Storytelling Week 11: What Happened To Jack's Wife?

"I'd like to start out by saying that I do love my wife. My actions may seem to prove otherwise, but I love her and this has just been a huge misunderstanding" Jack said quickly and nervously to the police officer. He was sweating profusely and didn't know if it was from the crazy London heat or how scared the police officer was making him. He kept thinking about the huge mistake he made and where his wife might be, which was making everything worse.

"Sir, you sold your wife. For a minikin pin. You essentially sold another human being, which is pretty illegal. Please explain how this is a misunderstanding and why I shouldn't take you to jail right now. Why would you do that to your wife?"

Jack fidgeted under the police officer's harsh stare. How could he explain that he didn't mean for this to happen? What if the police officer didn't believe him? He didn't want to go to jail. He just wanted to find his wife, take her home and forget that this entire thing ever happened.

Jack took a deep breath and began his story.

(Man being questioned by police)

"I had a very long day today. I had to work in the heat from 6 am to 6 pm, and I was just ready to go home and eat dinner and spend time with my wife. I got home, however, and she wanted to go out to dinner, because she too had a long day at work and didn't want either one of us to have to cook. I personally didn't want to leave the house, but I reluctantly agreed, and we headed out to one of our favorite neighborhood diners. We had a lovely meal and really enjoyed each other's company, as we always do, and talked out our days at work and caught up. We finished up our meal and, on our walk home, I saw a street vendor selling some unusual things. I have a strange habit of collecting objects that other people don't necessarily want, like I have a few old clocks sitting around, but none of them work so my wife just ends up getting mad at me -"

"Sir, please tell me how this is relevant to your story?" the police officer said in an exasperated tone.

"Oh yes, sorry. So anyway my wife just wanted to go home and really didn't want me buying anymore junk, but I insisted on stopping. We should...we should have just gone home. She finally agreed, but made me promise to only stay for a few minutes. I approached the vendor and saw that he had a strange collection of minikin pins, which are just small pins. He had multi-colored ones, which I just knew I needed for my collection. Here's where things started getting strange. He kept looking at my wife and it was making me very uncomfortable. I was trying to get out of there as quickly as possible, but still wanted the pins. He was jabbering on about how pretty he thought my wife was and how she should come visit him, and I kept trying to give him money but he wouldn't take it. I turned around for one second to grab the pin and he grabbed my wife and said that I had just traded the pin for her. He ran off and now I can't find them. I didn't actually sell my wife for the stupid pin, I was tricked. I just want to find my wife."

The officer looked bewildered for a minute and wasn't sure if he should actually believe the story. The man seemed sincere and was actually tearing up at the thought of his wife being gone.

"Sir, don't you know how crazy that story sounds?" the police officer said quietly.

"I know, but you have to believe me".

All of a sudden, the officer's partner wandered into the room and stated, "Another street vendor saw the vendor grab his wife and run off, so Jack is innocent. Sir, we are so sorry and are going to do everything we can to get your wife back".

Jack was elated and was led out to the waiting room until another detective could come get more information about his wife.

Bibliography: This story is based off of the poem about the man who sold his wife for a minikin pin in the British Nursery Rhymes Unit.

Author's Note: The rhyme about Jack selling his wife for a minikin pin is actually very short and gives very little detail about anything. The poem goes "Jack in the pulpit, out and in, sold his wife for a minikin pin". I thought that this rhyme was really funny and different since it does involve someone trading his wife for a minikin pin. Since it is so short and is only 14 words and gives very little background information or information about what happens in the future, I thought it would be fun to expand on it and turn it into a story. I'd like to think that Jack wouldn't really want to sell his wife for a minikin pin on purpose and would have done it on accident. It was kind of hard to come up with a way where someone could accidentally sell another person for an object, so it kind of made sense to turn it into a kidnapping story where Jack was tricked into giving his wife to the vendor for the pin. I'd assume that the police would have a hard time understanding why it happened, so having him questioned by the police seemed like a good place to start the story.