Reader Response- Little Red Riding Hood

            As I was reading Little Red Riding Hood again for the first time in a long time, I realized that the picture that the words created in my head were exactly the same as when I was a child, listening to my mother tell me the story. I always pictured a bright, colorful, happy setting in the woods with bright blue skies with the sun shining through the tree tops, birds singing, animals running about, and Little Red Riding Hood skipping joyfully along the dirt path. Even when the “Big Bad Wolf” came into the scene, the mood never changed, for I knew that he was not a real wolf. Therefore, I never associated the wolf as being scary or mean, but more as a funny character who dressed up like a grandmother as a practice joke. All in all, the part of the tale that catches my attention the most now is the moral of the story which is of course, “never talk to strangers”, which catapults me down memory lane back to my childhood when one day, I did just the opposite of this.

            It was a hot summer day during the mid 1990’s. My mom went out to do some errands, so I went over to my best friend and neighbor Jason Toney’s house for a few hours. We did everything together even though we were almost a full two years apart; he was like my little brother. I remember we were playing in his driveway, by ourselves, which wasn’t unusual despite our young ages. We lived in a very safe condo development, and his mother was just right inside the house. Then all of a sudden, a man driving a blue car slowly pulled up to the end of the driveway and stopped. I looked at Jason and he looked at me. We both had no idea what to do, seeing as we had no idea who this person was or what they were doing, and this was not a street that just anyone drove down. The stranger rolled down the passenger side window and started talking to us, but we couldn’t really hear him. I being the oldest took initiative and did the talking. I took a few steps closer to the car while still keeping my distance, knowing that I shouldn’t be talking at all. The stranger then said, “Come closer to the car. Are your parent’s home”? We both nervously and quickly said yes, and then he proceeded to ask where both of us lived, and inquiring information that he did not need to know. I knew then that this was not a normal situation and that we needed to leave. Jason and I sprinted inside to tell his mom, and the stranger quickly drove away.

            Luckily for us, nothing bad happened to Jason or me that day, but only because we knew that we needed to flee the situation and stop talking to that man driving the car. Who knows, he might have been a nice person, but even a young ages like that, we knew we weren’t supposed to talk to strangers and he was very creepy about the whole ordeal. Jason’s mom told my mom about what happened when she got home and they were both very worried, but thankfully we never saw that man ever again.

Therefore, the moral of the story is of course, never talk to strangers. Even if the situation seems safe and nonthreatening, it’s not worth the possible consequences. Who knows, that stranger might just be the”Big Bad Wolf”.