There was once a sea otter named Carl. Carl really really loved to eat the delicious inner morsels of clams. But Carl had a problem. To get to the delicious inner morsels of the clams, he had to get past the tough outer shell of the clam. The clams’ shells were actually quite disgusting to eat. So one day Carl decided to find out a way to break into the clams himself without having to get lucky and find one that was pried open by alternative means. So Carl dove to the sea floor and grabbed the first clam he saw in his paws. Upon returning to the surface Carl twisted and turned trying with all the strength that his body could muster. But to no avail. Alerted by all of the noise caused by Carl some other sea otters came over to see what all the commotion was about. Upon seeing Carl struggle with the clam, the otters began to laugh and tease Carl about how he is so dumb and the like. Disheartened by the bullying Carl swam off and anchored on some seaweed, and began to cry a little. He thought to himself,
“Its pointless, I’ll never get it open.” But just as Carl was about to throw the clam back to the sea floor, Carl’s heartthrob Carol came over and asked
“What’s wrong Carl?” Carl replied whilst avoiding eye contact so as to shield his shame,
“I’m a failure, I thought I might actually be able to do something worthwhile for sea otter kind, but I guess I was wrong.”
“Oh Carl, you aren’t a failure, I know you will be able to open that clam. I heard some humans the other day talking about some eye-stein guy or something like that and how his motto was that he hadn’t failed, he had just found 99 ways that don’t work. Maybe a sea otter can’t open a clam by brute force alone, but I think you can open it somehow.” Reinvigorated by these words of kindness, Carl shouted out, “YOU’RE RIGHT! I will figure out a way to open this clam if it is the last thing I do!” “At a boy Carl!” Carol replied, and with that, Carl began swimming back and forth and back and forth, trying to come up with a different approach to opening the clam. That is, until the mean otters from earlier threw a rock at Carl, calling him a “NERD!” But little did they know it, they quite literally struck Carl with inspiration, as Carl dove to retrieve the pebble. The otters were confused by this, but figured, “Eh he probably is just brain dead now”. But to their surprise Carl burst from the depths, clam in one paw and pebble in the other. Anchoring himself on the seaweed, he shouted. “I’LL SHOW YOU!, I’LL SHOW YOU THAT I CAN DO IT!”, and upon saying this, Carl began to pound the pebble against the clam, KLINK! SHINK! KLINK! CRACK! and to the surprise of all those who doubted him, the clam burst open. After a cackling laugh, Carl swam over to Carol, and promptly shared the morsels of his labor with the one who had supported him when no one, even himself, believed.