SOME PARENTS SHOULDN’T BE PARENTS

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“Pout, baby, pout! Give me all you got! Oh yeah… Yeah! That’s it. Now walk slower. No, slower….”

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At least they didn’t dress her up like a pot of honey.

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WONDERFUL NEWS!!!

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A Grim Fairy Tale – THE HANDSOME MONSTER

Hello, children. I am Brother Grim. Would you like to hear a story?

Once upon a time, there was a handsome monster.  But he wasn’t born handsome.

He wasn’t born at all.   He was made.  A brilliant young scientist with a fetish for reanimating dead tissue made the monster from bits and pieces of dead people.

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An early attempt.

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 The young scientist did it in a laboratory he built in an abandoned castle in the middle of nowhere.

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He chose the abandoned castle for four reasons. First, the price was right.  The place where the castle was built was experiencing a deep economic depression.

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Years before, the local real estate market was red hot.  People bought castles and then resold them at a profit, over and over again.

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But when this bubble burst, it drove property values lower and lower until, by the time the young scientist was looking for a place to do his experiments, he could buy a castle for next to nothing and, if it was a “fixer-upper” he could buy it for even less.

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"It only needs a little work."

The second reason the young scientist bought the castle was because it was isolated and provided him with privacy.   The young scientist wanted to keep his experiments secret because, at that time, the reanimation of dead tissue upset stupid people much like stem cell research upsets stupid people today.

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Is also afraid of frozen food (not mentioned in the Bible).

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 The third reason the young scientist wanted to experiment with dead tissue in secret was because he found the creation of life distinctly enthralling, and people with socially unacceptable desires prefer privacy when there is any chance their socially unacceptable desires might manifest.

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The obvious benefits of privacy.

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 The fourth reason the young scientist chose that particular location to perform his viscerally unsettling experiments was because the economic conditions that depressed the local real estate market also impoverished a nearby village.  The young scientist was from a wealthy family, and, as a member of the 1%, he knew that poor people embodied four virtues that would advance his interests – poor people lack curiosity, they keep to themselves, they overlook the eccentricities of the rich, and they die in large numbers.

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Poor people are buried on their sides to save space.

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 So the young scientist built his laboratory high inside a castle in the middle of nowhere near a poor village with a busy graveyard.  He built a man, stitched together from bits and pieces of dead people he “borrowed” from the village graveyard and, in time, his experiments bore strange fruit.

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“It’s alive! Alive!!!” the young scientist shouted, filled with a love that dare not speak its name.

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But, as quickly as the thrill coursed through his body, it vanished just as quickly when the young scientist realized that the man he made was incredibly ugly.

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It was a gross miscalculation. Even worse, the young scientist overestimated poverty’s effect on the local populace. They found out about his monster, but they did not shrug it off due to lethargy or indifference.

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The villagers didn’t look the other way as they would have overlooked the excesses of other wealthy people acting badly, such as flamboyant homosexuals, or those who abuse their domestic servants, or those who use political influence to manipulate economic policy to their further enrichment at the poor’s expense and enhanced demise.

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Reanimating dead bodies scavenged from the local cemetery was just too much to overlook and, in response, the local populace organized into a large mob, armed with torches and pitchforks, bent on killing the young scientist and destroying his unholy monster.

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They killed the young scientist, but the monster got away. He wandered  alone, afraid, and friendless.

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Then one day, deep in the forest, the monster stumbled upon a little cabin where lived an old, kindly plastic surgeon (the cabin was a  vacation home).  The old man took the monster in and offered to inject some collagen into his lips.

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At first, the monster refused.

“Needles, bad,” the Monster said. 

But, in time, he learned to trust the old man, signed some consent forms, and submitted to the procedure.

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The result was nothing less than spectacular.  Rounder, fuller lips transformed the monster from ugly into handsome.

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And, in the twinkling of an eye, the monster’s fortunes changed. 

He found an agent.

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He made a sex tape that was “accidentally” released to the internet.

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He was recruited for a new reality television show The Real Monsters of the Enchanted Forest.

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His sudden fits of anger and violence were especially popular with the audience.

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He was a frequent guest on late night chat shows, with interchanges similar to the following:

LENO

I’m told you don’t like fire.

