Monday, January 14, 2008

Stories

When I was in high school, my friend M and I used to write each other stories about characters (both real and anthropomorphic) that we created, that were often based on each other and our friends. We spent a lot of time on the stories that probably should have been spent on our studies, though writing long notes and stories was a lot more fun. I went through a phase where I wrote stories about the last tic tac in my box (his name was Bob). I recently found one of Bob's sagas tucked away in my files, and I would like to take this opportunity to share it with all of you.

Bob Meets Ryan

Once upon a time in a tic-tac factory lived an ambitious tic-tac named Bob. For those of you who are wondering, yes, this is the same Bob who wanted to be a paper clip. But this is a different story. This is Bob's quest to be a bobby pin.
Because, as you know, bobby pins have all the fun. Bob decided that paper clips weren't all that much better than tic-tacs. They got bent out of shape too easily. They were cheap. People could live without them without a second thought. But bobby pins... Bobby pins had so many uses. People went out of their ways to specifically buy bobby pins. They came in a nice variety of colors (brown, black, grey and silver- Bob's best colors). You could hold your hair back with a bobby pin. And if you are Nancy Drew, you could use two bobby pins as a rather sophisticated key. You never hear about paper clips or tic tacs being written about in novels. "Yes", thought Bob. "To be a bobby pin. Bobby pins have all the fun."
So, sneaking out of the factory, Bob rolled along looking for the Bobbypin factory. He finally found it and used his extreme talent to roll up the stairs (only he knows how he does it). Rolling inside, Bob used the tic-tac eyes amy drew on him to look around the factory. Seeing a little bobby pin sitting by himself, Bob rolled over.
It turned out that this bobby pin was exactly Bob's age (3 weeks- but another plus about bobby pins is that they don't go bad). the strange thing about this bobby pin, who I'll call Ryan even though bobby pins technically don't have names[sic]. So Ryan started talking to Bob. Ryan was very forlorn because he didn't want to be a bobby pin. Bob of course could not understand this seeing how bobby pins were so cool. Ryan wanted to be an eraser. Erasers were special because they could erase pencil marks. Ryan didn't like pencils very much. You see, one day a pencil feel off a desk and trapped Ryan for two weeks. It took a lot of effort for Ryan to escape, seeing how bobby pins don't roll as easily as tic tacs. So now all Ryan wanted to do was void pencil from the universe. To do that he would have to become an eraser.
Bob couldn't understand fully, but because he liked Ryan and of course admired and respected all bobby pins, he vowed to help. You see, Bob thought if he hung around Ryan a lot, people would begin to see him as a bobby pin too. It wouldn't be like a tic tac and a bobby pin, it would almost be like two bobby pins. And that was almost Bob's dream (Kind of like how it is what j & r and they hang out together so much that you end up calling J R and R J even though they don't look anything alike. Same idea with J and Z). So Bob went off to help Ryan look more like an eraser. Ryan stretched out until he looked like a square with a bent corner. He couldn't quite get the original kink out of his back, but he was close. Most erasers were square thought Bob. So Ryan was one step closer. But Ryan still couldn't wipe out pencil. He dejectedly decided he could never live a satisfying life as an eraser. But Bob still wanted to be a bobby pin. Just look at Ryan- bobby pins had all the fun...
The End. to be continued

My own criticism of the story, circa 1996 was that "it just didn't go anywhere." The J/R/J/Z part is an analogy to four boys I went to school with and always used to mess up their names because they hung out with each other a lot. I also found a story that M wrote that makes me laugh, so I'm going to ask her permission to publish it here.


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