Written March 7, 2024 during a 10-min in-class exercise for my short story writing 5wk course with Helen Cross. Below happened to me on a recent trip to Dollar General.
"The Stuck Toy"
As I was walking towards the entrance of Dollar General I heard the sound of someone crushing a can. I looked over and saw a young man stomping his foot on the ground, and smiled.
He noticed me and said "Trying to get the toy out of this as my child wants it now."
"I have a large sharp knife," and walked towards him.
He handed me a small domed plastic enclosure about the size of a baseball holding a three inch tall plastic toy figure. I pulled out my knife with a 3.9" long thick blade.
I held the plastic enclosure tightly as I applied gentle pressure with the tip of my knife near the top edge. Nothing.
He said "Be careful."
I tried again and the knife pierced the heavy plastic.
"Oh, you're getting it!"
I cut some more.
"I can try smashing it with my shoe again to see if it will crack," he said with excitement.
"Let me try to cut it just a bit more," which I did, then handed it to him.
He smashed it with his tennis shoe again on the parking lot pavement and it shot out from his foot a few feet away. He smashed it again, and it started to break, and smashed again and the top came off.
He was smiling and said "You're amazing! Thank you."
I started to walk off and said "I like those tennis shoes. Are those Puma?"
"They're Jordan," and he opened the back door of his car to give the toy to his child, and I walked into Dollar General.
