Storytelling: Week 10 Strange Pie

The contestants all lined up, waiting to register for the most prestigious pie eating contest.  The contest always drew such a large crowd and number of participants due to its large prize.  Whoever ate the most pies in four minutes would be awarded a brand new Corvette. 

Registration ended and the contestants were patiently awaiting their pies to begin the contest.  The pies were brought out one by one, each pie having a different and unique flavor. 

What the contestants didn’t know ahead of time was that the pies were not the normal pies they thought they would be.  In previous years, there were the standard apple pies, banana cream, key lime, blackberry, chocolate mousse, and peach.  This year, the tables were turned and the pies weren’t their normal household favorites. 

The announcer stepped up in front of the crowd and shouted, “Welcome, welcome to the pie eating contest!  This year, we’ve done something different with the pies and we think you’ll be surprised,” he said.

“Prepare yourselves audience and contestants.  Under your seats you will find a description of all of the pies this year.”

As the crowd reached under their seats, the look on their faces was pure disgust.

The paper read:

This year, we will be replacing all tasty pies with ones less appealing.  Continue reading for a full list of this year’s pies.

Instead of apple pie, we are serving a delicious siracha pie – spicier than you could imagine

For the banana cream pie, we are having a mayonnaise and whipped cream pie

Key lime will be turned into a cactus puree pie

Blackberry pie has transformed into a hearty eggplant pie

Our traditional chocolate mousse will instead be a pepper blend pie – with jalapenos, bell peppers, and most importantly, ghost peppers

And just because we don’t want to be too mean, peach pie will remain the same.

Thank you for your participation and support of this year’s contest.

It was time.  The contestants were to begin eating the new pie creations.  Once the whistle blew, the contestants were off to a hesitant start.  One brave participant stuck his fork right into the siracha pie, took a bite, and threw up immediately.  Several others tried but had the same experiences.  No one could keep it down.  For the next four minutes, no one touched any of the other pies until the competition was officially over. 

Since technically no one ate any of the pies, the grand prize belonged to no one.  There the Corvette sat, in perfect view of all the contestants, without a new owner. 

While the contestants were upset about their defeat, they all agreed that the new car wasn’t worth it.  Why they decided that it wasn’t worth it, no one knows.  I mean, come on, it’s a new Corvette.  Suck it up.  Eat some siracha pie.  

Pie eating contest - Huckleberry Festival

Author’s Note: This story was based off of Mole Wins theRace with Coyote and the Other Animals in the Apache Unit.  In the original story, animals were competing in a race in order to marry a woman if they got to the finish line first.  In the end, the mole ended up marrying the woman while the other competitors had no idea and continued running towards the finish line.  I chose this story to retell because I liked the idea of a race or competition of some sort that had a big prize.  I changed the foot race into a pie eating contest because I thought it was more fun and changed the normal pies to gross ones because it’s not something I have ever heard of before and thought it would be interesting and different.  

Reading Diary B: Apache Unit

One of my favorite stories from the second half of the unit was Coyote Tries to Make His Children Spotted.  Like many of the other stories I’ve read in this unit, I really liked the beginning and then it made quite the turn.  The story was about how a coyote wants his children to be spotted like the deer’s fawns.  The deer tells the coyote that the reason fawns have spots is because they stand by a fire and the sparks give them spots.  It seemed like a cute story to begin with but then turned dark when the coyote tried that method with his children and they were all burned to death.  I think I might consider retelling this story so that it isn’t so sad. 

I have noticed that the reoccurring theme throughout this unit seems to be death.  I also liked the story Coyote Kills the Prairie Dogs.  Even though the story was dark, I liked that it was centered on a dance.  I liked that a Wildcat was introduced towards the middle of the story because it added an extra character. 

Another story I liked was Coyote and the Mexicans.  I liked the set-up of the story and the way that all of the dialogue was separated into their own lines.  It made the reading flow smoothly and helped show which character was talking. 

Still, I thought all of the stories were strange but in a good way.  The stories were different than most that I’ve read so I’m glad I got to read a variety of different types of stories.  

fawn in a field

Reading Diary A: Apache Unit

This week I decided to read stories from the Apache Unit.  

Even though The Culture Heroes and Owl was a very strange story, for some reason, I liked it.  When I first read the story, I didn’t think it would turn out the way it did. In the story, when the companions wanted something to play with, I thought the story would be a fun story about some new type of toy that they came up with or made in order to entertain themselves but then it quickly changed as I kept reading.  Towards the end, the story got a bit repetitive with only minor changes each time. 

One of the other stories I liked was Naiyenesgani Rescuesthe Taos Indians.  This story was similar to the first one I liked in that it was pretty repetitive as well.  Different from the first one, the second story was more repetitive at the beginning instead of the end of the story.  One thing that I found interesting in all the stories, this one especially, was all of the different names and spellings of names.  Most of them I don’t know how to pronounce.  I think if I were to retell any of these stories I’d come up with much simpler names. 

My favorite story of the first half was definitely The Monster Fish because it reminded me of a story that I retold a couple of weeks ago.  My story was about a lake monster which kept me interested in this story as I kept reading it.  I think I might choose this story to retell but I’d have to put a very different spin on it so it differs from my original storytelling post.

Fish