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Rodney took great pride in his routines. Every morning was the same; he’d hop out of bed, slip on a brilliant robe of deep red and grey, slide over to the bathroom and pull his toothbrush out of a mug filled to the brim with a mixture of 1tbsp baking soda and ½cup water. People often asked him why he did this, since it couldn’t be a way of cleaning or whitening the bristles seeing as though it was always place handle first in the mixture, but he’d never answer. He wouldn’t answer many of these questions, for he took much pride in his odd mannerisms and was afraid that one day someone would discover that he, in fact, had no clue as to why he did them. He strongly believed that if you assert enough confidence into something, people will eventually stop questioning it no matter how odd or silly it may seem.

When he finished brushing his impeccably straight teeth he would make the mixture again using the baking soda he kept in a spice rack in his medicine cabinet. He figured that if spice jars were relatively the same size and shape of pill bottles (which he had no need for, he was in perfectly good health), why not store them in a cabinet made for items of that size? It made much more sense to him to keep things in a cabinet the size of the items that needed a cabinet rather than in one closer to where the food is prepared. He really only used baking soda, anyhow; Rodney was not one for spices. In fact, he disliked spices so much that all he would have for breakfast was a plain salad, rinsed. He found the concept of “dressing” to be silly and childish. Truly mature beings would have no problem with a naked salad. If nature had intended for lettuce to have clothes it would have grown them in tracksuits and leotards. Some of his friends believed he didn’t quite understand “dressing,” but when they would approach the subject to him he would just get irritated and confused. They decided an evening of charades was much more pleasant than three hours of calming him down and then going to bed early.

After his exhilarating breakfast of naked salad, rinsed (he made a point of this every time he mentioned or thought of his breakfast; just because the lettuce is naked it doesn’t have to be dirty- that just means the cynics have won), he would saunter over to his large, comfortable chair by his large, uncomfortable window (it was much too thin to sit on), and read a large, rather awkward book. Well, if you were opened and thoroughly stared at, examined, thoughts read and analyzed, then shut and left to sit on a table or shelf until the next person came along to take your deepest thoughts and fears apart word by word, would you feel comfortable? I’d think not. Don’t ridicule this book for feeling awkward in the hands of a beast such as Rodney.

By the time he’d finished these tasks he would move on to his afternoon routine, which mainly consisted of figuring out a good method to reading his book. He would start slow, and build his way up to scanning full pages and turning them with a flourish, studying the shapes of the lovely letters and wishing they could form themselves into characters that could act out stories like the kind he eventually resorts to imagining while reading. It was a boring and tedious chore, looking at every single word on a page, so of course one’s mind wanders. Rodney’s stories were always wonderful and thinking of them was his favorite part of the day. He only wished he could find a way to record them so he could remember them later, but to his knowledge no one has come up with a way of doing such a thing. It’s a bit sad really. He wondered if anyone else made stories, or if perhaps he invented them? He was sure he could become very famous if anyone would let him share his stores with them, but most of the people he approached with them would just giggle or walk away.

Once he’d had his fill of looking at words he’s close the book and set it down on the end table, and he’d always get the feeling that the book was annoyed at him, exasperated at the thought of another night alone on an end table. He would quickly shake this feeling and stand outside in the sun in a stance that could only mean, “My, the sun sure is pretty darn cool- except it’s not because it is fire, but it’s got a great personality and that’s what counts.” He would stand there with his chest puffed out, grinning and surveying the neighborhood, slowly turning his head from one side of the street to the other. Passersby would feel he was slightly creepy, but he didn’t mind. If enjoying the world and all the naked salads it entails is creepy, then so be it. He was satisfied with life and that’s all that matters.

As the sun set he would gallop inside and make himself another delightful salad, this time with a spring in his step and his favorite song played at full volume in his head. Meals are better prepared in a musical montage, and with all that wonderful oxygen in his lungs and the incredibly uplifting knowledge of a delicious and psychologically empowered salad with the confidence to be itself, rinsed, it was hard not to dance his way into frenzy until he was too tired he had to sit. He thought it was always so perfect that when one is tired and they sit at a table, the reason for their exhaustion, in this case the salad, is sitting there waiting for them to eat. It never occurred to Rodney that other people had other reasons of being tired, and that perhaps they did not sit at a table, but rather a wooden bench or a yoga mat, and maybe they didn’t like salad. Of course, none of Rodney’s many thoughts consisted of people not liking salad, so it was only logical that this idea never occurred to him. Rodney was quite possibly salad’s number one fan; he even had a foam finger saying so.

A satisfying salad and a few moments of contemplating his day, his life, and the world in which these two wondrous things take place in, Rodney heaves a heavy but enlightened sigh and stands from his chair with a dignity and grace that surprises and satisfies him. He marches to his toothbrush with its very wet and baking soda encrusted handle and brushes his beautiful teeth while staring into his middle-aged, soulful eyes. “I am very good at being alive,” he thinks to himself. “I am good at eating salad and I am good at brushing my teeth. I am good at enjoying my salad and my tooth brush and these are things that are good at me because they make me feel good. I am good.” It is with these encouraging words that Rodney falls into a whimsical sleep after methodically climbing into bed. Having completed his many daily routines, he feels accomplished and satisfied, and dreams of salad and toothbrushes living together in harmony.

These are events that happen every day, the same exact way, at the same exact times, without fail. It wasn’t that Rodney had an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; he was just a creature of extreme habit. He wouldn’t be particularly upset if any of his routines went wrong, he was just so good at them that they always went perfectly. However, this morning went slightly awry; this morning, and the many following it, would change his life forever, effecting many other lives in the process and making most of them much better as a result. For you see, this is a story, and most if not all stories usually go in this fashion. Rodney’s usually did, and it just so happens that, even though he didn’t create this one, he was in it; and that makes it his.

I can't believe I actually made a novel out of this crap. I feel so accomplished/silly.