Guest Author — Stephanie Welbaum’s Feghoot

This was written by my niece Stephanie.

Once there was a fisherman who lived next to the sea.  He loathed his job and longed to move far away to a big city, but was too poor and could barely afford the shack in which he lived.  Day after day, he would leave at the crack of dawn to sit out on the water with his net, hoping for a big catch.  However, he never caught anything more than a few skimpy butterfish.  Exhausted and frustrated, he would wander back home and wish for better luck the next day.  All seemed hopeless, and the fisherman started to question why he bothered putting in any effort when he never got anything out of his labor.

One day, something incredible happened.  As he was making his routine trek to his boat, something caught his attention in the corner of his eye.  Sitting in another boat, just a few feet away from  his own, sat a enormous net that was bursting full of shellfish.  Since there was obviously no one around, he immediately ran over and gleefully started lifting the net into his own boat.  Later that day, he brought his findings to the market and sold it all for lots and lots of money.  He returned home, still amazed at his sudden change in luck.

The next morning, the fisherman awoke in a good mood after remembering the events of the previous day.  He got up to make his usual journey to the docks when he realized something.  When he checked his wallet for money, it was completely empty.  Instead, there was a note from the man who the fisherman had stolen from.  Although he didn’t have much to begin with, now he had genuinely nothing.  Devastated, the man started crying.  He realized that even though he had been desperate, his act of stealing was wrong; he should have never moved a mussel.

This is an example of a feghoot — a humorous story ending in a pun (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feghoot).

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