So there I was, outside taking pictures of a toilet paper tube with rain falling. How did I get here? Glad you asked!

It was a normal day, much like any other day. It had been sunny and warm so far, and I was… doing stuff. I don’t recall exactly what I was doing, but meh. It’s irrelevant.

For some reason, when I saw a toilet paper tube on the floor of my bedroom I had a flashback to last spring. I was part of a wilderness first aid course and we were running a scenario. One of the groups had made a little friend for their patient. “To cheer him up and distract from the pain,” they told me.

It was made from a roll of gauze with a couple of sticks for arms and smiley face drawn with a sharpie. It was adorable! And for whatever reason, that mental image of Joey holding tightly to this adorable roll of anthropomorphized gauze jumped into mind. So naturally, I picked up the toilet paper tube, grabbed one of my own sharpies, and drew a face on the cardboard tube.

I imagined what the face on the tube would look like it the cardboard were to suddenly spring to life, though it was partly inspired by Junior Asparagus from VeggieTales. I set my new smiling toilet paper friend onto my desk and stared at it for a moment as I remembered the first aid course. The people with which I shared that experience. My friends from my hometown.

Later on in the day, it started raining. The lighting cast by the sunlight filtering through the dark clouds was giving a really interesting colour to the mountains outside, and a single thought ran through my mind. Picture time!

I snatched up my phone as my eyes scanned my room. My eyes met the gaze of my tube friend. I blinked, it didn’t. Then I grabbed it too and ran for the door leading to the back deck. The deck was covered, so I wouldn’t get wet, nor would the toilet paper tube.

My aunt came home while I was out there and saw me moving back and forth with my phone through the back window. When she opened the door to see what I was up to, I instantly jumped up, nabbed my friend, and hopped past her into the house as I called out, “just photographing a toilet paper tube in the rain!”

M3