Week 1 Story Telling: The Foolish Ass

There lived two Asses named Jena and Jippy. Their owner was a very nice man who worked very hard to help his family sustain. Jena is like her owner- hardworking. On the other hand, Jippy likes to try to find a way out of work. One day, the owner took Jippy to his work to bring back salt to the village to sell it to the villagers. When Jippy got back home, he complained to Jena how heavy the salt bags were. Jippy also complained about how heartless their owner is and he wants to teach his owner a lesson. Jena warned him to not do anything stupid and reminded him how generous their owner is and how well he takes care of both of them. Jippy ignored Jena's words. The next day when Jippy was crossing the lake with salt bags, he slipped and fell in to water. His owner pulled him out of the river with great difficulty and examined for wounds or cuts. The owner only found very minor scratches on Jippy. They proceeded to cross the river. Jippy noticed that the weight on this back have lessened by more than half. 

Most of the salt is dissolved from the bags

When they got home Jippy overheard the owner talking about how less salt there is remaining and they won’t be able to make a profit out of selling the salt he brought home. Jippy approached Jena with joy and told  her “look Jena, I have a plan. I fell down when we were crossing the river and the salt I was carrying dissolved in to the river and I only had to carry half as much as weight.”

Jena responded by saying,  “oh ohhhh, I see where this is going”

Jippy- “Oh yes! I am going to fall again tomorrow. This way I will also teach our owner a lesson. If he can’t sell all the salt, he won’t make any profits from his business”

Jena- “Your plan is only going to invite danger, it is better to do your work properly”

Jippy turned his head back to Jena and planned to proceed with this plan.

The next day Jippy fell in to the river and carried half as much salt back home. Without the profit from the salt business the owner didn’t have enough money to buy enough food to feed both Jena and Jippy. Since Jena is hard working and is more useful to the owner, he fed her and not Jippy. Jippy was so aggravated that he decide d to stay in water till all the salt melted away.

The next day, Jippy fell in to the river again, this time when he got up; he felt that his bags got heavier. Jippy didn’t realize that the owner started sponge business and the bags he was carrying was filled with sponges. He reached home starving and tired from carrying the extra weight.

Ass caring a heavy load

Jippy realized his mistake and decided to follow his owner’s order and work hard from then on. 

Author's note: The story above is based on the fable "The Ass and The Load of Salt" taken from Aseop for Children by Anonymous, Illustrated by Milo Winter (1919). "The Ass and The Load" of Salt fable made me think about how we all try to put in less amount of effort and expect great results. Usually, when we don’t work hard enough and do our job properly, we end up with twice the work load. In this story, the Ass didn’t realize how blessed he was to have a caring owner who takes care of him, Instead of being thankful, the ass was always complaining and being ungrateful. I wrote this story to show everyone what will occur when we are not grateful for what we have and when we try to avoid work and go around it. The main twist in my story from the original story is that I added one more Ass named Jena, who is like her owner- hardworking. I chose two images to illustrate the story. Image one shows an ass with not heavy load and the second image show an ass with a heavy load. The first image was used to show how the salt dissolved and the ass only had to carry less load and second image is to show the extra amount of weight he had to carry due to his own actions.