Story #15

Well, here we are, another bright Thursday.  Don’t tell me it’s not Thursday; it’s always Thursday at the Story of the Week Club.

I love this week’s story because it really runs with the “creative license” clause of the club.  I’m actually not sure how many people in the first incarnation of the club got all the jokes about our little leprechaun’s dialect, here, because no one ever mentioned how freakin’ hilarious this story is.  As far as I’m concerned, the only possible explanation is that they just didn’t get all the jokes.  Yep, that’s the only possible explanation.

In case there’s any doubt in anyone’s mind, at this time I had a friend (Anne, I believe) who had been to Ireland the previous summer.  Not that I tell a lie about that in the upcoming story or anything.  Nope, nope, nope.

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Subject: FOOL’S GOLD (story #15)
Date: Mon, 3 Oct 94 19:47:20 EDT

BRO-MAN’S STORY OF THE WEEK

Well, hey there, folks. Thanks for bearing with us last week. We’re all back on schedule of not paying any attention to schoolwork, now, so here comes another great tale to enrich your little lives. Not to sound condescending or anything.

    This week’s tale is a fable. Which means it’s a cross between a finger and a stable. You might not catch this the first time through, you have to read between the lines.

THE STORY OF FOOL’S GOLD

    Once upon a time, on the island of Okinawa, there lived a bunch of oriental people. Hey, it’s just the facts. What none of them knew was that, in a little cave, right near the coast (not like that’s ambiguous directions, or anything, seeing as how we’re talking about an island, here), there lived a leprechaun. His name, unfortunately was Fool. That’s why he lived on Okinawa. He had been banished there by all the other leprechauns because he didn’t have a good leprechaun name. (Is it just me, or is there a tendency by characters in the story of the week to have problematic names? I don’t know, maybe it’s just me. Actually, I know it’s just me since I write all the stories. . .  But I digress.) Anyway, so Fool just sort of sat around Okinawa all the time and did nothing, because nobody believed in him on Okinawa. So nobody tried to capture him and get three wishes out of him or anything. Boy, he was bored.

    One rainy Thursday, Fool finally got sick of sitting around, so he grabbed his gold and went out to face the island. “B’gorrah,” he said as he trudged along towards the nearest town. “Me gold is heavy.” Well, duh, it was gold.

    So, when he got to town, Fool went to the first house he saw and knocked on the door. A little old lady answered the door. She was very confused for a moment, because she didn’t see anyone. Then she looked down and saw Fool standing there, smoking his pipe and holding up his pot o’ gold.

    “Take me blasted gold!” he shouted, “blast the business with rainbows and catching and wishes, just take the bleedin’ gold!” (I’m taking gross liberties with dialects here, not that I think anyone would notice, I mean what are the odds that one of the club members went to Ireland this summer and would be able to tell how Irish folks really speak anyway? Anyway, so grant me a little leeway with the foreign speech idiosyncrasies, it’s fiction after all.)

    Well, the old lady at the door couldn’t understand a word Fool said, since they didn’t speak the same language and all, so she just screamed and shut the door.

    “Bloody hell,” Fool said, lowering his gold, “me feet are already tired, and I’ve got miles to go. Oy vey.”

    When he got to the next house, he decided to try a different approach. When the door opened, he smiled and said “Good evening, seniorita. I have been searchin’ high and low for someone to take me gold, because I just don’t need it anymore, because I hardly count as a real leprechaun anyway, and I just want to give it all up. Comprende?”

    But, of course, the lady at the door didn’t comprende, cuz they still didn’t speak the same language. She did recognize that he was speaking in friendly tone of voice. But she still screamed and shut the door.

    “Oh me oh my,” said Fool, “perhaps I’ll have to cast a spell on someone to make them take my gold. Ay caramba.”

    Luckily, though, the next house he came to belonged to the village linguist, so when Fool knocked on the door, he understood him. Well, more correctly, he would have understood him, except Fool went right ahead and cast a spell anyway. He turned the man into a finger and then crossed him with a stable. It was kind of a stupid spell, and it didn’t get rid of his gold, but it was the only spell Fool knew. Why he thought it would help is beyond me.

    “Mon dieu!” Fool lamented, “whatever shall I do now? Erin go Bragh!”

    Just then, a giant octopus surfaced just off the island. His name was Fingerfood, and he was looking for something to eat. Ironically, his favorite food was gold.

    In town, Fool heard the massive splash the Fingerfood caused and decided to investigate. “Land sakes!” he said, as he ran towards the water, “what in tarnation could have made such a loud splash? Heavens to Mergatroid!”

    When he got to the water, Fool stared in awe at the giant octopus. Fingerfood stared back at the little leprechaun. “Do you have any gold I can eat?” he asked in a booming voice.

    In his thunderstruck awe and confusion, Fool answered “no, I sure don’t.”

    Well, this really pissed Fingerfood off, so he decided to eat Fool instead.

    But the joke was on him, because octopi are allergic to leprechauns and he died of food poisoning ten minutes later.

THE END

    Well, that’s that. Hope you learned a lesson this week, kiddies. Yes, that’s right, if you have a pot of gold, don’t lie to an octopus. We’re so profound here at the club. . . .

In 7,

Bro-man

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Let me be very clear, here, that this story was written more than a decade before the fabled (see what I did there?) argument spawned by our first story for this new incarnation of the club – THE STORY OF REX AND DIPPY (Story #37) – of “octopi” versus “octopuses” versus “octopodes.”  I only bring this up so you don’t think we’re all dooftopodes here at the club for saying that octopi are allergic to leprechauns.  When clearly the correct way to say it would have been that octopi are allergic to leprepodes.

See you soon,

the SotWC