Monday, August 12, 2013

It's Getting Grimm

I've often wondered what the reasoning behind some of the more traditional nursery rhymes is. Stories about witches, wolves, and other players in a child's cast of anxieties might have served to keep us in line when we were very young, but they certainly don't make much sense to a rational adult capable of critical thought. With that in mind, let's embellish.

Take the Three Little Pigs. These guys were a bit too cocky for their own good. The first little pig (a stocky little fellow named Murray) decided that something as trivial as a building permit wasn't going to get in the way of his 4,000 square foot, custom-built straw bungalow in Grimm Estates. Sure, he reasoned, the whole branch structure was kind of shaky, but hey. A little stucco and chicken wire would tie the whole thing together.

Sadly, that never came to pass; while he was in town getting checked out for trichinosis (and being billed a fortune for his deductible), a very sociopathic wolf had moved into the neighborhood. As Mr. Pig pulled into his driveway, Mr. Wolf, characterized by his extreme narcissism and impulsive behavior, sought to commit pigslaughter against the great-nephew of the Piggly Wiggly founder. The pig barely made it into his house, escaping the id-driven wolf by perhaps half of a second. To say he was frightened would be an understatement. Mr. Pig, who had recently undergone liposuction surgery, was still feeling weak and vulnerable to the very hungry carnivore waiting outside his door.

Mr. Wolf was well versed in "control through intimidation", an approach he learned while training with the National Security Agency. "Little pig! Little pig -let me in!" was issued by the mentally unstable canine. His intended victim, a young pig having matured beyond piglet a mere four years earlier, stood his ground. "Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin", an ironic statement since he wasn't quite mature enough to shave yet.

Well, we all know that the impulsive wolf inhaled, and, with sheer determination, blew the structure off of its foundation, assuming there was one. We're to believe that an animal whose dietary needs are limited to red meat somehow had enough stamina to exhale with sustained force. Further, the lung capacity to commit such an audacious act would be better suited to a pack of racing Greyhounds than to a wolf suffering from a grandiose self-image and a midlife crisis.

The poor little pig then raced to his brother's house, stalked, at some distance, by a wolf who was struggling to catch his breath so that he could resume the chase. His brother, whose name was Randy, was also overconfident in his own house building skills. They were so overconfident, in fact, that when the wolf finally did make it to the straw home, they began taunting the wolf. Security in numbers, perhaps.

Now we're to believe that an out-of-breath, narcissistic, sociopathic wolf who had only recently blown over a wood house and who had chased a domestic pig through several miles of wilderness to his hermit brother's home, would yet have enough breath to blow over a heavily thatched straw structure, including a media room and a private library.

That's what happens in these stories, you know. Soon another home had been vandalized by a criminal wolf, and two pigs were running for their lives (apparently, neither had a concealed-weapons permit). Fortunately, the two easily escaped to Pig brother Tommy and his modular brick home.

Well, now there were three pigs, each staffing a window and on the lookout for their troublemaking nemesis.

Yep, he showed. And he didn't waste any time, forgoing the "little pig" mantra. Finding a ladder in the four car garage, Mr. Wolf (named Barry, but that's a well kept secret) managed to climb onto the roof of the upper middle class home despite having been born with no thumbs. Barry saw his opportunity to get inside the home -he would slide down the chimney and feast on bacon until his tummy swelled.

Didn't work out that way. The Pig Brothers, responding to the wolf's attempts to break and enter, and then commit murder, lit a fire in the fireplace just as Barry descended. The howling sound was deafening as the brothers huddled together in fear. Their fear turned to joy as they slowly began to realize that their threat had been eliminated by the ever-shrewd Randy and his vast experience with pyrotechnics.

The three little pigs lived happily ever after.

That is, until they were arrested on charges of excessive force. In the days which followed, search warrants were obtained and several wolf skeletons were discovered buried in the floor of the basement near the water heater. While a grand jury was selected, the Pig Brothers were held without bond until their hearing. A year passed before trial was held.

It wasn't pretty; Randy Pig was found guilty of murder in the second degree and sentenced to ten years in maximum security. Tommy fared much worse; having been found guilty of nine wolf murders, he was sentenced to death.

Execution was carried out at Gwaltney State Prison.

On another note, the prison's budget was increased due to costs cut in the food budget.



 

2 comments:

  1. Love your stuff! Really! Especially when you 'ham it up'. e-laine

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  2. Thanks Elaine! I didn't mean to "pig out"!

    ReplyDelete