--Oscar Wilde

I'm zonked, and really just want to go back to sleep. But before I do that, let me explain a reference from yesterday's entry, by request. Specifically, I said, all the way at the end:

I'm mindful of the fable of the father, the son, and their donkey, but I'm willing to tinker with this a little bit more, if need be.

Apparently, that fable isn't as universal as I'd thought it was. So... summoned up from hazy recollections of multiple versions of the story read in childhood, here it is:

Once upon a time, a man and his son were walking to the marketplace with their donkey.

(I don't really know what they planned upon doing there. Perhaps there were some some saleable goods in the saddlebag. Perhaps they intended to buy some food. For all I know, the father sold his son into slavery once they got there, although that seems rather unlikely.)

So there they were, just a-walking down the street (singing "doo-wah ditty, ditty-dum-ditty-doo!") when a busybody approached them, and told them that they were doing things all wrong.

"You're doing things all wrong!" he said. "Why should you two both walk, when you have the donkey here anyway?"

The father and son looked at each other and shrugged. Neither minded walking, but the guy did have a point. "Okay," said the father to the busybody, "you have a point. Son, hop on." So the son got on the donkey.

They travelled down the road a bit longer, the father leading the donkey, with his son sitting on top. As they passed by, a woman suddenly yelled from her porch "For shame! You're a young man; you've got lots of energy. Why should you be taking it easy on that donkey, while your father has to walk?"

The father and son looked at each other again. "Okay," said the son, sliding off the donkey. The father got on in his place.

Once again, they continued along their way, the father sitting on his ass, and the son walking alongside. They'd hardly travelled fifty cubits when they realized that people were laughing at them.

"What's so funny?" asked the son.

"You!" replied a voice from the crowd of people, many of whom were getting a chance to be in a fable for the very first time, and were quite excited about it. A few were waving their hands furiously, to catch the narrator's attention, and some hastily-lettered "Hi, Mom!" signs were in evidence. (Usually, the narrators of tales such as these screen out such goings-on, but I'm too tired to stop them.) "Why do you need to choose who gets to ride? There's enough room on the donkey for both of you!"

The father and son looked at each other once again, secretly wishing that they'd been assigned a narrator who could draw on a wider range of body language. "Okay, son," said the father, "care to join me?" And the son got on. And they rode on together.

By this time, realizing that these two were willing to take just about any suggestion, a wag in the crowd decided to see how far he could push it. "Hey, you!" he yelled. "What are you doing to that poor donkey? Why should you get to ride, while it never gets a chance? Give the donkey a ride!"

"Give the donkey a ride?" replied the man, a bit incredulously.

"Yes," replied the crowd, getting into the spirit of things. "Give the donkey a ride!"

The father and son looked at each other, and sighed. Very well. They got off the donkey. They found a log nearby, and tied the donkey's legs in such a way that the rope was looped over the log, so that each carried one end of the log, and the donkey was held aloft -- although upside-down -- between them.

(This is admittedly a fairly bizarre image, now that I think about it. It worked in the illustrated versions I saw as a child, though.)

Anyway, they continued walking this way, and came to a bridge. They began walking across, when the donkey, looking down into the water, saw its reflection, and mistook it for another donkey. Company! What fun! So it suddenly twisted violently, causing the humans to lose their grips on the log. And SPLASH! it fell into the water.

Fortunately, the water wasn't very deep, so they got it out, wetter, but wiser, and they resolved that, henceforth, they would just do things their way, and not try to listen to every bit of advice offered by others. And so the man and his son walked on, beside their donkey.

And they lived happily ever after. The end.