(They’re really not.)
Once upon a time there was a statue. It wasn’t just any statue. It was the ugliest statue in the world. Everyone–simply everyone–said so. The villagers were at a loss for words when attempting to describe its ugliness. They just said, “It’s ugly,” and left it at that. This satisfied most people. Sometimes birds would poop on the statue, but this did not make it uglier. Once a young wag put a traffic cone on the statue’s “head” thinking, perhaps, to lessen the impact of the ugliness with a bit of humor. It failed. The traffic cone stayed up a long time, because no one really wanted to get close enough to the statue to take it down. Visitors from out of town who were unfamiliar with the statue or who came to see if it was really true, that it was the ugliest of all statues, would often weep with holy dread upon catching the merest glimpse of it. There were handkerchief carts all around where you could buy a handkerchief. They made a brisk business. Sometimes, for the locals, it would just get to be too much, and they would leave town, taking only a small suitcase or handbag. They were never seen from again. Many people in the village had nightmares. The children in the village were so afflicted by it that they drew nothing but pictures of the statue with their crayons. For some reason it never occurred to anyone to tear it down. They just lived with it.