My Scattered Thoughts

Once there was a flaming skull (flying). All it wanted to do was be helpful. One time this knitting club got all their yarn knotted up. The flaming skull swooped in and untied all those knots all right! The knitting club dug through the ashes. “Thanks, Flaming Skull…” Another time there was this mountain climber in trouble. Again the flaming skull swooped in. “Thaaaaanks Flaaaaaaming Skuuuu.” That climber would never have any other climbing problems again. Nor opportunities for that matter. Another time, there was this forest fire. The flaming skull did its best, but. “Thanks, Flaming Skull,” all the firefighters said, rubbing ashes on their faces sort of accidentally. “What?” the flaming skull said, “I’m just trying to help!”

Moral: If you’re a flying flaming skull, the best thing you can do is stay well out of it, especially if it involves flammable material.

Once there was a window salesman who sold one size of window. When windows first came out, people were amazed. Saying things like “I can see trees from INSIDE my house!” and “I had no idea my kitchen was so dirty!” Windows sales were through the roof, so to speak. But soon people got bored. It seemed like everyone had windows now. Curtain sales were pretty brisk. Anyway, the windows salesman had a great idea while eating breakfast one day. Bigger windows! And he was right. People were tearing out their old windows and putting in bigger ones just as fast as the windows factory could make them. You can see where this is going. Eventually, the windows got so big that people were living in glass houses and LOVING it. The birds not so much.

Moral: You can have too much of a good thing.

Once there was a bucket full of donuts. The lizard and marsupial taxidermist happened upon it one day. He reached in to grab a chocolate donut with some strange orange goop on top, probably frosting. A tiger leapt out of the bucket and ate him. It was a very clever tiger. Also, it had a gluten allergy.

Moral: Maybe it’s better not to eat donuts from a bucket.

One time, there was this monkey. It was a pretty ordinary monkey except for the spelunking. Yes, it was a cave exploring monkey. You may not have considered it, but stalactites are pretty good for climbing. At least in this story. This monkey visited many famous caves: Ali Baba’s; Aladdin’s djinni’s; the Hardy Boys’ pirates’; Batman’s. It was pretty cool. That is, until it came to the dragon’s cave.

Moral: Monkey flambé is delicious.

Once there was an aardvark who liked rearranging stuff. One day, he found a whole pile of china arranged just so. Well, that aardvark set to with a will, organizing all the china by color. “My china!” the haberdasher cried, sobbing.

Moral: Sometimes things are just so for a reason.

Once there was a wizard. He lived in a tower. (No, it wasn’t Zombardo. It was the other one.) This wizard was bald and had lots of rings on his fingers. Also, he had lots of strange pets. Anyway, the nearby town had this infestation of gremlins. These gremlins made sure that nothing worked quite right. Sometimes the butter churn would just fall apart. Or, other times, everyone’s mood rings would just turn black. Bummer! So the town’s mayor, the butcher, some chicken farmers, a haberdasher, the all-female choir and musical untouring troupe, and a few kids all showed up to ask the wizard how to deal with these gremlins. The wizard said, I don’t really think your problem is gremlins– No, it’s gremlins! all the town’s representatives shouted not really simultaneously. Also, I’m paraphrasing hardcore. So the wizard sighed, and was all, I’ll get to work! Then he went to go do stuff that he was more interested in, like scoping out the demiplanes of Shadow and Wonder. But these townspeople just kept on coming by griping about gremlins. Finally, the wizard was all, ALAKAZAM! And: I’ve solved your gremlins problem. The townspeople all said OoooooOOooooOOooooh! And then the wizard said, hey, I also made this magical contraption that you can use to deal with future outbreaks of “gremlins”. The townspeople looked at the wizard like he was crazy. Are you crazy? they said. Why would you give us this tool? Who knows what we’ll do with it? The wizard shut his door.

Moral: Sometimes when you make something too useful, people get upset.

Everyone was always wondering, Hey, what’s up with that police detective who has a flea for a partner? The police detective usually replied, Hey, I’m an INSPECTOR not a detective. Come on! And then people usually forgot about the flea. Truth be told, the inspector thought, this flea isn’t very useful in an investigatory capacity. Oh well. The flea did its best, but, you know, it was a flea. The inspector solved some mysteries with the flea’s “help”.

Moral: Sometimes stories just don’t have that much of a moral.

Once there was a parrot who knew a million words. Problem was, it never stopped talking. Also, did I mention it had the most beautiful feathers of red and yellow and green and purple. But no orange. This parrot went through owners like no one’s business, because it kept talking and talking and talking and talking. People got pretty tired of it or just died. For the most part, it was all just gibberish. Every now and then, the parrot would throw in the secret to life, the universe, and lots of other stuff. No one caught it, though, because there were just Too Many Words. The parrot was secretly satisfied by this. It had to take what it could get: it was gonna live 120 years.

Moral: When most of your words are meaningless and there are a lot of them, it’s pretty easy to conceal the real story.

Once there was a camel–his name was Gerry–and he had this case. It was an accordion case. Not because it had an accordion in it, but because thick on both ends, thick in the middle, and all the rest of it was thin. He wasn’t really sure what was in there. He found some socks in there once and an old candy bar. Everywhere he went, he took that darn case. He just couldn’t seem to set it down.

Once, he saw a snake carrying a case. (Don’t ask me how.) It was a python, which is an irrelevant but amusing detail. The python’s case was really thin. No matter how hard he looked, he couldn’t see where the case fastener was. It all sort of bled together.

Another time, he saw a giraffe carrying a case. The giraffe’s case was really tall. The camel couldn’t figure out how it opened either. Or even where the giraffe ended and the case began.

By contrast, everyone (the giraffe, the snake, the bandit) understood intuitively how to open the camel’s case.

Moral: If you’re gonna stick a bunch of things in a case, use the Camel’sCase every time.

Once there was a beacon named Rip Van Beacon. He had a long flowing white beard. Just kidding. Of course he didn’t. He was a beacon. They look like square plastic boxes much smaller than a breadbox. Anyway, Rip Van Beacon fell asleep for a long long time (it involved dwarves; long story) and everyone forgot about him because he’d been stuck behind a potted plant. Anyway, a long time later, he woke up and everything had changed. He had some funny hijinks due to all the funny clothes and customs people had adopted in the meantime. Then his battery died. And that was the end of Rip Van Beacon.

Moral: Taking a long nap can really preserve your battery-life.