Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Story: Humpty the Construction Worker

Humpty Dumpty sate on a wall;
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
Three score men and three score more
Cannot place Humpty Dumpty as he was before.

(traditional nursery rhyme)


An egg named Humpty was a hardworking construction worker with a family. Every day he woke up before the sunrise and set off to work. He had very little money, but did everything in his power to keep his family happy. He worked for the large construction company called Eggscelent Builders. His current project was building a very tall building, a building the size of a refrigerator. Humpty had a best friend named Yolker, who ironically had a terrible sense of humor and was always very serious. Before Humpty ascended to the top of the building, Yolker reminded him to put on his harness. Humpty refused because he found it uncomfortable. Humpty climbed to the very top of the building, and was sitting on the edge as he worked on a piece of the structure. A gust of wind blew and knocked him off of the tower. He tumbled to the bottom and shattered into many pieces. He was rushed to the hospital and would survive; however, he would no longer be able to work. It took numerous doctors and all of the scotch tape in the hospital in order to piece Humpty back together. There were at least 50 different pieces of Humpty to fit together like a puzzle. Eggscelent Builders would pay him workers compensation, and be fined a large amount of money. Humpty would regret not listening to his friend, and taking safety seriously. Humpty used his terrible situation to enlighten others who may not take safety seriously. Eggscelent Builders eventually ramped up safety practices, in order to ensure this tragedy never happened again. The motto “you have to crack some eggs to make a cake” took on a whole new meaning in the world of Humpty Dumpty.
Photo of Humpty Dumpty
Found on Pixabay website

Author's Note
Humpty Dumpty was always one of my favorite rhymes growing up. Humpty Dumpty was an egg who fell off of a wall and broke into many pieces. Many men tried to repair Humpty, but ultimately could not. When I read it for this assignment, I immediately thought of a construction worker on a wall. In my major and work experience, safety is stressed above everything else. I have heard many sad stories of safety being ignored and people being injured. I thought I would combine those two into a tragic story about Humpty the egg.

Bibliography. "Humpty Dumpty." from the Nursery Rhyme Book by Andrew Lang.  Website

2 comments:

  1. I grew up hearing the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme so I was curious to see how you were going to re-write it to make it different. Your adaptation was so unique and clever- I loved it (especially the title of the construction company). I also like how there was a happy ending to the story.

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  2. Hi Timothy, I have to admit the part of Humpty Dumpty having to build a tower that was compared to a size of a refrigerator was very funny. When I was much younger I used to love hearing this nursery rhyme, so I must say you made an even better one now. Moreover, I think that keeping him alive at the end of the story and making him able to prevent others from making the same mistake is a nice touch. However, I wonder if you could have added a superhero to save him like Superman in order to make it more creative and to add even more action to the story. Furthermore, I wonder how the doctors were able to assemble 50 pieces of his body because an egg is already small so I can not imagine the size of the pieces… It must have been very difficult not to make a mistake when putting them back.

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