The Ugly Baby

Inspired by Heather Anne, I too have decided to create my own children’s story. This is the much needed update to Hans Christian Anderson’s antiquated “Ugly Duckling” story.

It was lovely summer weather in the city, and the skyscrapers, traffic lights, and creative expletives colored the beautiful day. At the center of the city stood an old hospital in which a tired old mother had just given birth to trikadekatuplets (13). She was tired from her task, and kicking herself for insisting the doctor at the fertility clinic give her a double dose of embryos just to be sure.

The babies looked out into the nursery and said “how large the world is,” especially compared to the cramped New York apartment that had been their home for the previous nine months. The mother hobbled over to the nursery and noticed that while 12 of her babies were identical, the last one was a little hairy and a lot fugly.

The last baby, much larger than the rest woke up crying. It was very large and ugly. The mother stared at it and exclaimed,

“It is very large and not at all like the others. I wonder if I’m legally obligated to keep it.”

On the next day the weather was delightful, so the mother duck took her young brood down to the park. She set her children down and walked away, hoping the ugly child would not recognize his mother. Unfortunately, it did.

“Oh,” said the mother, “look how he cries out for me. He is my own child, and he is not so very ugly after all if you look at him properly. Come with me now, I will take you home to meet my 12 sisters and your 144 cousins.”

When they reached the shack, the mother instructed them to cry in greeting.

The babies did as they were bid, but the cousins in the house stared, and said, “Look, here comes another brood, as if there were not enough of us already! and what a queer looking object one of them is; we don’t want him here,” and then one spit at him in the face.

“Let him alone,” said the mother; “he is not doing any harm.”

“Yes, but he is so big and ugly,” said the spiteful cousins “and therefore he must be turned out.”

“That is impossible,” replied the mother; “he is not pretty; but he has a very good disposition, and recognizes me now, so it’s too late to give him back. I think he will grow up pretty, and perhaps be smaller; he has remained too long in the womb, and therefore his figure is not properly formed;” and then she stroked his neck. “I think he will grow up strong, and able to take care of himself.”

And so they made themselves comfortable; but the poor ugly baby, who had crept out of the womb last of all, and looked so ugly, was kicked and pushed and made fun of, not only by the cousins, but by all the family. “He is too big,” they all said.

So it went on from day to day till it got worse and worse. The poor child was driven about by every one; even his brothers and sisters were unkind to him, and his mother said she wished he had never been born. So at last he ran away.

“They are afraid of me because I am ugly,” he said. So he closed his eyes, and ran still farther, until he came out on a large moor, inhabited by wild ducks. Here he remained the whole night, feeling very tired and sorrowful.

And so the child had terrible adventures and grew up hated by everyone. It was a dreadful life.

One day, when he was grown, he saw a herd of gorillas at the park. He thought that they were ever so beautiful and decided to approach them.

“I will fly to those royal primates,” he exclaimed, “and they will kill me, because I am so ugly, and dare to approach them; but it does not matter: better be killed by them than kicked by cousins, beaten by the aunts, molested by police officers pushed about by my mom, or starved with hunger in the winter.”

Then he ran to the park, and swam towards the beautiful gorillas. The moment they espied the stranger, they rushed to meet him with outstretched arms.

“Kill me,” said the poor guy; and he bent his head down to the surface of the water, and awaited death.

But what did he see in the clear stream below? His own image; no longer a dark, gray baby, ugly and disagreeable to look at, but a dark, gray grown up, still ugly and disagreeable to look at.

Then he looked up at the angry gorillas, ready to pummel him into the ground. They did. It was dreadful. He died of internal bleeding some time later at the hospital.
The moral of the story: Do not approach loose gorillas or dreadful things will happen.

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An Audience of One

I write what I like to read. This is bad for my readers but good for me.

To be fair, I mostly write menial things: “can I borrow some superglue, a horse and your stamp collection?” Still more often, I write correspondence to my relatives and far-away friends with lies pretending I’m a normal person: “so I had drive-thru, saw American Idol and went cow-tipping. Yee… um… Haw!”

But every once in a while when I write to a person who might laugh, or I think I might laugh, I write some seriously ridiculous things. I probably don’t have to give an example, but I’ll give one anyway:

They say money can’t buy love, but I say it can buy the next best thing. And if you don’t have love and do have money, you might as well try to see what you can get for it. In closing Pastor Steve, I’m sorry I lit your wife on fire. In retrospect, I’m not entirely sure it was a good idea and I’ll probably never do it again.

Say, wanna play racquetball? We can visit your wife at the hospital afterward. I think they have a bar there!

I actually don’t know a Pastor Steve, but if I did, I’d probably write a letter like that to him.

This is in my nature and I’m told that’s why people read my blog….. in unrelated news, this is now the fifteenth post in a row without comments!! You think I’m complaining, but I’d been hoping I could reach this mark. It’s a very emotional time for me.

….. And now, to go play racquetball.

