Hamsters On His Head March 29, 2009

Once upon a time, there was a man who was charming, smart, and not terribly ugly. However, he also went about town with two hamsters perched upon his head, and eventually, he began to realize that the rodents probably had something to do with his inability to find a wife.

“Girls find them scary,” one informed him. “Look, they’re fighting up there right now.”

And indeed they were.

Finally, he met another girl who was able to look past his strange headwear, and married him. After they’d only been married a few weeks, he was informed he needed to go away for some time, since he had one of those mysterious jobs which sometimes requires going away for long periods of time without letting anyone else in on exactly what it is you are doing.

Before he left, he gave her all his keys and numberpad passwords — “Here’s for the security system, the front door, the balcony, the back door, the closet of tiny clothes, the speakers, the poolhouse, the pool, the greenhouse (with a switchblade in case that Man Eating Plant acts up), the oven and the robot butler. Oh, and here is the only one you are not to use. It opens that closet there.”

Of course, as soon as her husband had left, his wife immediately went to the mysterious closet.

Inside, hundreds of cages were stacked one on top of the other, all filled with hamsters. Teddy bear hamsters, Chinese hamsters, Winter white hamsters, Campbells, and tiny little Roborovski hamsters. They were fighting and playing and eating and drinking, and of course, pooping, which they obviously did quite a lot of, since the closet floor was coated in hamster droppings.

The wife was so surprised, she dropped the key onto the floor, and when she picked it up, it was all covered in excrement. What terrible condition for hamsters to live in! She made a few phone calls, and soon all the hamsters were on their way to new homes, save a few, whose cages she cleaned. That mess must be why the hamsters keep ending up on his head, she reasoned. They have no where else to go.

Just as she was finishing up, her phone rang. The caller was her husband, informing her that he was on his way back, since those good-for-nothings didn’t need him after all and didn’t have the decency to tell him before he left.

She panicked then, not sure how to explain to her husband what she had done. Perhaps, if he didn’t notice anything was different, she thought, she’d have more time to figure out how to tell him. She closed the door behind her and frantically tried to clean the key. However, it was full of tiny crevices and as hard as she tried, she couldn’t quite get all the residue out.

She tried hiding it at first, claiming to have left it another room when her husband asked for it. Eventually, she gave it back, and tried lying, claiming she didn’t know how it had gotten that way.

But he didn’t believe her. “You opened it!” he said. “You opened the one door I told you not to open!” And he rushed over to the closet to find all the hamsters gone, save one or two in newly cleaned cages.

But if she’d expected him to be thankful, ultimately, she was very mistaken. Instead, he only became angrier.

“Well, now you’ll have to die,” he said, and started to advance toward her with the little switchblade.

“What! Why?” Being killed over the hamsters was certainly not what she was expecting.

“You let them go! I’m ruined now! Why do you think I have these hamsters perched on my head?” He slowly lifted the hamsters to reveal…

a bald spot.”Now everyone will know! And it’s all your fault!”

But as he swung the tiny knife, one of the hamsters still perched on his head ran up his arm to his palm and bit him hard between the fingers. Taking the opportunity, his soon to be ex-wife grabbed the few remaining hamsters and ran for the door.

The End.

Source: Bluebeard, Charles Perrault.

Melissa and the Undead March 26, 2009

Once upon a time, there was a man who was raising a lovely little baby girl all my himself.

He vowed to do whatever it took to raise his pretty little baby, whom he called Melissa (he’d wanted to call her something poetic and reflective of her particular beauty, like Snow White or Rose Red or Grass Green or the like, but his wife had insisted on naming her something normal and practical, like Melissa, so Melissa it was). He soon realized that the best way to take care of his girl would be to take a wife, and so he did.

It worked out wonderfully at first–his new wife read the little girl stories and played games with her and brushed her pretty black hair. But as the girl got older, she got prettier still, and the stories slowly changed to horror stories, the games became hunting games, and the stepmother “accidentally” ripped out Melissa’s pretty hair more than once while while she brushed it.

Now, this stepmother also began to spend an unusual amount of time staring into the television screen in the living room. At first, her husband would simply turn on the television for her, but he eventually realized that she was using it to admire herself and he bought her a mirror. Which she never used.

