Shattered Dreams: Local Man Snaps During Pencil-Breaking Competition
Get the Lead Out! An Idaho man has tied the Guinness World Record for most pencils snapped by breaking 110 pencils in less than a minute.
By Jonas Polsky · May 26, 2024
Satirical opinion by Jonas Polsky, Odd News Show
Everyone has a breaking point.
In the aftermath of a recent pencil-breaking competition, this neighborhood is struggling to pick up the pieces.
Nearly a dozen people had shown up to this normally empty church gymnasium to witness the spectacle. When the hero strode in, a hush fell over the already pretty quiet crowd. With his massive, bulging wrist muscles, the pancake flat biceps, the imitation designer safety goggles; he was your classic pencil-snapping stud.
The two children in attendance rushed over to get his autograph. One handed him a corn dog, which he broke in half. The children squealed with delight. The electrifying swagger of the competitive pencil-breaker is truly something to behold.
If any pencil-breaking groupies had been there, they would have been going NUTS.
A nearby security guard caught a glimpse of the throbbing veins in his incredibly buff wrist muscles and fainted. Her collapse was due to a combination of being overwhelmed with horniness along with an undiagnosed genetic glucose deficiency. She later died.
To be a true pencil-splitter, to perform at the highest levels of competition, you have to strengthen your mind as well as your wrists. You have to condition yourself to HATE pencils. To be disgusted at the very sight of them. Your mind must be rigid and inflexible – like a giant pencil.
Even though a couple of people had already left, it was time to start the show.
The challenge was daunting: to snap 111 pencils in under a minute. The hero lit a cigarette from the wrong end and took a long, meditative drag. When faced with the task of snapping more than a hundred pencils, how could you be sure you wouldn’t crack under the pressure?
He folded the cigarette in half and tossed it onto the dead security guard. Her plastic name tag slowly melted from the heat.
The pencils were arranged in a straight line across a long folding table. He just had to run alongside the table and snap all 111 of them to set the new world record. This was going to be a cakewalk.
A starting pistol fired and the hero dashed across the gymnasium, karate chopping, headbutting, and stomping every pencil in his path. Time stood still for a long moment, the air thick with shards of yellow wood, splintered chunks of lead, and bright pink bits of rubber eraser. At the center of that chaotic frenzy of destruction stood the hero, doing what he was put on this earth to do: breaking pencils into two or more pieces.
The starting pistol fired again to indicate that the minute was up. The hero stopped, waited for his applause, but heard nothing. He searched the faces in the crowd, confused at their silence.
Something was wrong.
He slowly turned around to see a single yellow pencil. Intact, unbroken, complete. He hadn’t broken the world record for pencil-snapping, he’d only tied for first place. The onlookers scattered, like so many pencil shavings. An egg timer dinged, and an unintentionally ironic shower of confetti rained down from the ceiling.
Two people dashed back in and dragged out the dead security guard by the ankles, understanding the Native American wisdom that to die in a room where a pencil record attempt had failed means that you can never be allowed into heaven.
The hero stood all alone in the church gymnasium, staring at the remaining pencil, eyes welling up with tears. The record was intact, but his soul had been shattered. He didn’t just lose the pencil-breaking competition, he’d lost the will to live. This was truly the end, there was nothing to look forward to after this.
He’d have to try again tomorrow.