Collapse of a Nation: Hours of Fun for the Whole Family
There are those people who do not understand the horrors of war; do
not understand how a strong nation, with cannibalistic inhabitants, might
cruelly crush another, weaker country. This story should help clarify the
concept for the unenlightened.
Our tale is set on a small island by the seaside, called philatopus.
(This name has no capital letter, and for good reason; the reason is, in
fact, so good that I feel no need at all to explain it.) Philatopus was
a beautiful land filled with beautiful mice, geese, and of course, flying
purple meese. 1
When informed that there are only three different animals populating
the land, any good scientist will immediately inquire as to the food chain
in effect. It was arranged as follows: the mice ate the geese, who in turn
ate the meese. For those of us wondering what the meese lived on, worry
no more - suffice it to say that they were immortal.
Now, very near the land of philatopus lived the archenemies of these
nice people: namely, the PLUTOPIANS. (They chose to use no lowercase letters
in their name for good reason; this will probably not be explained at some
point in the future). The inhabitants of PLUTOPIA were as follows: a witch,
a snitch, and a cow. Despite the fact that they were all, at heart, the
essence of evil (especially the snitch) they do warrant some further description.
The witch, as most witches are, was a very uninteresting character.
She filled her days, punctuated her sentences, and even buttered her bread
(as most witches do) with the words, "Hee hee." When she was
not engaged in such a giggle-fit (as she, and most witches, usually are)
she also had a terrible stutter.
The snitch was certainly the most evil of the three. No matter what
anyone did, he was always inclined to record it in his snitchbook (which
can be contrasted from the "logbook" of similar nature in that
it is shorter and considerably less rotund, and may or may not be kept
by snitches instead of logs). The snitch would read excerpts from his snitchbook
at the most inopportune times, which reflected upon, among other things,
the fact that he had no watch.
The cow, on the other hand, was a cow. He was by far the easiest target
for the snitch, as he wasn't the least bit house trained and was really
quite disgusting in general. On the other hand, he wasn't entirely bad:
he did have a nice watch, although he couldn't wear it on account of his
eating disorder.
Anyway, as our story begins, the witch had captured the head of the
flying meese. (You may be thinking to yourself, "THE HEAD OF THE FLYING
MEESE?!?" Well, yes, the head of the flying meese! Now, mark my words,
I don't mean that all of the flying meese shared a single head, but rather
that we are discussing he leader of the meese.)
As I was saying, the witch, as witches often do, had captured the head
of the flying meese. (Again you ask, "THE HEAD OF THE FLYING MEESE?!?"
No, I do not mean that the leader of the meese walked around decapitated
all day! Augh! The witch captured the moose-leader! That's all!)
Now where was I... oh, of course, the captured head of the flying meese.
("THE HEAD OF THE FLYING MEESE?!?" - oh, never mind, false alarm.)
In any case, he had been captured, and we join the three villains as they
were meeting to discuss what to do with their new treasure. The witch,
as usual, spoke first.
"(Hee hee) He, he (hee hee) He was c-caught
--"
"The cow didn't eat his breakfast this
morning!" interjected the snitch.
"Leave my watch out of this!" cried
the cow. "I know you want it, and you know I'll never give it to you!
So let's leave it at that!"
"I didn't say anything about your watch!"
the snitch interjected loudly.
He had hit a soft spot with the cow. "Must you bring that up in
public?" she whined.
The moose head, thoroughly confused by now (though not because he had
been decapitated, as the avid reader will recall), felt it was his turn
to speak.
"I feel it is my turn to speak," said
the moose head.
"Well, it is," the witch agreed, as
witches so often do.
"I saw the cow engaging in the unhealthy
practice of self-induced regurgitation!" interjected the snitch.
"I hate you!" screamed the cow. (Have
you ever heard a cow scream? Awful noise.) "Learn to tell time by
the sun or something!"
"I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR STUPID WATCH!"
interjected the snitch. "I wish you'd stop being so touchy about it!"
"(Hee hee) H-he's tou-chy! (hee hee)"
babbled the witch, which is quite common among her kind. Everyone (including
the non-decapitated moose head) glared at her in annoyance.
"Must you laugh at everything?" complained
the cow.
The snitch interjected, "I saw the cow
--"
"I feel it is my turn to speak," interrupted
the (completely whole) moose head. "Oh, sorry, go on."
"Hee hee," giggled the witch as usual.
As if on cue, a gaggle of giggling geese from philatopus burst through
the door of the shack.
"Oh my! It's a gaggle of philanthropist
geese!" exclaimed the cow.
"Not philanthropist, you idiot, philatopist!"
interjected the snitch. "By the way, the cow just took a dump on the
floor!" (If you don't know how this happened, you probably don't remember,
for one of several reasons, that the cow was not potty trained.)
His interjection was lost among the throngs of giggling birds which
had, as already mentioned, just burst through the door.
"Hey, don't geese eat meese?" pointed
out the cow.
"Not 'eat,' but 'meet!' Geese meet meese
in the land of philatopus!" giggled a goose.2
"The geese did not decapitate me, darn
you!" roared the moose head, who was quite certain that the geese
had not decapitated him.
"The moose is punning on the word 'meat'
again!" interjected the snitch.
"Leave my mother out of this!" the
cow responded. "But I'm wondering... what do geese eat, then?"
At this, the gaggle of geese stopped giggling, stared at the cow ironically
for a moment, and promptly ate all three PLUTOPIANS.
"Gee, that was certainly a surprise ending!"
said the moose head, who felt quite thoroughly that this ending was a surprise.
The geese only giggled in response.
Author's Notes:
1Yes, I do so mean "meese." Meese are purple and
can fly. If you ever see a flying herd of purple moose, just tell me.
2Oh, did I say eat? How silly of me.
January 1, 1996 06:00