But one of those days, the stepmother ventured a question. She asked the television screen, “Who’s the prettiest lady around?” and at that moment, her husband flicked a switch and the looking glass proclaimed “Melissa!”

The stepmother could hardly see, she was so angry. She yelled at Melissa for not cleaning her room and sent her to the store for some bacon. Then, she called an unscrupulous fellow of her acquaintance and told him that if he offed the girl on her way back from the store, he could keep the bacon.

But as it turns out, even some unscrupulous people who are offered bacon turn out to be uncomfortable with the idea of killing off innocent girls, so the fellow took the bacon and advised the girl to run off to the forest.

She took his advice, but soon grew weary of the whole trip, since she didn’t know anything about living on her own in the forest. As soon as she was about to give up hope, she found a little house in the middle of a sunlit clearing. She went inside, and there were seven short corpses, dressed in colonial garb (people were shorter back then, after all). She worried briefly about disturbing the final resting place of the several short men, but she really really needed a place to stay. So she did a little cleaning and hoped that would make up for her offense.

She had just tucked herself in for the night, when she heard a noise. She crept downstairs to find….

the disco ball had come down,

the corpses had gotten up,

and they were dancing.

She watched quietly as still as she could, but somehow the staircase creaked and all thirteen eyes (one had fallen out) turned to look at her. The dance party ceased and all seven slowly began to march towards her, stepping in time to the music, hands outstretched before them, groaning and moaning something about brains.

Melissa sensed danger. And she did the only thing she could think off.

She danced. She ran past the zombies out to the middle of the floor, where she discoed and twirled and robot-ed and twisted. Soon enough, the zombies joined in, and Melissa was having so much fun she didn’t even notice when she got hit in the face with a scrap of skin or slipped on some embalming fluid.

From then on, things were good for Melissa in the Zombie House.

But one day, an old woman stopped by. An old woman who looked suspiciously like her stepmother in an old woman costume. Melissa remembered that her stepmother had sent that unscrupulous fellow to off her, and used all her willpower to resist the bacon the old woman had brought. Even though she’d hardly had any good food in weeks since she couldn’t get to the grocery store (the zombies weren’t partial to much but brains and cajun dressing).

The next day, the woman showed up again earlier, and it was even harder for sleepy Melissa to refuse the three egg omelet with cheddar she’d brought along.

The next day, the woman showed up at dawn, and in a half awake state, Melissa gobbled down the waffle covered in chocolate.

Clearly, it was poisoned, and Melissa expired on the spot.

The stepmother went back home all happy, to gloat to her television about her (incorrect)  assumption that Melissa wouldn’t be living Happily Ever After.

Here’s what she didn’t know:

That night, the Zombies awoke to find their favorite new dance partner missing. Once they found her outside, they dragged her back into the house and waited for midnight.

And then the dance party began.

The End.

Source: Snow White, Brothers Grimm

The Twelve Gaming Princesses March 23, 2009

Once upon a time, the owner of the largest and finest house in a little town was in distress. You see, this man had twelve daughters, all with a year or less between them. They slept in twelve fine beds in one room, with fine covers and fine clothes. All their things were so nice, in fact, and their father so doting, that the townspeople not quite so nicely referred to them as the “Princesses.”

But something was wrong. The name calling he could deal with, and while he worried that his girls didn’t seem to have any real friends, he was at least comforted by the fact that they had each other for company. Lately, though, they’d been tired, listless. They looked fatigued, with dark sunken eyes, and their hands, especially, drooped. Their fingers were so tired they seemed unable to pour a cup of tea, or even sometimes to open a door.

Every night, the man sent his daughters to bed earlier and earlier, locking the door behind him. But every day, they turned up at the breakfast table as exhausted as the day before.

He decided he had to do something. At first, he tried appealing to the youth in the community. He didn’t have much to offer, since so much of his resources went to his daughters, but he tried getting some young men to follow his daughters around at night in exchange for $100 and two coupons for Outback Steakhouse.

No one agreed.

In the end, he decided that was for the best. He didn’t really need strange young men following his girls around at night anyway.

