Two things about this story. One, I wrote it for my high school writer's club, as a joke, when our sometimes insufferable president suggested "My Favorite Childhood Toy" as a writing prompt. *makes sick face* This is a protest. Secondly, my cousin put it on her website, but then the website got lost or whatever, and I lost the story, which was very depressing. So one day, I googled the title, looking for it idly, and I found it. On a website about the joys of garden tools. They used this story as an example of enjoying your tools on a website that talked about shovels. I think I laughed for about an hour when I saw that. I can't make stuff this good up. Anyways, that's it.

I'd have to say that the toy that influenced me most was my toy grave-digger's kit. Yeah, I know we all got one. Every one of us wished to receive the miniture version of a REAL gravedigger's set. What joy we all had when we unwrapped the shovel, pick, and casket Christmas morning. I'm sure all of us remember spending happy hours digging a grave, placing the coffin inside, and filling it up. Of course, as it always happens, most of you got older and left your toy gravedigger's kit behind. For me, on the other hand, it was a different story altogether.
You see, I had decided that gravedigging was my true calling. I was going to be a gravedigger when I grew up. Silly, I know-children rarely pick the right jobs to begin with. But there it was. So, when the little shovel
and pick were too small to hold, I bought a real shovel and pick and continued digging graves.
As you may imagine, by this time I was a little tired of burying that one little casket over and over. So I branched out a little bit. I made miniature coffins out of spare wood and buried them instead. Of course, a casket's not a casket if it's empty, so my creations became the resting homes for dead bugs I'd find, road-killed possums, and the spiders my mother killed while sweeping.

Unfortunately, demand was much greater than supply. I soon ran out of a steady supply of cadavers. What was I to do? Then a realization struck me. If I could make my own coffins, why couldn't I make my own dead bodies? This idea launched me into the career I'm in today, my true calling. I would just like to thank my toy gravediggers set for making me who I am today- a serial killer. Thank you my old shovel, wherever you are!

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