Fanbrain Droppings

One day the people who built the sandbox leave a pail in it. 

Admittedly, it’s not the best pail. It’s got a little hole in it, and it looks like it was kind of hastily put together, and it’s orange with green polka dots. But it’s a pail to play with.

Some kids don’t like that pail, and that’s fine. And mostly, the kids who don’t like the pail just leave it alone. Maybe they point out that it’s got a hole in it and it’s kind of a weird color, but they’ve got their own pails to play with so they don’t obsess over it too much.

But some of the kids are furious. They thought the people who built the sandbox should have put the kind of pail they like in it. They can still bring their own pails to the sandbox. They are, this very minute, playing with their own pails in the sandbox. But they’re mad because the people who built the sandbox put a pail in it that wasn’t the kind they like.

And then some kids decide they're okay with the polka dot pail the people who built the sandbox put in it. They take that pail to their corner of the sandbox and start playing with it. Some of them try to patch up the hole with duct tape. Some other kids start bringing their own polka dot pails. And they’re in their corner of the sandbox, having a good old time building sandcastles with their polka dot pails, not bothering anyone else.

But some of the kids are so angry about the fact that the polka dot pail even exists that they can’t stand to see anyone playing with it. They run over to the corner of the sandbox where kids are playing with their polka dot pails and start kicking their sandcastles over and telling them they’re bad people for playing with the pail the people who built the sandbox put in it, all the while just sort of forgetting that there is literally nothing stopping them from bringing the pails they like to the sandbox and playing with them.

While all this is going on, there are some older kids sitting on the bench near the sandbox remembering when pails weren’t allowed in the sandbox at all, remembering when the mere idea of the people who built the sandbox leaving a pail in it for them was unthinkable, and asking each other what the fuck is wrong with these ungrateful little shitgoblins that are screaming at other kids and kicking their sandcastles over because they don’t like the pail the people who built the sandbox left in it.