A Lighter Post

I'm taking a break from my criticism to repost a short essay I just wrote for a class. I hope you enjoy it:

This morning, I started thinking about the question “where do your ideas come from” when I saw one of the men from my dorm pick up a giant foam sandwich from the curb, where it had presumably been left for trash pickup. This sandwich had been sitting in the hall of our dormitory for some weeks, and I could not imagine why anyone would bring it back inside. Seeing the opportunity to ask a delightfully bizarre question, I addressed him, saying “May I ask why you just took the giant sandwich inside?” He was entertained vowed to quote me on Facebook, and explained that he planned to cut up the foam for use in his room.

What occurred to me is that we probably see dozens of things almost as strange as this every day, but don't consciously process them. While the image of a man in a camouflage jacket carrying a giant sandwich under his arm is unusual enough to have captured my attention, had I seen it only out of the corner of my eye, I may not have been aware of it. However, this could still have prompted me to write a story about giant food or tiny people. Alternatively, I might have written an essay about world hunger or about gluttony. I might have written a poem about food, hunger, or fullness. All of these things come from this single experience of a man with a giant sandwich. It leaves me wondering just how many such experiences we almost have that lead us to write what we do. So, while I cannot call it a universal or eternal answer. if someone were to ask me today where my ideas come from, I would almost certainly respond, “From the corner of my eye.”