Minnie Bardenhagen

Staff Writer

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Seven dollars. That is how much money our very own Editor In Chief, Emma Marion, and staff writer, Eli Stallman, spent on a single can of non-alcoholic beer. Of course, my initial reaction to this was, doesn’t this defeat the purpose of beer? Who on earth drinks beer for taste unless they like to lick soap??

 

Regardless, we each took a sip. While I was appalled by the useless concoction, the rest of the team continued to drink until every drop of non-alcoholic beer had left the can, thinking that nothing bad could possibly happen.

 

But it wasn’t so.

 

Everything went funky.

 

One by one, every member of the White Pine began to feel their bones break out of their skin and their eyes bulging out of their heads. Every skin cell in their bodies was morphing into metal. 

 

The first to turn was Anna. I remember looking over and all of a sudden she was a robot. It was terrifying, the way she said “beep bop.” 

 

One by one, I watched them turn. Emma, Eli, Jacob. The only one who didn’t turn was Ayden. I think he experienced unique side effects to the non-alcoholic beer, because he talked like a robot and didn’t look like one.

 

There were a lot of rainbows and butterflies. We were dancing robots, and we danced from one building to the next, spreading our joy across the world. Until, unfortunately, robot king Jacob Wheeler told us to stop boogie, We all cried for years until earf was drown in tears.

 

Twas a sad day. Robot Jacob Douglas Dodson flew into the abyss, never to be seen again. I can’t remember if we cried or did a boogie.

 

Tehn we tok a trip to satyurn. Satturn was yumy. It taste liek soopermen ice creem. Emmar, eili, annna, mibnie, and aden danse on satusrn. (not jacub thou, he disapaared).

 

Ewen thou saturyn was fun, we weanted too danse universse. So satubn bye bie, we go jupitor. Jupitod funnie. Emmar ate juapteur sanbd.

 

I remenbar Eilar saibd, “meowb,” and than we saivd meowd. We purrded liek cat. Than, Anma bliw up joopter. We dyed. But narr reallie, bc we juest fell intuo the abyqs wioth jaoocb. We kepyt boooooooooooogieeeeeee.

 

Tharn Emmar took the throune in jupitoer, and had crownd. We celibraietd and boogieeeeeed. Boooogiieee no last loungg thou. Emmer becuome dictatur and builtd armie. SCAWRYYYYY!!!!!!!!!

 

Okie thou, Emmar armie kind. Emmar armie give huuuuuuuggssss and booooogieeeeeeeeeee with urs.

 

Imargiene boogie toum. Greauts soaekw. Wealcj is daonsn. Andsid dkwa; dns9d70 dh813y8ebgdc ed2h1do8whfdiosvn dk d9dh31hdbj qfo831gro1 fd1f8he89viv bog 8g 8 gb 80 g08 bipb2pi2n1;’k[p k] k  [[2j ‘r2n’2 j]2  k l [;2[2;][;r ll.

 

13 hours later

 

When I came back into consciousness, I was lying on the floor of a Trader Joes with matches in one hand and a ping pong paddle in another. My fingers were chopped off and I was blind in one eye. 

 

Slowly, I sat up and collected myself. One wall of the building was completely gone, and I could see outside. There was a pileup accident in the parking lot, and several emergency vehicles were lined up just outside the building. I was handcuffed and arrested on several misdemeanors and felony charges.

 

During questioning, I was adamant that I did not know what happened. They showed me photos of robot dance parties, a robot army with laser eyes, and the entire White Pine Press team breaking into Petsmart and letting every animal free. We had also broken into Home Depot, and used the materials inside to make a small society on the roof. Law enforcement told me that our society had a multitude of issues, rising inflation and hindering relations with our biggest trading partner: Walmart. They said that I’m lucky to have been arrested when I did, as the citizens of “Sattyurnb Boogieeeee” were about to stage a coup to overthrow us.

 

I suddenly blurted out the truth, that the only thing I could remember was drinking seven dollar non-alcoholic beer. Suddenly, all the charges were dropped and the police started hugging me and crying, telling me that they were sorry they questioned my actions. I started getting sympathy cards from around the world including one from the president that read, “Non-alcoholic beer is not very great. No. Not great at all. I will be signing an executive order to outlaw this not very great non-alcoholic beer.”

 

Jacob was still in the abyss, but everyone else had also awoken. Emma’s army was not actually an army, it was an assortment of wind-up toy cars. Anna actually never turned back into a human, and went on to become the largest advocate for robot rights in the world. Eli had moved on to adopt 57 cats all named Squeak (but they are each different variations of the squeaking sound effect).

 

Ayden spent the next 20 years of his life relearning the English language, as all of his knowledge was replaced with “beep bop boop.” Lucky for him, he found a robot transformation specialist that uses highly unethical tactics to correct the behavior.

 

Yes so don’t drink or do drugs kiddos.