Introduction

I saw a pair of scissors on the desk and decided to write a story about them. It is completely random as I made it all up on the spot – but please don’t feel pressured to read this whole load of nonsense if you don’t want to. But my fingers do ache from all the hard work. And reviews would be appreciated. Thank you.

SnipSnop the Silly Pair of Scissors

There once lived a pair of scissors called SnipSnop. SnipSnop lived in a drawer in a classy office owned by a very rich man. The rich man’s name was Bob Snobble, and he was the founder of one of the greatest companies in history: Snobble’s Bobs. Bob Snobble himself, who was now a very old man, founded it in 439ad.

The idea struck him when he was eating a fig while sitting under a fig tree, when a nearby child saw him and threw a small object at him. The child then laughed and ran away, while Bob picked up the thing in curiosity. It was a simple sprout-sized round ball with a small hole in the top, and he decided to call it a bob. Then he took it home and used it to hold his plastic balls. He had 16 tiny plastic balls the size of ants that he used to fiddle with when he was stuck, and these he also called bobs.

Over the next few years, he began to notice how his work was improving now he had his bobs. He was voted the world’s cleverest man for eight years running, and so he decided to make a business of it. He started by making more bobs out of plastic of all colours, and then a few decades later he moved on to different shapes and sizes. It was a hugely successful project.

The company itself had, of course, changed and improved since it had been founded in 439ad, in fact the only thing that had not changed was SnipSnop. Each day when Bob came to work, he would tell a few of his employees what to do with their bobs and then withdraw to the confines of his office to admire SnipSnop. SnipSnop had been there since the very beginning of Snobble’s Bobs, and had been through every hardship with him. That was why Bob loved him so much.

However, this had a bad effect on SnipSnop. He grew to be a very vain pair of scissors, and he loved to make the other things in his cabinet jealous. He had a drawer of his own, and when Bob took him out to admire him, he would turn to grin spitefully at the other pencils and rulers gazing at him. SnipSnop knew he was a very good-looking pair of scissors, and he had often seen Snirpy looking at him lovingly from her pencil pot. Snirpy was the pair of scissors that Bob used to cut things (he would never use SnipSnop to cut things as it could blunten his blades), and she was a small female pair of scissors. SnipSnop secretly though she was quite cute.

What SnipSnop didn’t know, was that he was greatly disliked among the other stationary in Bob’s office. When they watched him come out for his daily show, they would glare at him not with jealousy, but with pity. They knew he fancied himself and that he thought he was higher than all of them, but they were not jealous. In fact they all had such a tight bond of friendship between them that they were happier than SnipSnop ever was.

One day when Bob was looking at SnipSnop’s finely cut handle, there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” he called, not taking his eyes off SnipSnop. One of his employees entered.

“Sir,” he began, “one of the bob tanks has exploded.” Said the employee in a hurried voice.

“WHAT!?” exclaimed Bob, standing to his feet and dropping SnipSnop onto the table with a clatter, and ignoring SnipSnop’s mutters of protest. Bob quickly hurried out after the employee to sort out the problem.

While he was gone, his cleaner entered and began cleaning out the dustbin. She didn’t usually check the rest of the room because Bob always left it immaculately tidy, but today she noticed a pair of scissors just lying open on the desk. She tutted and went to pick them up. However, when she held out her hand, SnipSnop snapped his blades shut and cut her finger.

“Ow!” squealed the cleaner, shoving her fingers in her mouth. Glaring at SnipSnop, she picked him up by the handles and threw him in the cabinet with the other stationary. Then she went out to put a plaster on her finger.

“Oh my gosh… where… where am I? Aargh! This place is tiny. Ah, I see. ‘Tis the cupboard of the average.” Said SnipSnop in a snotty voice as he stood up on his blades and began brushing himself down. The whole cabinet fell silent. SnipSnop looked up to see three pairs of eyes staring at him in amazement: the ruler, the pencil, and – oh, ‘twas Snirpy herself.

“Urgh – it’s that vain young man!” said the pencil and turned back to her conversation with the ruler.

“Actually, I’m not that young. Just over – oh, I don’t know. A few centuries, I should think!” replied SnipSnop, but the pencil wasn’t listening. He turned to Snirpy.

“Well, hello, my dear. Did you know, I am a pair of scissors.”

“Oh my – I would never have guessed!” replied Snirpy in a silky voice.

“Say – how would you like to – come back to my drawer with me?”

“Sorry,” replied Snirpy, “but I’m quite happy here. And besides, I don’t like you. You’re way too vain.”

At that point, Bob came hurrying back into the room. Seeing that SnipSnop was no longer on the desk, he let out a cry and searched the whole room top to bottom for him. When he finally found him, he gently lifted him out of the cabinet and laid him in the drawer again. SnipSnop managed to give his lost love one last glance before she was shut out from his view, but she’d turned back to the pencil and the ruler. He was forgotten already.

And from then on, SnipSnop wasn’t so snotty when Bob took him out for inspection. He was way too sad thinking about Snirpy. She wouldn’t even look at him anymore. And because he was so sad, he lost his shine and so Bob lost his interest in him.

After a few years of staring at a dull old SnipSnop, Bob decided his time was up and placed him in the cupboard with Snirpy, the pencil and the ruler. And when he got there, Snirpy smiled.

“I see you’ve learnt your lesson,” she said, and kissed him warmly on the handle. And he was excepted into the cabinet where he found he was happier than he’d ever been before. He was no longer spiteful or lonely, and everybody liked him. Even the pencil. As for Snobble’s Bobs, the company continued to produce countless bobs, and is still going to this day.

You just have to know where to find it. And maybe, one day you might. And you might find Bob in his office, staring at his brand new pencil sharpener in wonder, and then you might even get a chance to look in the cabinet. Then you will see SnipSnop and Snirpy, always next to each other with a loving smile on their faces. And you’ll see the pencil and the ruler deep in conversation, and you’ll remember the lesson that SnipSnop learnt.

You can’t be happy if you’re spiteful and lonely. Everybody needs friends who are with them, not below them. And if you get that, you can be one happy person.

Postscript

Please note that Snobble’s Bobs does not really exist in real life. I only added this detail to attempt to make this story even more beautiful. So please don’t waste your life away trying to find it.