The Original

Today I had a wonderful experience.

(First, there is a new store in the mall located in close proximity to my house. I ventured there one day and sat in a Starbucks parking lot, without buying anything, for about two or three hours. I noticed the store, "Five Below" across the road. So I wondered: five below freezing? Five below the speed limit? Five below the average IQ? Five below the average 5.5? My ruminations became increasingly less charitable, so I drove across the street for exploration.

Second, do you remember your childhood? Think Hard............................... I hope you were Thinking very Hard in that space. I don't remember much about my childhood other than watering the flowers [with a green sippy cup] woven into my bedroom carpet in attempts to make them grow, carving my sibling's name into furniture in attempts to see it punished, rubbing bar soap on the tires of our tractor in attempts to make the tires spin out the next time my father operated it, hiding robins' eggs underneath my bed in attempts to incubate them, and throwing my new kitten off the crows nest of our swing-set in attempts to teach him to fly. Yours is undoubtedly similar.

There is no third. In fact, there was one, but I have forgotten it, and since this is my blog and my mind, you would have never known that there was a third, but I feel that proper justification to this story would not be given if I did not mention that at one point in time there was a third, but now there is not.

Fourth, have you ever cleaned your room and found something truly of value? [I could now attach my philosophy book here with a pretty little brightly colored link so that you would know to CLICK HERE if you wanted to read up on the different meanings of value, but I feel that the most entertainment I would get out of that is seeing how many of you actually clicked.] Yes, well we all have in our own quaint way I'm sure.)

I was completely stressed out (It is a holiday after all. "Holi": from the French, hooligans, and "day": from the German, are going to possess the bodies of your family members who will in turn force you to clean at insane hours of the morning, cook outrageous amounts of food, and watch movies you would not otherwise watch.) so I started cleaning my room. (This is an impressive task; that is all you need to know.) I dug through a few yards of clothing, garbage, cutlery, and homework, only to find a plastic bag from Five Below. I knew there was a DVD in it, so I took that out and threw it onto another pile of art supplies, sweaters, coffee filters, and cassette tapes, but as I was going to throw away the plastic bag, I realized something else was in it.

The catch phrase on the back of the package I found in the bag was: "Nothing else is... (know how to finish it? Of course not, no one remembers a catch phrase that could apply to every object on or off the face of the planet [I could link another philosophical essay here debating on how every item, even if there are "duplicates", has individuality, originality, and meaning in its own way, but you wouldn't fall for that twice, would you?] so don't sweat it.) SILLY PUTTY!"

Oh my blissfully poor memory that forgets the best things only to have them turn up in my hands and fill me with joy for a second time! I recalled instantly how excited I had been to buy the silly putty from Five Below (which I believe was named for the five below 1,567 warning signs about security cameras [I counted: 1,562] they had hung up), while simultaneously recalling my delight of playing with this embryonic fluid of aliens (hello? It comes in an egg!) as a child. Needless to say, I am no longer stressed about the holiday or the inerasably sloppy state of my room. Such wonder indeed!

(The satisfying snapping sound one gets from biting the Silly Putty with one's front teeth is entirely worth the headache one will get 2 hours later.)