Who's got the button?

One of my favorite simple, sure-to-please stories is Syd Lieberman's retelling of "Joseph the Tailor." You probably know some variation of this Yiddish story. However, the only time I've known of dramatic tension in the story is through Lieberman's version:

Once upon a time, there was a tailor named Joseph, and he lived with his wife, Sarah. One day, Joseph made himself a big, beautiful blue overcoat. Now, Joseph looooved his overcoat, he wore it everywhere, but his wife Sarah, she hated it.

One day, Joseph's overcoat got so much mud on it that Joseph said, "Look, Sarah, my overcoat-- it's ruined!"

"Throw it away," said Sarah.

"Throw it away?" said Joseph (incredulously). "I'm a tailor."

So he cut and he snipped and he stitched and he sewed, and he turned his overcoat into a jacket.

Now Joseph loooved his jacket, he wore it everywhere, but his wife Sarah, she hated it....

I do quite a bit of improv with this story. The jacket gets holes ripped in the elbows, and Joseph turns the jacket into a vest, which gets runny egg all over it, which then gets turned into a scarf (coffee), a bow-tie (peach juice), and finally, a button to hold Joseph's trousers up. Each time something happens to Joseph's favorite bit of clothing, Sarah demands that Joseph throw the item away.

And of course, he won't.

Then, the day comes that Joseph loses his button. Distraught, he says, "Sarah! My button, it's lost."

Sarah puts her hands on her hips, and says, "This is the happiest day of my life. You can't make something from nothing."

Well, Joseph thinks about that. He thinks about the button, that used to be a bow-tie
that used to be a scarf, that used to be a vest, that used to be a jacket, that used to be an overcoat, and he says, "You know what, Sarah? You're wrong! I have just enough to make a story."

And that is the story I bring to you today.

The audience helps out with the cutting and snipping, the stitching and sewing. Inevitably, they chime in with Sarah when she says, "Throw it away." They yell "She hated it!" at the right times, too.

[Attention: Woe be unto you who decide you're "too cool" for audience participation. I will turn this little participation tale into a shaggy dog story of such epic proportions that you will wish you had rented The Aristocrats instead.]

I've been pretty snooty about versions of the "something from nothing" story that convey neither tension nor conflict. However, I recently found a version of the story as a song by Paul Kaplan, and I like it so much that I'm hoping to incorporate it into future gigs (I need to get permission first):

I Had an Old Coat

D
Had an old coat but the coat got torn,
(D)
what'll I do, what’ll I do?
                                          
Had an old coat but the coat got torn,
           A
what’ll I do, what’ll I do?
D
Had an old coat but the coat got torn,
       G
So I cut and I snipped and a jacket was born
           D         A         D
And I'll sing every day of my life.

***
You can find the rest of the song here. It's the last verse I really like:

When that button was almost gone,
what’ll I do, what’ll I do? 2x
When that button was almost gone,
With what was left, I made this song
Which I’ll sing every day of my life.