Joy & Forry & The Big Hunk

Now, Maya will remember, that once upon a time, in the ever so long ago, Granny was a little girl, and her name was Joy. And Great-uncle Forrest was a little boy, and he was called Forry. Now, when Joy was nine and Forry was four, they lived out in the country near Stockton, with their Little Mama and Daddy. Maya knows that now, Granny is as old as old and as wise as wise, but in those days she wasn't as old as old, she was just older than Forry, and she wasn't as wise as wise, she was just a wisenheimer. It so happens, that in those days, because she was still just Joy, and not yet Granny, Joy didn't always use her powers for good. Indeed, sometimes rather than wise, she was just more clever.

So, it happened in those days that Daddy would bring home treats for Joy and Forry to share. The way sharing was done in their family was that one child would divide the treat, and the other child would get to choose which part to have. That way, the idea was, everything would be fair, because if the treat was divided into unequal parts, the other child would choose the bigger piece. That would keep the one who did the dividing honest. And since Joy was five years older than Forry, everyone thought she would be more able to divide a treat into exact halves, and so she was always the one to do the dividing. However, Little Mama and Daddy had figured without Joy's dishonest cleverness.

Now, usually being five years older didn't help with treats, and usually being dishonestly clever did her no good either. However, very often, Daddy brought home as a treat Big Hunk candy bars. When Joy would divide a Big Hunk, she would break it right between the words. Maya may have noticed that Big has three letters, and Hunk has four. So, the piece that said Big was really the little piece. That mattered, because after Joy had divided the candy bar, she would say to Forry "Do you want the big piece or the other one?" Now, if Forry said he wanted the big piece, Joy gave him the one that said Big, but was really smaller. And if he said he wanted the other one, she gave him the smaller one (which said Big) and kept the one that was big, but said Hunk. If Forry complained to Little Mama and Daddy, they told him that as long as Joy divided and he chose, he was getting a fair deal (because they didn't know that she was dividing between the words). So, no matter what Forry said, he always got the same piece, and it was always the little one. And, since he was only four years old, and no one explained it to him, he couldn't figure out how to get the bigger piece and he couldn't figure out how to explain to Little Mama and Daddy what was happening. And although Granny is a little bit ashamed of herself about it now, then she was still only Joy and pretty set up in her own regard about how clever she was.

However, when Joy was 63 and had become Maya's Granny, on Forry's 58th birthday, she gave him a whole bag of mini-Big Hunks to settle her debt and he laughed and said that they were even.