In fact, he was just about to give up hope when something happened. A little dog, perhaps the one from next door, dropped something at his feet. It appeared to be a dirty rumpled cloak, but when he picked it up, he realized that his hand had completely vanished.

That night, armed with the invisibility cloak, he locked the bedroom door behind him as usual, but this time, he was on the other side of it. To his amazement, every one of his girls got up from bed, quieted each other, and rushed out through a hole in the wall. He wondered how he had not noticed the giant gaping thing, and then rushed to catch up with the girls.

With their father behind them, the girls jumped down a green pipe into the water below. They swam until they reached another pipe, then crawled into it and emerged in a green field.

There, he discovered their secret.

The girls ran to the consoles set up all over the field. The played Mario 1, 2, and 3, battled each other in Guitar Hero or DDR, jumped through orange portals and shot down enemies.

He watched for a long time, and before he left, he grabbed one of the spare controllers and put it in his pocket.

At breakfast the next morning, the girls were exhausted. Their father was about to pull the controller from his pocket and reveal that he knew where they’d been and what they’d been doing, but then he realized something else. Even though they were so tired they could hardly lift their spoons, the girls were happy. He left the controller where it was and poured each of his daughters some extra coffee.

The End.

Source: The Twelve Dancing Princesses, Brothers Grimm.

This Sneaky Horse March 18, 2009

Once upon a time, there was a horse. Now, many horses, if not most horses, are sweet and hard working. This horse was not. This horse was lazy and bad tempered. More than anything else in the world, he loved food, and he hating cleaning and lifting heavy things.

But, it wasn’t just any food he loved. While other horses settled for hay and lumps of sugar, this horse lived for pigs-in-a-blanket, tiny pizzas, and miniature bacon lettuce and tomato sandwiches. While other horses ate off the grass, this particular horse ate only off metal trays carried by waiters in matching outfits.

However, in the part of the world where he lived, horses were only rarely invited to parties where hors d’ oeuvres were served. Especially lazy, bad tempered horses.

So, the horse had learned to be a bit sneaky as well. He waited by low windows. He barked like a really large dog. He signed his name to guest lists whenever he could, but his signature always came out looking like a big hoof print and no one could read it.

He needed something more definite. He needed a human suit.

After a party one night, the horse snuck around back to the door where the waiters were leaving. Luckily, one of the waiters had abandoned his black and white outfit. With glee, the horse grabbed the jacket and ran home with it.

The very next day, he was early for a party at the same house. He was immediately handed a plate of chicken wings, and they were gone before he reached the floor.

The whole night passed in a similar manner. Miniature hot dogs, pizzas, sandwiches. Pierogies, dumplings, shrimp. The horse was more stuffed than he had ever been.

Towards the end of the night, someone called the horse over. He froze. Had he been caught? The man called again, and the horse did his best to trot over on two legs. Everyone else was leaving for the night.

“You’re the lucky one, tonight,” the man said. “You look big and strong enough to clean and pack up all these tables. Meet me outside when you’re done.”

The horse looked around. There were many, many tables. It was going to take him all night.

The End.

Source: The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing, Aesop

The Emperor’s Serious New Cat March 13, 2009

Once upon a time, in the Land of Make Believe, there lived an emperor who was very serious indeed. He wore plain clothes, drank his tea black, and did not stand for any degree of silliness. His kingdom, of course, was also very serious and orderly. There was no silliness of any sort to be found anywhere: no games, no festivals, no jokes, no holidays, and certainly no silly pictures of animals.

The emperor maintained his serious kingdom by only allowing serious subjects to live in his realm–hardworking people who went home to read the paper and sit absorbed in thought, and, by running every decision by his advisers, who made sure he was choosing only the most serious of paths.

Now, one day, the emperor decided he needed a pet. Something serious that would sit quietly by him and serve as an example to all the other pets of the realm. He made his requests known, and within days, offers of pets were making their way to him from all over the world.

After sending away drooling dogs and colorful birds and frisky ferrets, the emperor finally decided on a nice brown cat. He remembered what he had once learned about Egyptian pharaohs being rather partial to cats, and since Egyptian pharaohs struck him as serious folks indeed, he felt confident in his decision. In fact, he grew so fond of the cat, his advisers became nervous and unwilling to tell him…

the cat was, in fact, a little bit silly.

