4 August 2025, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2819: button it!
“I keep telling y'all: I don't do zippers, I do buttons!”
Five-year-old Lil' Robert Ludlow was generally a sunshiny little individual, loud but sweet, but there were a few things that got him upset, and zippers were among those things. He was the heir to his grandfather's immense basso profondo voice, and the fact manifested itself in his already huge, already alto-range treble voice -- surprisingly low and large for such a little boy. He could rearrange anything and everything in his house just like his grandfather could with his voice -- rarely did he think to assert the privilege, but zippers were a whole different kind of situation.
Mrs. Thalia Ludlow came to see what was going on, and it turned out that eight-year-old Edwina and ten-year-old Glendella Ludlow were looking in a catalog at fall clothes and had found some matching jackets and pants sets they thought would look good on everybody. Lil' Robert loudly vetoed that, and even Edwina, loud and bold as she was as the true contralto heir to her grandfather's immense voice, backed down, because she remembered...
“I'm sorry, Rob – I forgot about that time a zipper tried to kill you – nope, it's going to the papier-mache pile right now.”
“Wait, what?” Glendella said. “I'm new here, so, they have killer zippers in Lofton County?”
“Yeah, they do – you're just trying to get into your clothes, and they get stuck and they start wrapping you up!” Lil' Robert wailed at near the top of his surprisingly large lungs.
“Yeah, he had gotten zipped into his single-piece pajamas in a way that can only be explained by an ambush,” Edwina said. “It's a good thing he has a big voice like mine, or Papa and Grandma might not have known to rescue him. They had to cut him out of that thing!”
“I had to fight hard for my life and I'm not forgiving zippers ever!” Lil' Robert said. “If I'm going to wear it, I gotta be able to button it! No surrender, no retreat, no compromise!”
“Wow, Rob,” Glendella said. “That's some big vocabulary for a five year old, even though I know you heard it all listening to Upgrade Papa on the phone this morning.”
“Look, Glennie, I'm fighting for my life over here, and yours too!” Lil' Robert said. “If I gotta use big vocab, then I gotta use big vocab – you gotta understand those things are dangerous!”
“Just throw the whole catalog away,” Edwina said, and started feeding it page by page into the shredder.
“Thanks, Eddie,” Lil' Robert said, “because I gotta not just protect me, but all y'all, because I'm Robert Edward Ludlow too – I mean, three – and, I have the Robert Edward Ludlowness vested in me, but not zippered – you ever see a zipper on a vest?”
“No,” Edwina and Glendella said.
“Exactly!” Lil' Robert said. “So I'm not going for it! I don't do zippers! I do buttons!”
By this time, Capt. Robert Edward Ludlow Sr., father by adoption to his grandchildren Robert III and Edwina and their cousin Glendella, had joined their adoptive mother in observing. The two were holding each other up, desperately trying not to roll laughing. But they also noted that Lil' Robert had a serious trigger around that pajamas incident, and that he need not be burdened all his life with that fear of zippers. They would work on it with him.
“And we need to get started because he's going to have everybody up to George looking twice at everybody wearing a zipper in the world and worrying!” Mrs. Ludlow said. “With Edwina also now convinced, they might even get Andrew and Eleanor halfway convinced!”
“I know!” Capt. Ludlow said. “I want him to stop twinning on me and Edwina to stop twinning on my grandmother so hard, immediately – but you can't always get what you want, so we have these two little outspoken individuals who can wreck shop with a bad idea!”
“Throw the whole common sense away,” Mrs. Ludlow said.
“Oh, they will shred that and move on,” Capt. Ludlow said, “which is why our work is ever before us!”
And they went in to gather up the little Ludlows there shredding a whole catalog over a zipper, and got about the work.
"Got there before the staples went in!" Mrs. Ludlow said later on.
"Grandparents loving their grandbabies and saving the family appliances for the win!" Capt. Ludlow said, and put his hand up for the high-five before they split up, because ...
"Hey, Grandma, I know we are having steamed onions tonight, but have we thought about variety?" nine-year-old George Ludlow said. "I mean, I just found out that tulips and daffodils have bulbs and they don't need all that until next spring, so ... ."