The story to end the century...or something

Todd
In a day not too many tomorrow’s away from next Monday lived a quiet old hermit lady named Gumilda. She smelled like oats, and cardboard and her favorite pastime was smashing glass with her stick. The stick was a magical kind, which is impossible to break except for if you have the feather of Homil, which she didn’t, and didn’t care to because you see it was her stick. Anyway the story doesn’t begin with her because who wants to start a story with an old lady. The story actually begins next to a tree in the land of Inis.

Ben
The tree was inhabited by the name of three goats who lived on a diet of elderberry and Bruno’s arm hair. They were the most ferocious beasts in the land and it was said that the only way of to slay them was to make them do numerous dances of cheese ladles. As it so happens sometimes there was a small child who lived in a ditch and was fathered by a small tree squirrel of the wolverine variety, this child decided it was high time to these goats to dance the dance of cheese.

Matt
The small child was originally to be named ‘Shane’, which, in the small tree squirrel of the wolverine variety’s tongue, means ‘He who is great, mighty and full of great might’. Unfortunately, when the name was being recorded the recorder died before he could add the final vowel. Therefore he was Shan, which, though pronounced the same, means ‘apple’. This afforded his squirrelish schoolmates much opportunity to mock and scoff, and thus they did until he set out to force the dance of cheese upon the goats of the trees.

Todd
Now this is a particularly involving and erroneous task to undertake, given the fact that the three cheese-dancing goats lived only in the highest part of the tree and rarely came down unless a bruno came by, which happens about as often as the sun is cold. So Shan had the incredible job of climbing the tree which was taller than every other tree except the one tree north of John Paul’s house called “the tree which is north of John Paul’s house”. Why the heck they called it that not even John knows but then it doesn’t really matter anyway. So the tree had exactly eleventy billion branches and the 1st goat lived on branch number 450 billion, for eleventy is = 1000 billion in the squirrel language. So the boy set out with a piece of bread and some cheese, which was cheddar cause he likes that the best, and started up the tree.

Ben
Unfortunately the boy liked to eat food occasionally so he squished the bread and cheese together to make a nasty omelet type of meal. So, armed with absolutely nothing except his negative wit and non-sharp object and he mounted the first branch on which sat a young lemur named scuzz-name the bonafer, it turns out that this lemur knew ho-w to dance the dance of cheese unfortunately he had not the legs to perform the ancient ritual, so this lemur was no help and the chewed off his left ear in exchange for rubarb leaf.

Matt
You may think that this was a rather odd trade. This trade is not so odd once you consider the fact that this particular lemur was crazed out of his skull and was convinced that his left ear was planning on starting a revolt with his right thumb against the rest of his body. The ear had to be purged. Shan also found the trade beneficial because rubarb was a very rare commodity. It should not be confused with the earth-plant rhubarb, the tasty large-leafed plant that is oh-so yummy in pies. This rubarb is actually a red leaf that contains many chemicals that are useful for manipulating the minds of mammals (of which goats are a prominent member), granting some semblance of a gliding ability to one who eats of it (which is useful when one reaches the top of an eleventy-billion branch tree) and loosening the bowels of someone suffering constipation (which is rather useless in a country like Pakistan).

Todd
Shan immediately climbed seven more branches and after resting a short time noticed a bronze button the size and shape of a pole axe engraved into the tree. Being a child of negative wit, he pressed it, hoping he might obtain some sour candy. Instead a door in the side of the trunk popped open, and as his curiosity is a kin to his wit, he clamored inside and pressed another button, this time in the shape of a have burned speckled-trout with the number 18 lacquered into where his gill would have been.

Ben
Some people are born with brains, some people are born with strength, Shan was born with neither and had brain disorders which caused him to do things that normal people would consider “unsafe” or “unwise” or “unwilling.” Because of this rare disease Shan was prompted to push this button numerous times in not many seconds which caused his little cubicle to shoot upwards in the general direction of the sky. Upon stopping, Shan found himself in a new place, or rather, a new branch and instinctively started humming the tune to “The ol’ shovel’s hittin’ the kitten.”

Matt
At this precise moment nothing happened. But a few seconds later a small kitten appeared. When you picture a kitten, you likely picture a soft, sweet, friendly, cheerful kitten that loves to play with yarn and children. If that is the sort of kitten you pictured, you’re wrong. This kitten is of the rabid, ferocious, children-hating, family-devouring, fire-breathing, evil killer type (except for the fire-breathing...I made that up). The song that our dear hero Shan was humming had enraged the kitten, whose mother had been killed by a shovel. He dropped into an attack stance and gained a +5 to his dexterity and melee attack. Shan closed his eyes in terror. At this moment the kitten lost sight of him. You see, Shan and the kitten could have been related because this kitten was so mind-bogglingly stupid that it assumed that if you couldn’t see it, it couldn’t see you. It was about to walk away when Shan, idiot that he was, opened his eyes and again drew the attention of this small but ill-tempered beast.

Todd
The ferocious feline fell upon the frightened Shan with a purpose mentioned only in the goriest or silliest books written, which is why I will describe it to you. As it jumped across the expanse between them the kitten produced a chainsaw of brass and proceeded to shave the young lad like no barber had ever before. Of course for all of you who are not well versed in the arts of Kimokimokimokimokimoki, an initial advance with a brass chainsaw to a shaving position is easily countered by a glare from the left eye, which Shan did, and once done produced a stunned state for 4 seconds. The kitten reeled at the glare and lost its grip on the chainsaw which fell and felled most of the branches, (including the ugly branch) before coming to rest at the bottom of the tree.

Ben
Quickly regaining his composure the kitten then produced a weapon mostly consisting of twist ties and those bears that you see ride around on unicycles at the circus. Well, as you can imagine Shan did what any self-respecting negative wit would do, which was to sit down and wait for the blow to fall, for this was Shan’s special move. With a fire in his eyes and a joy in his heart, the kitten ran towards Shan twirling his mass of twist ties and circus clowns, Shan braced himself and exposed the most vulnerable part of his body. .

Matt
His most vulnerable part was certainly not his head, because he had never gotten much use out of that part of his body. The kitten struck Shan again and again while dear Shan grimaced and finally fell off the tree completely and landing on the brass chainsaw previously welded by the mighty kitten. At this point the kitten felt a dreadful pang of guilt that he never quite recovered from. The kitten went on to because a polish Presbyterian preacher, which is neither here nor there in the story. Shan’s fall had actually knocked quite a bit of sense and strength into his and changed his life completely. He joined the ranks of the jedi order and devoted his life to the preservation and rehabilitation of angry kittens.