I tried to retell a story that I don’t remember (Part 1): The Egg and The Sailor

When I was still in elementary school, I heard this story from my teacher. The problem is I don’t remember the full details of the story (hence, the title). I think that story is supposed to be an inspiring one, like the one you tell some student to be successful in life or something. To fill up the gaps, I make up a chunk of it from my memory.

Another thing, if you (the reader) know the origin of the story, do let me know. I am genuinely curious how correct or incorrect the retelling of my story is. I tried to google it but no luck came. It is also possible that this is an original story that my teacher put together on the spot. Moreover, don’t expect something too grand or life changing, this is a disappointing story.

So the story goes like this, one day there’s a group of sailors just kind of having a discussion by the docks. One sailor said something along the lines of “I bet you guys can’t make a single egg stand upright by itself”. This, my dear reader, is the beginning of where the nonsense begins. Another thing is I think that this sailor doesn’t have a given name in this story. So let us just call him Big Sailor.

Let’s imagine Big Sailor as a man in his 30s, and have a fat belly. With a beard that says “don’t mess with me”, and a face that shows he has won a lot of duels at the sea. Or you could just imagine him to be an average sailor, I don’t really remember.

So anyway, let us continue our story. Each one of the sailors takes up Big Sailor bet, and tries to tackle the challenge. They would take the egg, put it on the ground, and try balancing the egg. The egg, like you would expect, falls down sideways.

One particular sailor tried to hold onto the egg while it was still standing upright. He would hold it for a few minutes, try to find its stable position and make the egg stand without its support. After that, the moment of truth. He released his hold of the egg. Ultimately, the egg like you would expect just falls sideways as it is supposed to be.

Another sailor planned to tackle the challenge. Let’s imagine him as a calculated type of person, a type who won’t be the captain of the ship, but will provide a critical analysis for the crew. He would pick up the egg and raise his arm as high as he could. As you would think, he really tried to boil the egg. This man isn’t as smart as he looks as it turns out. He would raise his arm like this for minutes, then finally he would put it down. He then put it down on the ground, and without hesitation released the egg to stand by itself. The egg then would fall down sideways again, because it isn’t fully boiled yet.

I want to pause the story here, and let you, my dear reader, determine how the story ends. Remember this is a surprisingly disappointing story. To be exact, let us have this moment to think how will the egg get to be balanced to stand upright. Would it be something that uses an experienced sailor technique?

Then one sailor, in particular, stood up to the occasion. I remember my teacher called him something like Columbus or Marco Polo, which is probably wrong and has no context to the story whatsoever. So let us just call him the Cunning Sailor. The Cunning Sailor then would take up one egg, and then he would…

Okay, prepare for the disappointing part yet?

He would just crack the bottom of the egg. So you could see now the bottom of the egg would completely flatten out. Then he would just simply put the cracked egg down. Everyone would watch him put it down. As it turns out, the egg balanced on itself upright. A number of confusion is surrounding the group of sailors.

“I could balance it, if I were to do it like that”, says one of the sailors.

“Yeah, but the thing is you did not do it”, says our Cunning Sailor.

After that the story just kind of finished here.

I really think the (original) moral of the story is that to accomplish something badly, is better then to be a nerd, hahaha. So kids, there is probably not much of a lesson to be learned here. Just remember to only flatten the bottom side of the egg if you want to bested some nerds.