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The walk to the grocery store

Alternate Title: “Fully Bespeckled” is fun to say.

Once upon a time there was an egg named Oscar. He woke up one morning, opened his door, looked up at the beautiful sun and said, “Ahhh, what a glorious day for a walk”.

So Oscar set out for a walk. He walked down the street, turned at the corner, and walked right up to the market. He walked in and strolled past all of the vegetables and saw his friend, Dog. You see, Dog is a dog (clearly), and Dog is Oscar’s friend.

Dog said, “Hello Oscar, What are you doing today?”

Oscar replied to Dog the dog, “I was going out for a walk, but it turned into a trip to the market. I think I might do some shopping.” After a pause, Oscar asked, “and what are you doing today?”

Dog said, “I’m just here to smell the steaks”.

Of course, smelling steaks didn’t sound like much fun to Oscar, being an egg and all, but he thought it would be perfectly reasonable for Dog to smell steaks that are in the market, because Dog is a dog.

So Oscar said goodbye to his friend and continued his shopping, and Dog returned to steak smelling.

Oscar was walking down the next aisle in the market when something suddenly caught his attention. Right there in front of him was a collection of kits that children used to color eggs at Easter time. One kit showed some eggs that were odd colors like red, purple, green, and orange. Oscar couldn’t remember ever seeing such colorful eggs. Another kit showed eggs that were stripped with different colors on the top, bottom and middle. But the third package showed eggs that were fully bespeckled. There were dots and specks of all different sizes all over the eggs.

You see, Oscar was slightly bespeckled, but he had always thought it would be fun to be fully bespeckled eggs. He imagined himself, being fully bespeckled, walking down the street in all of his fully bespeckledness. People (in his imagination) all commented, “what a lovely egg, not slightly but fully bespeckled.”

Oscar was so impressed with the idea of himself being fully bespeckled that he picked up the kit, purchased it at the counter, and rushed home straight away.

He immediately used the kit to do all kinds of bespeckleding to himself until he was, in fact, fully bespeckled. Oscar looked at himself in the mirror and being quite pleased walked out the door for another walk.

Sadly, people didn’t really react any differently to Oscar now that he was fully bespeckled. They just went on about their various errands without giving him much extra thought.

While Oscar was on his walk, he ran into his friend, Dog. [Now you may recall me saying earlier that Dog is a dog, so I won’t repeat it now. Oh no, I just did. Please forget that I said that.] … [Unless, of course, you did not recall me saying earlier that Dog is a dog and did not immediately reach that conclusion yourself. In that case, please remember it.]

Dog took one look at Oscar and said, “Why Oscar, you look quite bespecked today”.

Oscar, perking up, said, “Do you think I look fully bespeckled or only slightly bespeckled?”

Dog (a dog) replied, “Clearly, you are fully bespeckled.”

Oscar asked, “but do you think I look much more impressive being fully bespeckled and no longer slightly bespeckled?”

Dog replied, “You are my friend, and I love you dearly, so I’ll be honest. I kind of liked the slightly bespeckled Oscar better than the fully bespeckled Oscar. However, You are my friend no matter how bespeckled you are.”

Oscar, realizing his vanity was complete foolish, thanked Dog for setting him straight. He went home, washed off the egg dye, and went to bed. He realized that he was just the right kind of egg without any flashy dyes or some such nonsense, and he was happy to be himself again.

Even though he was slightly bespeckled.

The End

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The walk with four corners

Once upon a time there was an egg named Oscar.  He woke up one morning, opened his door, looked up at the beautiful sun and said, “Ahhh, what a glorious day for a walk”.

Oscar set out to walk down the street.  He got the end of the street and turned left.  He went to the end of that street and turned left again.  After walking some distance, he turned left again.  He then walked for a while and turned left again, eventually ending up before his own front door.

In front of his own door, he thought, “I’ve gone in a complete circle!”  but he immediately started thinking about the path he had taken, “If I were to draw my route on paper, I believe it would not be a circle at all, but would be a rectangle.  In fact, it might even be a square.”

You see, a rectangle is a particular geometric shape with four parallel sides (pointing in the same direction) and four identical corners that are each a right angle.  A square is a rectangle that also has four parallel sides and four corners that are right angles, but it’s sides are all the same length.

All squares are also rectangles but not all rectangles are squares.  You see, rectangles may have two sides that are a different length than the other two.

So Oscar concluded that he probably traveled in a square, not a circle.  Since he traveled in a square, he must have also travelled in a rectangle.

A Parallelogram is a lot like a rectangle.  It has two sets of parallel sides, but it may or may not have four right angles for the corners. So all rectangles are parallelograms, but not all parallelograms are rectangles.   Since all squares are rectangles, all squares must also be parallelograms.

So Oscar concluded that his journey was the shape of a square, rectangle, and parallelogram.

A Rhombus is a parallelogram that has four sides, each the same length, but the four corners are not necessarily right angles.  Therefore, all rhombuses are parallelograms, but not all parallelograms are also rhombuses.  All squares are also rhombuses, but not all rhombuses are squares.  If a Rhombus is a square, it also a rectangle, but that’s beside the point. (And I apologize for throwing in that completely useless piece of information.)

So Oscar concluded that his path was a Square-Rhombus-Rectangle-Parallelogram, and he was quite pleased with himself.

A quadrilateral is any shape with four sides that are straight lines.  The lines can be any willy-nilly length that they want and the corners can be any unpredictable angle.  (You can guess by my tone that I don’t care much for quadrilaterals, because, like Oscar, I like things to be neat and orderly.)  However, a quadrilateral could (but may not) have four sides that are the same length and could (but may not) have four corners that are right angles.  Therefore, all squares, rhombuses, parallelograms and rectangles are also quadrilaterals, but not all quadrilaterals are any of those other things.

So Oscar concluded that his path was simultaneously a quadrilateral, parallelogram, rectangle, rhombus, and square.  All in all, it was a very busy day for an egg, so Oscar decided it was time for bed.  And so he went back in his flat, closed the door, and climbed right into bed.

The End