After crafting a beautiful carving depicting a castle being attacked by a dragon, the boy sat back to admire his work. After staring at the castle for a few minutes he began to daydream about winning the contest.
castle and dragon pumpkin carving found at deviantart.com
The boy thought:When I win, the townspeople will be cheer but be so jealous at the same time! That mean old Jacob Jr. will be so surprised he did not win this year. I will take home my prize to momma and never complain about mowing the grass again. Until the engine breaks, then I will have to take it to the mechanic down the street. Since he does not get a lot of lawn mowers in his shop he will not know how to fix it and I will have to break it apart and trade the parts in. I will trade the parts in at the scrap yard for a bike so I won't have to walk to school everyday. The bike will make me look so cool! After a couple years I will trade in my bike for a motor scooter, paying the rest with allowance money. The scooter will surely get me a girlfriend in high school and she will want to marry me. When I reject her and tell her I want to live with my momma the rest of my life she will get angry with me. After storming off she will go to my momma's house and bang on the door yelling for her to come out and speak with her. I do not like it when my momma is upset by anyone because she goes in her room for days and does not come out. I don't want my high school girlfriend making my momma cry and stay in her room!
After angering himself over this thought, the boy picked up his pumpkin and threw it to the ground. The creation that was sure to win at the contest was now a pile of yuck. The boy ran inside and hugged his momma, whom he would make sure never got upset by his high school girlfriend.
Author's Note: I based my story off of the Indian fairy tale titled "The Broken Pot" in the Indian Fairy Tale Unit by Joseph Jacobs. In this fairy tale, there is a Brahman who saved up a pot of rice and he began to think about what to do with it. He eventually traded the rice up to earning a house with wings. Then his daydreaming gets shifted towards obtaining a wife and then a child and how he would then tell the child to come to him one day and he would get mad at the wife because the child would be too close to danger so he ends up breaking the pot of rice when kicking his wife in his daydreams. I thought this was such a crazy fairy tale I had to re-create it with a modern twist. I used a little boy because I thought the Brahman resembled a little boy in his thinking and ill temper. I tried not to drift towards getting money as a trading up source to keep with the theme from the fairy tale. Ultimately, I needed something to have the boy destroy that he thought was the starting point of his final trade that led to his anger. After writing this story I realized both the fairy tale and my story reminded me of a cable commercial (I forget for which service) that creates this same kind of ridiculous thinking and that is where the title comes from. I thought it was pretty funny how some people can lead to conclusions that are so far from where they begin.
I hadn't read this story, but I read your author's note (very helpful by the way) and now I can say that your retelling is creative but mirrors the story perfectly. I love the pumpkin carving idea, very fun and festive! That picture is amazing by the way - I've seen a lot of crazy-good pumpkin carvings online and stuff, they're really cool. Anyway, I'm glad you chose to tell this story. It is a little kooky, but it has a very deep message when you reflect on it. It sort of makes me think of the saying "Don't count your chickens before they hatch," but it works in a sort of opposite way. Like, in this story the chicken-counting fantasy turns into a nightmare, and causes the character to break his own eggs.. or something. Well, it's a good story, nice work!
ReplyDeleteBrittany! I thought this story was quite amusing to read and after reading your author's note your version fits perfectly with the original. The train of thought that this little boy goes through is hilarious. It is so outlandish but perfectly exemplifies the type of thinking that little kids do. The progression of winning a contest and receiving a lawn mower to upsetting his mother years down the road was a great was to stick to the original while creating a fun way of doing so. I think your choice of using a young boy was a perfect way to retell the story. Overall, great job and keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteI liked your adaptation, especially considering how relevant it is to this time of year. I can tell you had fun in writing the boy's internal dialogue. One of the things I thought was pretty adorable was how the boy was already so worried about a girlfriend, but more importantly, how it would affect his mother. I think your block of the boy's inner thoughts might need some quotation marks. Good job.
ReplyDeleteThis storytelling post was a great was to incorporate the Halloween holiday into the class. I can tell you really got into the character of the little boy. The boy let his dreams and aspirations get way ahead of him and ruined them in the process. Gotta take it a step at a time! Great alternate way to tell this story.
ReplyDeleteHi Brittany! Good job with the assignment this week. This is a crazy fairy tale indeed! I think a small child was a good choice for the Brahman. His daydreams are all over the place, and it feels like the inner monologue of someone with ADD. I'm a bit of a momma's boy myself, so I also enjoyed reading how attached the little boy was to his mother. It was sweet, albeit a little clingy. Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteBrittany, first of all, I don't know if you just recently changed your layout or if I've never been to your page, but I love it! I really like the background, the colors and the style are very Indian! I also just love the cursive for your page titles and how you are very specific with your titling. Great job on that! As for your story, also terrific! I really like the way you made it more of a fairytale than anything else. It was really creative of you to add a Halloween feel for the holidays! It was really apparent that you enjoyed writing this one. Keep up the great work!
ReplyDeleteWELL DONE! yes well done indeed. I think you have done a great job in retelling this story. I do this all the time. I will think about doing something and then before I know it I am 8 years down the road living in a van all because I bought a TAll MOCHA instead of a Venti Mocha from starbucks. I process in which the boy rationalizes his decision to not enter the pumpkin as a way of masking his fear of entering the pumpkin was great. Good Job.
ReplyDeleteHi Brittany! I really enjoyed this post because I stuck with the readings portion of the assignments so I hadn't read this story! It was really fun to learn something new and to read one of these storytelling posts without and previous knowledge. I read your author's note first so I was able to get the idea of what you were going to be writing about before reading it! Your story was really great, it kept my attention the whole time, I love your creativity!
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