An Octopus of a Tale

Once there was a boy. And once there was a girl. And once she built an octopus out of clay. And once the window replacement people shattered it without a second glance.

This Octopus (or Ringo, as she calls it) had sat broken on a shelf in her apartment for an entire semester, waiting for his moment. The girl didn't know how to fix Ringo, and life got in the way of her goal to put Ringo back together again. When she left for home it was on the long list of things to do when she got back. In fact, she had plans to do it before the semester even started, and had the gorilla glue to prove it. Luckily for her, she had the surprise of her life waiting for her in her kitchen upon her return to her humble abode.

She walked into her apartment after a long, tiring voyage, and first relieved herself of her carry-on burdens (for the airport did not have her checked bags and would be sending them right off). The second order of business was to create a meal akin to one she'd never had before --a quesadilla, a delicacy among those of the collegiate lifestyle. Upon entering her kitchen she remained oblivious as her best friend looked on--only when she turned around did she notice, in the center of their grand table, a gift as could counter no other. A gift she only dreamed somebody else would give her, and never dared to hope would come true.

There, sitting unobtrusively on the kitchen table, was Ringo--topped with a big blue bow and as whole as could be.

Now back to the boy. The boy and girl were friends. Great friends, even. The boy made the girl laugh. The boy convinced her to join the VPLCT. The boy drove girl to the airport so she could fly home to her family for Christmas. Unbeknownst to her, he went back to her house and took the broken octopus parts to his home to fix. T'was no easy task, to be sure, for the octopus was in many different pieces, and an attempt to fix it had already been made by the girl with little success and poor results.

The girl stood in the center of her kitchen as her eyes welled up with tears. "Who did this??" she asked her best friend. "Ryan," she replied, and the girl was overcome.

The moral of the story is that I, from the bottom of my heart, thank you, Ryan Hansen (and those who helped), for giving me back something that I truly love and worked so hard for. It means so much more now than it ever did. I couldn't have asked for a better friend.