John Yowan Hour
1
Ms. Keeley Type
3
Freshman English
2 February 2003
The significance of the title of the
story One Ordinary Day, With Peanuts is that it is not ordinary at all,
at least not for most people. In the story the man, Mr. John Philip Johnson has
what is for him and ordinary day. He goes around with peanuts in his pockets
and is really nice to people all day. We later find that his wife does what
seems to be the exact opposite of him. For them this is an ordinary day.
I don't think that Mr. Johnson' s
day is ordinary at all. Most people have jobs that they have to go to, and
other things that they have to do. Most people can't afford to spend the whole
day giving out money and just wandering around town.
In the story Mr. Johnson first meets
up with a lady that is moving out of her apartment. She has a young son that
keeps getting in the way. Mr. Johnson offers to watch her son for her, the lady
is not sure but then agrees. Mr. Johnson sits with the boy and gives him
peanuts and they talk about where the boy is going to move. I don't think that
would happen in real life in a large city. Most people would not leave their
children in the care of strangers.
The next thing that happens in the
story is when Mr. Johnson meets up with the lady. He meets her after she walks
into him on the sidewalk. Mr. Johnson ends up talking the lady out of going to
work by offering to pay her for her time. Then Mr. Johnson bumps into a young
man that was walking down the sidewalk and talks him into meeting the woman. He
offers them money to spend the day together and they do exactly that. Later in
the story he sees them looking for an apartment so he tells them about the
apartment of the lady that he had met earlier in the day when he was watching
the child. This is not ordinary because most people would not just meet up by
chance with the help of a stranger and decide to get an apartment together.
The next thing that happens in the
story is when Mr. Johnson is eating lunch and he sees a poor person outside.
After lunch Mr. Johnson gives the man enough money to buy lunch at the
restaurant. This is kind of ordinary. A lot of people might be willing to help
out a poor person that is looking into the window of a restaurant.
Mr. Johnson then allows several
people to take taxies before him and when he finally gets a taxi for himself he
gives the driver money to bet with. Mr. Johnson learned that if the driver had
no passenger that evening he was going to go bet it on a horse race. Mr. Johnson
told him that he shouldn't bet that day and that if he waited he would give the
driver ten dollars to match the ten dollars that the driver already had. The
driver agreed. I don't think that this is ordinary because most people that I
know would not give a taxi driver money to bet with.
The last thing that happened in the story was when Mr. Johnson got home he saw his wife and she talked about all of the bad things that she had done that day. The story ends with them agreeing to switch places that next day. This was not an ordinary story at all. The ending was a real surprise and I did not expect it.