Kleinhenz 1

Kieran Kleinhenz

Mr. Kozak

AP English Language and Composition

11 September 2017

Poly

Hi, my name is Dasani, but you can call me Poly. Dont adjust your sets, its me, live and

in person. Odds are youve probably seen me before here and there, in grocery stores, restaurants

and such. Im pretty much everywhere. If you havent seen me at this point then youre probably

blind (or maybe that wasnt oregano you put in your pasta earlier1).

Ive had a long, full life and Ive changed forms so many times, I put The Doctor to

shame2. My first life was as a plant. Most people are pretty surprised when they learn that part of

my past but its true! I was a part of the Ginkgo family. I know, I know, thats kind of a weird

name, but members of my family are still alive to this day. Anyways, I had fun as a plant,

photosynthesizing and whatnot. After I died, I was buried through a rather *cough cough*

unpleasant experience that really dont want to get into3. I was buried with most of my family,

and even though a few got whisked away we were happy as we could be. We spent the next

couple million or so years together, (but really, whos counting?) growing as a family and

1
Drugs. Cmon that wasnt even a hard one to understand.
2
Reference to The Doctor in the popular TV show Doctor Who - A Time Lord who has 13 lives. If you
havent seen it I very much recommend you do. David Tennant and Matt Smith are quite good in the role.
3
He doesn't want to tell you what happened but I have no such qualms! He was eaten by a large
herbivore, crapped out then trampled into the ground. Now try getting that image out of your head. Youre
welcome!
 Kleinhenz 2

maturing. We were crude4 but we were together which was the most important thing. Then it

happened.

Did you enjoy that little cliffhanger? I thought you would. See, if I were mean, I would

just go on and on right here and not continue with the story. I would go on and on and on

Wow jeez sorry, I was just trying to add some humor to a sad, depressing moment, but whatever,

have it your way. After a couple million years of chillin underground, we were sucked up, taken

from our home of forever, separated and then transported to a faraway land to do work for

creatures we had never even seen before. I lost something that day, a part of myself Ive never

quite gotten back.5 Some of us were taken to factories and turned into petroleum, only to be

cruelly burned because a fat, sick human needed more twinkies to shove into his face-hole6.

Others, such as myself, were more lucky. We were taken to a different factory to be turned into

something they call plastic. I never liked that label, it was always too general for me. I always

prefered my full name, Polyethylene Terephthalate,7 because I always thought it described who I

was so much better than that generalized term plastic. After my transformation, I was injected

4
At this stage, pressure from millions of tons of earth piled on top of him and his family caused them to
transform into crude oil. And we as high schoolers think that were under a lot of pressure (Ha! Jokes.)
5
Specifically hydrocarbon chains in the crude oil refining process. Jeez, hes dramatic isnt he?
6
I mean, hes got a point. Do we really need to go most of the places we do?
7
Thats the most extra thing Ive ever heard. Nobody, except people who want to pretend to be smart will
ever say Polyethylene Terephthalate out loud. Seriously?
 Kleinhenz 3

into metal molds at temperatures that would melt your face off8 and forced to conform to what

society wanted me to become9. The machine cooled me down with a blast of cold air, slapped a

label on and then it was done. I had begun a new life, one where I could finally be happy and

peaceful again. I was filled with some kind of liquid that I hadnt had in a long time. I vaguely

remembered the clear, tasteless fluid. Maybe I remembered it from a previous life? After that, I

was put into a box, wrapped up with of a couple of my buddies who made the same journey as I,

and awaited my fate. I mean, it wasnt that bad. We talked quite a bit during the couple of

months we were in that box. It was almost cozy. Then, out of the blue our warm, friendly cocoon

was ripped open and we were separated once again. I was tossed to a small toddler who ugh I

dont want to think about what she did to me. I did hear some interesting conversation while I

was being abused by the mini human. Mam, cundo se enciende nuestra electricidad? Quiero

jugar videojuegos! No s hija mo. Dicen que podra llevar meses! No s cmo vamos a

sobrevivir sin electricidad por tanto tiempo. Te lo digo, es el calentamiento global. Mara nunca

hubiera venido si no hubiramos lastimado a la madre naturaleza tan malo.10 I had no idea what

that meant, but I caught the name Maria, so she must have done something pretty bad. After my

contents were emptied I was thrown into a blue bin. I didnt know what that meant until later. I

and the other plastics were then ferried to a big factory. On the way there, I was told by a

couple of packing peanuts11 that there were two places unwanted garbage like us were taken.

8
Try eating twinkies now fatso.
9
Seriously, is there a world record for being the most extra plastic bottle ever? Somebody call Guinness
please.
10
For those of you too lazy to go to Google Translate - Child: Mom, when will the power come back on? I
want to play video games! Mother: I dont know my daughter, They say it could take months! I dont know
how well survive without electricity for that long. I'm telling you, it's global warming. Hurricane Maria never
would have come if we hadn't hurt mother nature so badly.
11
Always a reliable source.
 Kleinhenz 4

Either to the good place,12 to be recycled and reused, or to the bad place, to rot in a hole for

thousands of years. We were lucky, the blue bin I mentioned earlier meant that we were headed

to the good place. One of the peanuts had been through this process five times already! We were

unloaded from the truck, sorted into piles and, well, thats where this story ends. Right now, Im

on the conveyor belt, about to enter the big machine made for plastics, and typing frantically on

this Macbook Pro13 I found in the pile of plastic, trying to get my story heard. I think its almost

my time to switch to my next life. I wonder what Ill become? A Ziploc bag? A storage

container? Clothing14? The possibilities are endless. I wondezzzzgattvbsfg4w fs15

The End.

12
Shoutout to the TV show of the same name - its bound to be a future classic
13
No Im serious! People throw away their expensive, fully functional electronics for literally no reason. Its
unbelievable.
14
Polyethylene terephthalate is also known as polyester. The more you know!
15
At this point, an employee of the recycling plant noticed the laptop about to be crushed and melted
down. He promptly removed it from the pile, (mashing the keyboard in the process) noticed the document
open, read it and sent it to all of his friends, which is how youre reading it today. The laptop is now safely
in the hands of the workers daughter who is using it to learn how to program. Oh yeah, and Poly became
an Ikea Family card in his next life, so thats pretty cool. Thats free ice cream right? Score!
 Kleinhenz 5

Works Cited.

Korpella, Robert. Plastic Bottle Making Process. Sciencing, 24 Apr. 2017,

sciencing.com/plastic-bottle-making-process-5249914.html.