35]: Write an overtly political story. That might be a story about a time that politics intervened in your life, or one advocating for a particular political position, or one about why a particular politician made a particular decision.

[C#36]: Write an "ugly duckling" story -- or, in fffffuuuuuuu parlance, a "better than expected" story. That is, write a story in which something that seems doomed ends by betraying expectations in the best possible way. Bonus points for genuinely surprising us with your denouement.

Choose one or write a story for each. Either way, have fun with it.