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MONSTER

Fire, bad!

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LENO

I’m also told that you are being considered to play Joey in a remake of the poplar television show Friends.

MONSTER

Friends, good…

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But some things are just not meant to be.  One day when the monster was on tour promoting his new celebrity fragrance Menacing, he was killed by a mob of blind peasants

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(who lost their sight due to malnutrition and lack of basic health care) – which is a powerful sermon on the fragility of modern celebrity.

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A Grim Fairy Tale – THE NOVICE

Hello, children. I am Brother Grim. Would you like to hear a story?

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THE NOVICE

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Once upon a time in a city carved out of the Central American jungles,  a novice priest of the Feathered Serpent sat on a stone bench in the High Priest’s ante chamber, waiting for the High Priest to finish with a sacrifice.

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The novice rehearsed in his mind what he was going to say to the High Priest. Suddenly, the door opened, and the usher – resplendent in his brightly feathered robes – came out and beckoned the novice into the audience chamber. The High Priest was standing at the window, looking down at the bustling metropolis.

“Praise the Feathered Serpent,” the novice intoned.

The High Priest looked away from the window and barely acknowledged the salutation.

“Please sit down,” the High Priest said. He gestured to a stone bench by the wall. Both novice and High Priest sat down together.

“How long have you been a novice here at the temple?” the High Priest asked.

“Two years, Excellency.”

“Two years. I talked to the faculty about you. They tell me that you are a good student. Hard working and spiritually gifted.”

“Thank you, Excellency.”

“So what went wrong out there today?”

The novice expected the question, but not the bluntness of its delivery. He swallowed hard before answering.

“I have no excuse, Excellency.”

“I’m not looking for excuses. I want an explanation. You’ve been here two years. You’ve probably assisted in hundreds of sacrifices. Today was your first unassisted solo. So what went wrong?”

“I really don’t know, sir. Everything was going fine. I recited the prayer, made the first incision and reached into the prisoner’s chest cavity. I felt the Feathered Serpent watching over and guiding me, I swear. I’m sure the crowd felt it too. I found myself holding the beating heart up high, showing it to the crowd. It was glorious.”

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“And then…” The High Priest prompted.

“And then the heart just slipped out of my hand and went flying. I think it hit someone in the head.”

The novice sat silent in his shame and disgrace. But then, to his utter amazement and relief, the High Priest laughed.

“You know,” the High Priest said. “many in the crowd hope that the priest performing the sacrifice will slip up.”

“You really think so?”

“It’s human nature. Heck, its cheap entertainment. The peasants even wager on it.”

“They do?”

“Yes. We tried to stop it once, but we gave up. I’m sure the betting was rather heavy on your first solo.”

“And I am thoroughly ashamed -”

“Don’t be. It happens to the best of us. I know.”

“To you?” the novice asked.

“No, but it happened to my great and noble predecessor.”

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“Really?”

“Sure. I was there. The old coot hadn’t performed a sacrifice for over ten years, you know, being busy with administrative duties. But it was the Feast of the Flatulent Twins and he decided to do it himself. I’ll never forget it. There he was – on the sacrificial platform at the top of the pyramid – he made the cut, reached into the chest cavity, pulled out the heart, and lifted it up – still beating – to show it to the crowd below on the steps. And then, pop! It shot out his hand and up into the air. You never saw an old man move so fast. He tried to catch it with his other hand, but that heart shot into the air again. This went on for about five grabs when he finally missed and the heart plopped onto the steps in front of him. Talk about embarrassing.”

“It’s hard to believe.”

“Believe it. But the next day it was forgotten, and my old master served as high priest for another ten years, and even performed – successfully – a sacrifice or two. And that’s my point. Don’t let this little mistake shake your confidence. When you fall off of a llama what do you do? You get right back up on that llama and ride it!”

“Yes sir!”

“You have potential, young man. You might even have my job one day.”

“Oh, no, I’m not -”

“Sure you are. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. Anyway. There’s an opening for tonight’s sacrifice. Interested?”

“Yes, of course!”

“That’s the spirit.”

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But it happened again. The Novice slipped at the evening sacrifice and the heart went flying.And the novice was banished from the priesthood forever.

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