The Story of Stolen Carrots

I hadn't packed a lunch on the day the carrots were bestowed upon me.

It was windy, I think, and I was sitting in the grass as the others ate their lunches, and I was trying not to think about food when, suddenly, a bag of carrots fell out of the sky at my feet.

"Holy cow," I thought. "Carrots."

I waited for someone to come claim them but no one did.

People were filing into the building then, and lunch was almost over, and though my conscious will fought against it, my stomach reached out and I took the carrots off the grass and stuffed them into my hoodie.

Just then, a small group of girls walked over to where we were sitting, and one of them said,

"Dude, where are the carrots? Where could they have gone? They aren't anywhere,"

and I looked into my jacket at the poor bag of carrots, pleading to rejoin their beloved master...

and I said nothing. I watched them walk away and held it all in and let them believe their beloved carrots were gone forever and ever.

I was a thief and a kidnapper, and there was no going back.

I ripped the bag open like an animal, furiously eating the stolen food against my own true will, which was slowly being torn apart with each and every carrot consumed.

They were far from gone by the time I got to class, and so I ended up sneakily eating stolen carrots during a geography test.

Carrots are not passive in their death. They do not accept their tragic fate, giving in to the fact that they have been taken from their homes and will be eaten by someone they do not belong to. Carrots die in protest, yelling and fighting their way to dust.

You do not notice this is the case until you have tried to eat carrots silently in a silent room.

Even if you succeed in muffling this sound even a little bit, the smell will give them away. I knew it would. It must. Nervously tapping pencil to paper, reaching from pocket to mouth, I continued eating carrot after carrot, constantly awaiting the teacher to, at any second, suddenly leap from her seat and shout, "THAT IS THE SMELL OF STOLEN CARROTS!"

It never happened.

What happened instead was an empty plastic bag that smelled like dirt and a terribly empty conscience.

Because, see, I had expected to feel guilty. I had expected to repent of my thieving ways and swear to never again eat such a thing as stolen carrots, to await my fate of inevitable punishment and take it more graciously than the carrots.

But I didn't choose the carrot thug life.

The carrot thug life chose me.

And there was no going back.

I saw the carrots' rightful owner in the next class, and by this time, my stomach was no longer in control of my mind and I could do as I pleased. For I was now a carrot thief and carrot thieves do what they want.

"So, um..." I put the question forward. "You been missing any ... carrots?"

And she laughed. And laughed and laughed and laughed. And laughed. And I laughed too because maybe the carrots had fallen from the sky and maybe I wasn't a thug and wow what a day to be alive.

"This girl brings these disgusting carrots to lunch every day," she said, "and never eats them. And every day, we end up just throwing them at each other, waiting for someone to eat them. The carrot war got so bad today, I took the bag from them and held it to the sky and shouted 'THIS HAS BROUGHT US NOTHING BUT MISERY', and I threw it as far as I could.

"That was the last we saw of the carrots. And we hoped they had found someone who could put them to better use than we had."

MORAL OF THE STORY: Don't steal things even though it sometimes turns out perfectly because most carrots that fall from the sky are already cursed.



(The worst part of this story is that my parents had forgotten to tell me that we qualify for free school lunches.)