Sure, she sat still, looking like a furry statue for hours. But she would also trap little bugs and leave them at the emperor’s feet. Or chase the drapes as if they might escape. Or peer out from behind the furniture and then quickly dart away when someone spied her.

But the advisers knew the emperor would hear none of it, and so they prepared a home for the cat and made ready for her debut in the kingdom: a solemn sort of parade, in which the emperor, in his most serious suit, would walk through the kingdom with the cat following behind him.

The day of the parade was a partially cloudy one, and all was at its most serious, indeed, until…

“Meow!” A string had come unraveled from the emperor’s suit, and the little cat immediately pounced upon, hitting it with her little paws and trying to catch it in her mouth.

For a moment, the people just stared as they waited for the emperor to do something. And stared. And waited. But the emperor finally broke out into a laugh, the first that had been heard in the kingdom, and the crowd soon followed. One brave girl even managed to snap a picture of the cat, who was still trying to work out how to grab the string, and let’s just say it was a very different kingdom after all that.

The End.

Source: The Emperor’s New Clothes, Hans Christian Andersen

The Banana Princess, Part 2 March 10, 2009

Once upon a time there was a handsome prince, the very same handsome prince who had traveled over the mountain in search of the famed Banana Princess, and had in fact won her hand in marriage.

However, after the wedding, he did not proclaim the news across the kingdom. Here’s why:

Although his father was a nice enough fellow, his mother was a shark. Literally, a shark. She lived in a tank outside their palace. The prince never fully understood how his father had come to marry a shark, (except that it had something to do with money and some suspect pictures), or, indeed, how their union had produced himself, the prince.

In any event, the Queen the shark was nearly always hungry, and the prince had noticed a gleam in her eyes whenever lovely young women or little children walked by. So he resolved to never let her know about his wife or the children they were sure to have.

Until, years later, when his father the King died in battle. Now in possession of the kingdom, the prince was blessed with an unfounded sense of security, and told everyone about his family. He was called into battle himself soon after, and arranged to have his Queen and their children (called, in a rather confusing way, Horse and Pony) moved into the palace so his mother could keep an eye on them from her tank.

The very day he left, Horse visited her grandmother in her tank. She ran around the edges for some time before tripping over a strategically placed bottle of ketchup and falling into the tank.

When she did not return that evening, Pony went out to look for her. When he could not find her outside, he crawled up the side of the tank to ask his grandmother if she had seen his sister. However, before he could even get the words out, he tripped over some lemon wedges and fell into the tank himself.

Now, the Queen the shark knew it would only be a matter of time before the children’s mother came looking for them. But she couldn’t wait. What had the two children been but an appetizer? She’d hardly had to chew either of them.

So she sent her favorite clerk into the palace, with orders to kill the new Queen and bring her to the tank. When he returned with a plate of cooked venison, she was almost fooled. Until she heard the new Queen’s great honking laugh from inside the palace. She demanded the Queen be brought before her, and almost immediately, it was so. The girl crawled up to the top of the tank ,precariously balanced next to the caramel she’d set aside for the occasion.

She took a step towards it and then…cartwheeled over the mess and onto the other side. The trap had been foiled! To make matters worse, she then flung her long hair into the tank, and lassoed the Queen’s body. Immediately, the shark felt herself retch and up came the two little children! They were dazed and smelled of ketchup, lemons, and fish, but otherwise looking quite well off.

When the King returned, he was rather sad to hear of the stomach troubles his mother was experiencing, as a result of having her snacks lassoed out of her, but did think she’d sort of brought it on herself.

The End.

Source: Sleeping Beauty, Charles Perrault

Princess and the Purr March 5, 2009

Once upon a time, there was a prince who insisted on marrying a princess. A real princess, mind you, not one of those dressed up in a pointy hat she bought at the mall sort of princesses. She would have refined taste, and would settle for nothing but the best.

So, while the prince traveled all over the world, insulting princesses he found unfit, his mother, who had agreed to help him with his quest, subjected local princesses to humiliating tests. The worst test involved mattresses–the queen would stack a veritable tower of mattresses upon a bed, with three frozen peas wedged underneath. Every morning, she’d ask her guest how she’d slept, and when the answer was “Oh, just fine, thanks,” she’d run the false princess out of the house with a broom.

