I have some problems with the famous fairy tale, “The Gingerbread Man.” In it, an old woman makes a gingerbread man because she’s hungry, and as soon as he comes out of the oven, he runs away and taunts the old woman mercilessly.
The Gingerbread Man then evades a little old man, a pig, a cow, and a horse – each of which tells him to stop because they want to eat him, and he outruns them all. What I don’t get is that, if this supernatural cookie is so fast, why didn’t the little old man trot off and get a rock, or better yet, a rifle? He may be able to run, but he’s still going to explode into crumbs if he gets hit by a rock.
Also, the moment the pig started talking, why didn’t the little old woman and the little old man hold up and realize they could make some crazy money taking a talking pig on tour? AND a talking cow and a talking horse! They’d never be hungry again with a cash cow, cash pig, and cash horse. They could’ve simply waved to the Gingerbread Man and tell him to have a nice life, and stop being such a taunting dick.
Even still, why wasn’t the little old lady amazed and happy for the Gingerbread Man? She created him, and brought him to life. You’d think she’d be excited by her new Lazarus-like powers, and go on animating all kinds of baked beings. Maybe she’d have learned her lesson, and the next thing she’d bake would be a Gingerbread Ox, so that it could help with the farm. Maybe a whole bunch of gingerbread men, only this time she’d have made little rings on their backs attached to cables, so that when they came out of the oven they’d already be on a tether?
Or maybe she could’ve just been happy that she was now a creator of life – a domestic god capable of making sentient life from dough. You’d think that at a bare minimum she’d want to protect and love her creations, like any good mother would.
But she still should’ve thrown a rock at him, just in case.
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