Last Year: Open letter to the Las Cruces Shooter
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A Pixelated Recipe

This is a quick meal for those of you who are in a hurry mornings to get to work. This shouldn’t take more than five minutes to make and promises to be a healthy, filling, nutritious, sexy meal to fill your tummy.

Oatmeal Cheerios on the “Rocks”

Ingredients

• 4 cups of water
• 2 cups of sugar (Pixie Stix work as well)
• a dash of vanilla
• a tomato
• a medium-sized onion
• Eye of Newt
• De-skinned Pumpkin (the yellow one not white), its huge so ask the grocer to cut a slice for you
• Garlic Pods
• A fat green Chilli
• A bunch of Soft Greens (1 kattu Paalak, or ask keerakari for Sirikeera)
• A spoonful of butter
• Salt
• Pepper
• Paprika

Instructions

1. First, soak the water with the tomato and onion.
2. Peel the eye of Newt.
3. Place the eye of Newt in a nearby counter, constantly staring… constantly judging…
4. Sugar up the pumpkin, then add the tomatonion water.
5. Now add the bunch of soft greens and garlic pods which, obviously, you’d left soaking for 48 hours prior (NOT ONE SECOND MORE!!!).
6. Add a sprinkle of salt, a dash of pepper and a hint of paprika. Be sure not to go over by more than a smidgen or the entire meal will be ruined.
7. Bake at 598 degrees for six hours.
8. Take out of oven.
9. Slice into perfect 17ths and add frosting to each slice… if we forgot to mention frosting in the ingredients, add it now.
10. Dash the eye of Newt with vanilla, as it will be getting dry about now.
11. Serve chilled with red wine.
12. Rinse and Repeat.

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I’m immune to guilt

“Don’t tell me you’re actually going to listen to my advice. I give bad advice on purpose! Listening to my advice is a very bad idea. I’d advise you against that.”

- Pixel to friend Moira on advice he’d just given her about boys

In looking for an image to perfectly illustrate this post, I realized that in the movie Bambi, we never actually see Bambi’s mother getting shot. This, obviously made me very sad.

To cheer myself up, I went to my St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital collector’s cards. I have nine so far and hope to collect them all before Chili’s stops running their “create a pepper” promotion. This promotion, as far as I can tell, is specifically aimed at depressing people who wish to eat a good meal.

On Sept. 24 of this year, Chili’s will donate all of its profits to St. Jude’s. To prepare everybody for this, they’ve been scaring away their clientèle for weeks with special St. Jude coasters that each have a picture and profile of a different sad child’s story.

Now, like most people, when something gets so sad that you either cry or laugh, I laugh. Often uproariously. It’s just so sad that it causes a gut reaction. In my case, most of my gut reactions lead to some form of humor. It’s a real problem, actually…

Anyway, here are some of the saddest stories I could ever imagine and I read them all within ten minutes while waiting for a meal.

• Taylor, age 4: Just three months after her adoption was finalized, wide-eyed, rambunctious Taylor was diagnosed with Wilms tumor.
• Continue reading I’m immune to guilt…

  
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Right answers to impossible questions

Have you noticed I lost weight?

Incorrect answer: No, you still bent the light around you. If you have lost weight (and the gravity hasn’t lessened), then obviously you haven’t lost enough.

Correct answer: I noticed you looked slightly more shockingly beautiful, but I’d figured it was due to my own meager memory.

Do you think she’s pretty?

Incorrect answer: Yeah, otherwise I wouldn’t have cheated on you with her. I was just surprised to see her here, we’re not supposed to get together until the weekend. I hope she’s not pregnant, we didn’t use any protection the past few times.

Correct answer: No, I think she’s sad. Her life is a series of meaningless encounters and she doesn’t even know it. I pity her, really.

Where do you think this relationship is going?

Incorrect answer: Into your bedroom a few more times before I get tired of you, if you play your cards right.

Correct answer: I don’t like to talk about the future because I’m afraid I’ll jinx it, doubly so in this case, because I care so much about you and I love you so much that I’m just glad to be with you. I’ll follow this relationship where it takes me and be glad for every second me and you get to spend together.

Do you think your mother likes me?

Incorrect answer: I suppose anything is technically possible, but with all the crap her and my family talk about you, let’s just say it’s not bloody likely.

Correct answer: She loves you! She told me so the other day, how she was just worried that you didn’t like her. No, everyone loves you, in fact, they asked me to invite you to Thanksgiving this year and they’ve never invited anyone outside the immediate family!

Do I look fat in these pants?

Incorrect answer: Why yes. Yes you do, Tubbetha McFatticus. Surely you weren’t planning to go out wearing that crap? You look like the Michelin Man gone to seed.

Correct answer: (no hesitation) No, of course not. Don’t be silly, you’re not one of those people that has to worry about that sort of thing, you look beautiful no matter what.

Conclusion:

The correct answer is always a lie told with conviction.

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