Hello, everyone. The theme of the week is GARBAGE. If you’ve yet read Robbi’s amazing post about garbage then go do so right now. There’s lots of fun, surprising, interesting, and important stuff for you to learn. Once you’re done, come back and read the story I wrote about garbage.
Here it goes:
(Almost) as Good as New
Harold felt empty inside.
He had spent almost his entire life sitting on a shelf in the pantry and had grown accustomed to the lifestyle. But earlier that evening, he had been kidnapped and brought into the kitchen. He had been opened and emptied and scraped with a spatula.
His chicken noodle soup was now bubbling on the stovetop as Harold sat there on the counter feeling sorry for himself and wondering what would happen next.
What happened was this: A nice lady named Janet picked Harold up and rinsed him out. Once he was rinsed, Janet tossed him into a bucket under the sink. There, he crashed into his friend Fred, a can of corn who had gone missing from the pantry three days before.
“Fred!” said Harold.
“Harold!” said Fred.
“Where’s your corn?” said Harold.
“Gone and eaten,” said Fred. “Where’s your soup?”
The two old friends helped each other feel just a little bit better. But both were uncertain: What happened to old cans once they were empty and useless? They didn’t have to wait long to find out.
The very next day, the bucket was dumped into a bin by the side of the road. A friendly looking teenager named August threw Harold and Fred into a bin full of hundreds of other cans. They sang songs together as they rode along.
Eventually, they came to a factory where they were melted down and made into brand new cans.
“Fred!” said Harold, admiring his friend’s shiny new exterior.
“Harold!” said Fred, who was looking forward to having a belly full of corn again.
But! Much to their surprise, Harold and Fred were filled with sliced beets.
“This is surprising,” said Harold.
“Beets being stuck in a landfill for 600 years,” said Fred.
“Indeed,” said Harold solemnly. Harold did not understand puns.
The two cans sat on the grocery store shelf for weeks and then months and then years because nobody—and I mean nobody—likes beets.
“I like beets,” said Harold.
“Me, too,” said Fred.
But I suspect that they were fibbing just a little.
Thanks for reading my story. I sure enjoyed sharing it with you. One of the great things about writing a story is that you can make it about anything you like. And you can basically say whatever you want to, because you’re in charge. Beets, for example. I know that some people like beets (including Robbi), but since I don’t like beets AT ALL, I added that bit at the end about no one liking beets. Because it’s my story and I get to decide what happens.
“Trash Cash in my Dash. Crash!”
There’s garbage all over the world and it’s all sorts of different colors. It’s not our planet – it’s a different planet than ours. The people from that planet keep leaving trash on the floor. It’s really awful because 1,000 people live there and all of the people will get sick from all the trash lying around until they die. We should learn not to put trash on the floor. It should go in the garbage can.
Kudos, Tyler, for raising the stakes. Perhaps only the threat of fatal illness will finally convince us to clean up after ourselves. There are 1,000 people in the planet in your story, but there are SEVEN BILLION people on Earth! imagine how much garbage we produce! I can’t. My brain is not quite big enough to fit that number inside.