One dark wet night, long after the prince had returned from his disappointing trip, one of the servant girls dragged something in.

“Her name is Princess,” she said proudly of the dirty bedraggled cat she was carrying b y the scruff of her neck. “Isn’t she pretty?” The cat yowled and the queen chased both the little girl and the dirty cat out with her broom.

But that night, the yowling continued. The queen heard angry meows, sad meows, irritated meows, as she was tossing and turning, trying to sleep. Finally, she got out of bed and followed the sound to the guest bedroom, where she found the cat tossing and turning as well….atop the tower of mattresses. Carefully, she reached underneath the bottom mattress and pulled out the three frozen peas. The yowling immediately stopped.

Princess had passed the test.

The prince and the cat were married the very next day. And although the prince was not sure what he’d gotten himself into, his mother could not have been prouder.

The End.

Source: The Princess and the Pea, Hans Christian Andersen

The Banana Princess, Part 1 March 1, 2009

Once upon a time, a couple who had been waiting a long long time to have a baby finally had one. She was the prettiest baby they’d ever seen, and they immediately arranged to have a great big party for her baptism.

Everyone from their town came, plus everyone from the next town over, and even some people from the next two or three towns after that. All the fairies were invited, too. All except one.

The Bad Fairy waited alone on the hilltop near their home, but she never received an invitation.

Back at the party, the fairies took turns blessing the baby girl with the best gifts they could offer. One fairy gave her the ability to run faster than a speeding bullet.  Another fairy blessed her with great strength. Finally, a third fairy, and the most powerful of all of them, allowed her to fly.

No, wait. That’s Superman.

These are the gifts she truly received:

A great honking laugh.

The ability to turn excellent cartwheels.

Long lovely hair she could tie in a knot and use as a lasso.

But just as the fairies were finishing their gifts, The Bad Fairy stormed in. The room fell silent, and everyone listened as she cursed the little girl.

“On her 16th birthday,” she promised, “she will slip on a banana peel and die.”

The whole room was in a state of utter fretfulness when she left. The girl’s mother and father implored the head fairy to take it back, to fix it.

Unfortunately, she could not. However, she was able to alter the terms of the curse. The girl would not die when she slipped: she would simply fall asleep.

The very next day, her father banned all bananas in the town, and the next town over, and even one or two towns after that. No one was to eat a banana, open a banana, carry a banana. It would be a banana free kingdom.

Of course, this plan did not turn out quite as he had hoped. Since he banned bananas so long before the appointed time, the girl never saw a banana. Also, over the next sixteen years, the townspeople began to grow lax in following the banana laws. Banana peels could occasionally be found behind abandoned buildings. Murmurs of “peeling” at night were heard in some corners.

So when one day, the little girl found herself face to face with a woman holding a banana, all she could say was,

“What is that?”

The woman offered her a try. However, banana peels littered the path between them, and the girl slipped on the very first one she stepped on.

She immediately fell asleep, and so did her parents and all the members of their household.

And they stayed that way for over 100 years, with vines enveloping their home.

Stories began to be told about the vine covered house. Some said a witch lived there. Some said the house was under a terrible curse, and some said it had been abandoned by a family of bandits. Some said it was full of ornery zombies. But some said it was the home of a beautiful girl who slept with a banana peel over her face.

This last story was the one the Prince of the kingdom over the mountain heard, and he made it his life’s goal to find the house and the Banana Princess within it, even though others tried to warn him that nothing good could come of looking for the house, and maybe he should just go to law school.

But he kept on his search, and one day found the vine covered house. He cut through the vines with his sword and found within a scary sight: all the members of the household had been frozen in time and place, doing whatever it was they were doing when the curse struck. One especially portly man was still sitting on the toilet. The prince shuddered, but he thought of the girl and pressed on, finally finding her sleeping within, a banana peel lying across her face. He picked it up, and she opened her eyes. All around him, the people of the house began to awaken and stretch.

The End…for now.

Source: The Sleeping Beauty, Charles Perrault