There once was a cooler. You may be thinking this is some ordinary cooler that keeps items that you enjoy being cold...cold. Yes, this cooler could complete this task for you, but there was something different about this particular cooler. This particular cooler had memories; it could think, it could feel, it could see, it could hear, it could smell, it was a strange cooler.

It could remember when it was first created out of that strange substance that could keep heat out of it. It could remember its first owner that would take it on all those fishing trips. It would keep all the baits nice and cold, so they would be the most effective at catching fish. It never knew why cold bait was better for catching fish, but it knew that its owner was always happy at how well it did its job. It knew this because it was never left at home, and it went with its owner on every trip. It always looked back on those days with fond memories.

But, there was one day that things changed for this particular cooler. During a fishing trip that seemed no different than any other fishing trip. The owner packed all the bait inside it as usual, and took it out on the boat as usual, but this time a second boat arrived. At the arrival of the second boat, the cooler felt for the very first time that its owner was not happy. It thought the owner was not happy, because it thought the cooler on the other boat kept things colder than it could. What good was it if it couldn’t keep things cold anymore? But then it saw that the other boat didn’t even have a cooler. Why was the owner so upset with it?

The man in the other boat began to yell loudly, and the owner began to yell loudly back at him. The cooler did not know what was happening. Why was the owner so happy on every other trip, but now there were two angry people.

Because the cooler was so deep in thought, it missed what happened next. It heard a strange noise and then all the yelling stopped. The owner was lying down in the other boat but wasn’t moving, and his head looked very strange. The head was almost as if it was further away from the body than it should have been. The other man was standing over him with a long red stick, and then the other man looked directly at this particular cooler. The other man came over to its boat and emptied all the bait but kept the ice.

“Why isn’t my owner moving?” The cooler said to itself.

Then the other man pushed its owner’s body into the water. The cooler had never seen a face by itself, and then the face was inside it. It had never seen its owner look so sad before; it wished the owner would just open his eyes and smile.

Its new owner made it look at many sad faces after that day, but none were as sad as the face of its original owner.