Monday, March 30, 2020

Week 11 Story: The Stupid Monkeys

Backstory
A long time ago there lived a group of three monkey friends named John, Chester, and Ray. They were known around the monkey village as the three stooges.  The reasoning for this nickname is because they could never complete a task they were given without screwing it up.  The most recent job that they had messed up was bringing back wood to the village so they could roast their bananas. Instead of bringing back wood, they pretended to sword fight and ended up breaking the sticks into tiny pieces that could not sustain fire. Ever since they were young they were the outcasts of the society and no one paid any attention to them.  Lal the other monkeys thought they were just failures but unbeknownst to them, they strategically did that so that they wouldn’t have to be counted on to do anything important. That is how they wanted to live their life.

Bananas and Freedom
One day they were walking along the trees and noticed a huge cache of bananas just hanging in a tree.  They all looked at each other and decided that that if they brought it back to the village that they would be considered heroes and treated as such.  They also agreed that if they were able to do that then they probably wouldn’t have to ever do any other task that the village asked of them.  So, John climbed to right above the bananas and started to pick each off one the bundle connected to the tree.  He started throwing them to Chester and Ray who started to have a competition to see who could catch and then carry the most bananas. Eventually, the tree was picked clean and they proceeded to make their way back to their village. When they arrived and all the other monkeys saw all the food they carried, they went wild.  They were going crazy over having an abundance on bananas to eat.  John, Chester, and Ray were proclaimed hero’s and from that day on they were never asked to do anything for the village.  They proceeded to live their life and be lazy for the rest of their days.

Three Monkeys. (No date)
iirliinnaa. Source: Pixabay


Author’s Note:
I wanted to make this story a little bit longer than the original.  I wanted to monkey’s to be lazy yet cunning not just lazy. It made sense to have to have them just want to live their lives and no be counted on. Having the three friends always mess up the tasks they are given was a cunning ploy by them to not have to do work.  It is the sign of intelligence, especially when they realize if they bring the bananas back they won’t have to do another task for the village.

Bibliography: Babbitt, Ellen. The Stupid MonkeysThe Stupid Monkeys

2 comments:

  1. Andrew, I like the addition of making the monkeys more cunning instead of just plain lazy in your story. In a way, a story like this could be seen as a way to show people that if you work hard for as long as you need to, you can live a happy life. Or I guess it could just go along the lines of if you hit the jackpot you live a happy life! Either way, this story was a fun little read from the tales we've been reading in class.

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  2. Howdy Andrew,
    this was such a fun little foray into rebranding. I love that you made these three monkeys trickier than their original story counterparts. Having them intentional screw up to get out of work is a fun idea and then establishing that their plan was to get out of work altogether rather than just being dumb was a pretty fun added layer.

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