Week 7 Story: Flames of Jealousy
Portfolio Story
It was the fall of 2003 at the Huston Huffman fitness center on the campus of the University of Oklahoma. A junior student at the university, John Johnson, spent his school years working there. In fact, he had spent the last three years working at the fitness center. He was highly experienced and, by any measure, the best employee that the university had to offer. He was dutiful, punctual, happy, and eager to learn. He had struck up a friendship with the manager of the fitness center, Mr. Adams, over the previous years. They became very good friends. They spent their weekends together at OU football games and grilling at each other’s house.
It was the fall of 2003 at the Huston Huffman fitness center on the campus of the University of Oklahoma. A junior student at the university, John Johnson, spent his school years working there. In fact, he had spent the last three years working at the fitness center. He was highly experienced and, by any measure, the best employee that the university had to offer. He was dutiful, punctual, happy, and eager to learn. He had struck up a friendship with the manager of the fitness center, Mr. Adams, over the previous years. They became very good friends. They spent their weekends together at OU football games and grilling at each other’s house.
John was a health and exercise science major at the university. It was always his dream to run a fitness center. He loved training people to meet their fitness goals, and he loved being a part of the University of Oklahoma community. It was no stretch to say that his dream job was held by his friend and manager. This undoubtedly led to jealousy. John was frequently daydreaming and plotting up ways to get the job from his friend. Suddenly, the opportunity presented itself.
“Are we meeting up this weekend?” Mr. Adams asked of John.
“Absolutely,” John replied. “Be at my house at 6 for the game. We will grill some of the best burgers you will ever taste.”
John was beginning to put his plan in place.
“I will grill some burgers to the best of my ability. They will be the most delicious burgers in Norman. Mr. Adams knows I am an excellent cook. Then, I will trick him,” John thought to himself.
Mr. Adams arrived and was drawn inside by the deliciously sweet aroma of burgers that filled the air.
“Man, I cannot wait to try this,” Mr. Adams said as he sunk his teeth into a burger. “Mmmmm, this is absolutely delicious. Tell me how you make such delightful burgers. Nothing I try seems to work.”
“The secret is all in the crispy crust,” John replied. “You want to char the outside while leaving the middle of the burger juicy. My trick is to splash a little bit of gasoline on the grill during cooking. This flames the grill up and blackens the outside.”
Mr. Adams was in disbelief. This sounded dangerous.
“Here, I will show you,” John said.
John took a gasoline container that he had already filled with a little bit of burger grease rather than gasoline. He dumped the grease on the grill and there was indeed a small flame up that charred the cooking burgers.
“Wow,” Mr. Adams remarked. I cannot wait to try this.
Author’s Note:
I based my story on the tale of Why the Bat Flies at Night. This story discusses the tale of a bat and a rat who are friends. However, the friendship was not perfect. The bat was extremely jealous of the rat. The bat had a recipe for a delicious soup. The rat loved the soup, so the rat asked how it was made. The bat convinced the rat that he boils himself in the water to give it a better taste. This sounded unbelievable. To gain credibility, he demonstrated by jumping in warm water. The rat went home to try this. He had a pot of boiling water made and jumped in only to burn to death. His wife found him dead and was irate. The king ordered the bat to become a prisoner. People tried to catch him all day, so the bat had to change his habits. It is said that this is why the bat only comes out at night now. I thought this would be a fun story to retell with different characters in an OU setting. I told a story of two men who are friends but one is secretly jealous. Mr. Adams is the rat in my story and John is the bat who tricks him out of jealousy. The story unfolds is a very similar fashion, but the characters are more modern and can be related to more than animals. Jealousy is a feeling more associated with humans than animals, so I thought it would be great to use human characters for my story. I also tried to tie in OU as much as possible to continue that theme for my portfolio. Just as the bat had to change his habits and fly only at night, John had to change his habits and future plans as he will never be the manager of a fitness center due to his bad deeds of jealousy.
Bibliography: Why the Bat Flies at Night
Hi Andy,
ReplyDeleteThis was an interesting take on this story, you made such a simple common sense thing into something believable with the demonstration of "gasoline" which was actually burger grease. As you mentioned in your Author's Note, this way of telling the story was definitely much more relatable. I did see how you incorporated OU into your story by creating a character with a unique background of wanting to own a fitness center. I look forward to seeing how you can incorporate your appreciation of food into your stories.
Hi Andy,
ReplyDeleteI found your story very interesting to read. I was not expecting John’s jealousy to get so intense that he would eventually plot an evil plan to kill Mr. Adams. I wonder what ended up happening to John and how the wife of Mr. Adams knew that is was John who wanted Mr. Adam dead. I thought this was a great story and very well written.
Andy,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your retelling of Why the Bat Flies at Night. Especially how you included OU in the story! At first I was a bit curious about if this was a story about yourself, but then it took some twisted turns and it became very clear that it wasn't!! It was honestly shaping up to be quite a realistic story there until the end!
Good luck,
Brady