Let me tell you the story of Tom Thumb!
Tom Thumb was born the last of seven brothers. He was thumb-sized when he was born and not all throughout his life which is what I was taught by cartoons. His parents were poor faggot makers and couldn’t afford to feed seven lazy boys so they took care of their problem the only logical way: by losing the kids in the forest.
The first time they tried to do this Tom knew what was up through eavesdropping so he gathered little white stones before they trekked out into the middle of nowhere and used the stones as markers to lead his brothers back home after his parents snuck away.
On the second attempt at abandonment his parents didn’t give Tom the time to gather stones so he cleverly dropped bread crumbs to create a trail he and his brothers could follow back. Guess what got eaten by birds before he could use it to get home. You’ll never guess, I’ll just tell you. The bread crumb trail!
The boys were super lost and sad about it but while his brothers just stood around and wept Tom climbed a tree to weep and spotted a house in the distance. Once they got there the lady of the house cried over them and insisted on their coming in and sitting by the warm fire and hiding underneath her bed because HER HUSBAND WAS AN OGRE. Why would you marry an ogre!? Her subterfuge was to no avail though as the ogre sniffed out the delicious meat morsels pretty much as soon as he got home and then made plans to eat them to death the following day with some of his ogre buddies.
During the night Tom switched the bonnets that he and his brothers were wearing with gold coins that the ogre’s seven daughters were wearing on their foreheads while they slept. Oh, didn’t I mention that the ogre has seven daughters? Sheesh, how weird. Anyway, they were nasty little things with sharp teeth and cooties. And also coins on their heads. I’m … I’m not sure why? Except they didn’t have coins on their heads anymore, the brothers did, so now when the ogre came in the middle of the night to slit the throats of seven kids he felt for the bonnets and accidentally murdered all his creepy little daughters!
Tom waited nervously for the ogre to go the heck back to sleep and then he escaped with his brothers through the woods and straight back the heck to their home.
ALMOST. They ALMOST got all the way home but NOT QUITE! The ogre, who owned seven league boots, caught up with them and would have gobbled them up except instead of sniffing them out of their hiding crack he just sat near them and fell asleep. Tom sent his brothers home, stole the boots and jogged back to the ogre’s house where he told the ogre’s wife about the ogre being accosted by thieves and sending Tom back to get all his treasure to pay the thieves a ransom.
(You haven’t missed anything, the stuff about the thieves was MADE UP by Tom! He was LYING!!)
So she gave him all of their money and Tom went home with it and then he and his brother and parents lived happily ever after. The story also includes a PS for those in the audience squeamish about Tom stealing all of the ogre’s treasure which says that MAYBE he only stole the ogre’s boots and then used those to make a fortune couriering the king’s messages back and forth. So, perhaps Tom Thumb was a little bit less larcenous than the mainstream ogre media would have us believe.
The end.
Except, what is the moral of the story? The only thing I could think of was that lazy children who don’t earn their keep get left in the woods while industrious children who aren’t above a little lying and stealing will live happily ever after.
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