Blog#2: Be Careful What you Wish for

For this post, I read another story from the same collection, “When you are Engulfed in Flames” by David Sedaris. The story that I read, called “What I Learned” (pages 71-81), was one of the few stories written by Sedaris that is fiction rather than nonfiction. This story was about a man who went through Princeton, telling his dad that he was going to major in patricide. Despite his father’s extreme excitement over this idea, he does not kill his father, at least in the literal sense of the word. He majors in literature, but remains unemployed for several years after graduation. He eventually writes books, telling true stories about his family. His parents are mortified. They claim that he is killing them, to which the son replies, “But I thought that’s what you wanted?”(80). His mother replies, “We did, but not this way” (81). Despite how unrealistic this story is, it conveys an important message: be careful what you wish for. Because this man’s parents had show such an interest in being killed by their son, he may have felt that he could do anything to them. After all, if they wanted him to kill them, they obviously wouldn’t care about a little embarrassment. Because of this, a book was published that made them the laughing stock of the neighborhood. We can learn for this fictional story about watching what we wish for, as well as making sure that other people understand what we want and what is okay for them to do in regards to things that affect us.

*My blog wasn't posting before, but I have it worked out now, so I just reposted my first post onto my blog*