Last week, we asked kids to dig deep and write stories about really disgusting things. Either disgusting things that happened to them or disgusting things they imagined.
At the outset, I wondered to myself: what would kids find disgusting? Would it be frogs? Or worms? Or boogers? Or some combination of the above? As it turned, out, I didn’t have to wait long to find out.
It seems fitting to start with a story by Emiliano.
The Time I Stepped in Alien Dog Poop – By Emiliano Leal
One day I was walking peacefully in the park when…. I STEPPED IN ALIEN DOG POOP!!!!!!!!!!!! At least I thought I stepped in alien dog poop.
Just thinking I stepped in alien dog poop gave me shivers. What if there were other things in the poop that would turn me into an… well… uh… um… eh… alien? AHHHHHHHHH! What if I did turn into an alien?! What if I’m walking right now and I’m slowly changing into an ALIEN?!!
I ran to my house to check in the mirror to see if I had turned into an ALIEN! When I looked into the mirror I looked perfectly fine. I started to wonder why I ever thought that I stepped in alien dog poop in the first place. Then I remembered.
A few years ago aliens came to Earth. At first, people thought that the aliens were going to destroy the planet. The only strange thing was that the aliens didn’t want to destroy the planet, they actually wanted to help it! The aliens helped the planet for about two years, until the police found out that they weren’t picking up after their dogs. The aliens refused to pick up after their dogs. So the police had the HULK get them back inside their ships and threw the ship into space. The police said that it would take about a week to clean up all the “alien dog waste”. Everybody believed it when they said that they cleaned up all of the dog poop. So that’s how the alien dog poop got to Earth in the first place and since it was pretty messy and stinky it’s no wonder I thought I had stepped in ALIEN DOG POOP!
I think you will agree when I say that Emiliano’s story is nothing short of epic. Not just a story about the inconvenience of a soiled shoe, this is a tale of intergalactic consequence. A tribe of helpful aliens lands on our planet, contributes to the civic good, and is ousted on account of their failure to appreciate our customs as relate to the removal of dog waste. What a tragic misunderstanding! What squandered opportunity for interplanetary collaboration! Unless…unless that dog poop really does turn those who step on it into aliens. Unless that alien-making poop is part of a dastardly scheme to conquer our planet. Alas, Emiliano’s story concludes without providing a satisfactory answer. And so we are left to wonder. And wait. And worry. This, my friends, is what we call a cliffhanger.
Disgusting Soup – by Spencer
Something that is disgusting is a soup that has stinky tofu in it and rotten cheese plus some dead spiders. It’s even more disgusting when it has yucky blood mixed with boogers, throw-up, and toilet water – with poop and pee. If somebody tried to make me drink that soup, I would probably die.
Wow. Spencer “pulled out all the stops,” as they say, in concocting the single most disgusting sounding dish I have ever heard described. I’m sitting here trying to think of a way to make Spencer’s soup even more disgusting than it already is, but I am at a loss. I challenge any readers to invent a more disgusting soup. I am utterly disgusted.
Yucky Ducky in my Bucky – by Tyler
When Spencer was a baby and he was watching fireworks from a window in Germany, mom found out that the windows were really dirty with bird poop on it when she found some bird poop in Spencer’s mouth. There was bird poop on the window sill and he licked it. Eew.
Eew, indeed. While Spencer’s soup was just about as disgusting as disgusting can be, I was (somewhat) comforted by the fact that it was only imaginary. Tyler’s story is about something disgusting that actually happened. In fact, it is about something disgusting that happened to Spencer. Perhaps it was this early, formative disgusting experience that led Spencer to invent the disgusting soup in the first place. Perhaps, like Peter Parker, who was bitten by a spider and turned into Spider Man, it was licking that bird poop as a baby that turned Spencer into Disgusting Soup Man. It makes perfect sense to me.
Just Disgusting – by Joe Lin
One day, when I was playing ball outside with my dad, I stepped on something.
Something gooey and brown and funny looking.
I wondered what it was… and I asked my dad.
Dad said, “Oh, looks like you stepped on some deer poop.”
Deer poop?!!
Ewwwww, that’s just disgusting!
What impresses me about Joe’s picture is not the poop (which is certainly disgusting), but the swarm of happy flies that are descending upon it with obvious delight. The only thing more disgusting than poop is the thought of walking around in it, which flies do without apology. Conclusion: I’m so very glad that I’m not a fly.
So…what conclusions can I draw from this disgusting experiment?
After hearing from various kids on the topic of disgusting, I have to conclude that the through line is poop. In case you have been wondering, poop, it seems, is the most universally disgusting thing in the world. Whether deer poop or bird poop or alien dog poop or poop in soup.
Anyone care to disagree?