Short Stories and my thoughts

Reading the short stories was fun and interesting especially since they crossed so many different ideas.  A short story that I really enjoyed reading was “Walking the baby to the liquor store”.  The story is about a father taking his baby to a nearby liquor store and just enjoying each other’s company.  “The baby adores going to the liquor store” is a line in the story and gives the feeling of bonding and development in life.  As you’re reading the story, you read a line saying, “Believe me, I wouldn’t miss these excursions for the world.”  This line by itself just helps to picture the love a father has for his baby and the bond they have together.  This short story did a great job in taking an ordinary event and using it to describe the relationship of a parent and child. 

Though I have had no experience with combat and going off to fight a war, reading the short story “The Colonel” helped to describe the pain a person has coming back from war.  The story paints a picture of an evening meal of a family and a guest who is new to the scene.  In the beginning, the guest describes the awkward family dinner and does this by describing everything around him like, “the moon swung bare on its black cord over the house.  On the television was a cop show.”  Just reading the first paragraph made you want to walk away because it was so awkward and uncomfortable.  Then the story starts to incorporate the family members and finally the Colonel.  A disturbing image was the scene with the Colonel and the ears, “the Colonel returned with a sack used to bring groceries home.  He spilled many human ears on the table.  They were like dried peach halves.”  This scene just helped to further describe the relationship between the family members toward the Colonel especially with, “My friend said to me with his eyes: say nothing.” 

The funniest short story was “Wallet” and how it described a father and son getting into trouble, but in a good way.  Starting off, the story describes the boy’s father planning to trick pickpocketers into stealing a fake wallet filled with useless junk.  “It hangs out fat with desire.  “All oyster,” he says to me, “no pearl.” This line did a great job in expressing the silliness of the father, in his attempt to be a trickster.  At the mall the father tries to bait someone into stealing his wallet by “trying to act feeble and childlike”.  When you read this story, you’re thinking to yourself how you hope they succeed at catching a criminal.  At the end of the story when the salesclerk returns the wallet, after someone tried to steal it, and all the junk “floats to the floor”, you can’t help but laugh.  The ending to the story is great and hilarious when the father runs to the car shouting “drive fast, drive fast”.  Overall I enjoyed this story immensely.