Popular Mechanics, but not the magazine kind...

"In this manner, the issue was decided" (37).

If there is one thing I love more than seeing an actual short story, then it would probably be getting to the end of the story to see this statement.  Why even write the story if the author is too lazy to finish the story for me!  I mean, the whole story was full of suspense, but why should the last sentence put me on suspense when I know for a fact that the author is not going to be getting rid of it for me.  Okay, now I guess I have to figure out for myself what this issue that was decided in some unmentioned manner.


The manner was probably the struggle that the couple had to undertake to win the baby. It kind of reminded me of the epic struggles my dog and I have whenever she wants to play with her Frisbee because she will go great distances to save that thing.  The manner is kind of foreshadowed in the first paragraph when the "weather turned" and "it was getting dark on the inside."

I cannot really decide what the issue was.  It just seems to obvious that decided who gets the baby would be the issue, so I will over complicate the subject.  I think that the issue was whether the man or the woman was the head of the household.

So now the decision.  The man seemed to win the baby, but I am not convinced that the baby actually survived this ordeal.  I think that since the situation is the couple splitting up, the decision was that neither of them won because they were in love and lost.

...maybe?