Eve's Memoir

I take a Bible class every Wednesday evening.  Occasionally, we are asked, as part of the homework, to write a little story.  Last week we were asked to write an account of the Fall from the viewpoint of Eve.

In a fit of dutiful reverence, I wrote a sad, tragic account to hand to our instructor.  I can't resist, however, writing a funny version as well.  Our instructor has a sense of humor, so perhaps I will submit this to the class for some extra credit!

How I Ended Up East of Eden[1] by Eve

What was I thinking?  It isn’t as though we didn’t have enough to eat.  We had a whole smorgasbord there in Eden, made up of all kinds of food except meat.  We didn’t mind not having meat, though, because we didn’t know any better back then.  All of the animals in Eden were supposed to be friends for my husband Adam, not food.  That was before Adam got his operation where God took out a rib and made me from it.  At any rate, Adam and I more or less divided up the animal friends.  I took the cute ones and let him have the others, including the slimy ones, like the snake.  I should have paid more attention to the snake.  More about that later.

Anyway, we had a lot of trees in Eden, including a slew of fruit trees, so there was no need for me to want to try the one fruit we weren't allowed to eat.  According to what God told us, it was poison, and we would die from it.  It looked so good, though, that I never really believed it could be so dangerous to eat it.  I mean, what could one little bite do?  But God told us not to eat it, so we left it alone.  Better safe than sorry.

One day the snake came sidling up to me on his four little legs and began to talk to me.  I was shocked because I never knew we had a talking snake in Eden.

“I’m sorry.  Did I scare you?”  he said.

“Yes!”  I answered.  “What do you want?”

“I’m just being friendly.  Say, isn’t that the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil?”

“Yeah.  Why?”

"Oh, nothing.  How come you never eat any of its fruit?"

“God told us not to,” I said.  If we eat it, we’ll die.”

“Get outta here!”  he said.

“Really.  It’s true.”

“You know what I think?”  he said.  “I think you won’t die at all if you eat the fruit of that tree.  I think it will give you knowledge and you’ll be like God.  That’s what I think.”

“You really think so?”  I asked.

“Come on.  Try some.  One little bite can’t hurt.”

The thought of turning into a goddess was extremely tempting.  I had a feeling Adam wouldn’t mind turning into a god, too.

“Okay,” I said.  “But if this turns out bad, I’m blaming you.”

 To make a long story short, I took a bite of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  I didn’t notice any change, but it tasted good, so I brought some of it to Adam.  Being the idiot he is, he took what I gave him and ate it.

Then the effects happened, the strongest of which was that we both suddenly noticed we weren’t wearing any clothes.  Until then, it hadn’t mattered, but now it did.  We rushed around, gathered fig leaves together and made loincloths for ourselves.  They didn’t cover us very well, but it was the best we could do with what we had.

After that, Adam and I had a big fight.  He blamed me for getting him in trouble, and I blamed him for being such a moron.  He stomped off and hid somewhere.  So did I.  The snake, who was laughing like a hyena through all this, stayed where he was to try to catch some sun.

I stayed hidden until evening, which was when God always came to visit us.  I could hear him coming as usual.  Boy, was I scared!  I didn't know how God was going to react.  After all, He was the Supreme Being, and we were just a couple of jerks that He put together from some dust and a rib.  And He did warn us not to eat from that tree.

Of course, we had to come out from hiding and Adam had to admit what had gone down.  You can't hide from God, and you can't lie to Him, so you might as well give up and take your lumps.  Adam blamed me.  I blamed the snake, as I had said I would.  God took away the snake's legs and told him he'd have to crawl on his belly from then on.  It served that sneaky little reptile right.

God warned both Adam and me about all the hardships we would be living from that point on, then He made us each some decent clothes and shooed us out of Eden.  Ordinarily, I love to get a new dress, but this was my first one, and the circumstances didn't warrant any kind of celebrating.

After God closed the garden gate on us, I suddenly remembered that I had left my purse behind.  I turned around to go back in to get it, but the entrance was being guarded by a scary-looking angel.  He didn't look like the type who liked to fetch things for people, so I left it alone and walked away with Adam.

---

[1] East of Eden is a novel by John Steinbeck, for those of you who don’t remember this.  I thought it would be funny to include a reference to it here.  ... Well, it seemed like a good idea.

Sweepstakes Shmeepstakes!

Have you ever received one of those pieces of mail inviting you to enter sweepstakes and possibly win a humungous sum of money?  Of course, you have, unless you have been living in a cave without a mailing address for the last 40 years.

After years of tossing those envelopes into the trash unopened, have you suddenly decided to enter one of the sweepstakes and give yourself a chance to become an instant rich person without having to work for the money?

I have news for you.  Not only do you have a minuscule chance of winning anything, but it takes a genius to fill out one of those entry forms.

DISCLAIMER:  All names have been changed, to protect the innocent, the not-so-innocent and anyone else who feels guilty.  If there is any resemblance to any corporations that have ever been in existence, don’t blame me.

Picture this.  You have just received an envelope in the mail from the Sweepstakes Division of the Chimera[1] Corporation. 

The envelope is thick.  For some silly reason, this gives you hope.  If the Chimera Corporation took the time to stuff your envelope like that, it must mean you are a winner, right?  You picture a big factory room full of tiny envelope stuffers, working frantically to overstuff enough envelopes to go out to all the winners of the world, one of which is you.  What humanitarians they must be because you are sure the Chimera Corporation is underpaying them.  Otherwise, how would they have enough money to give out to the winners of the world?

You open the envelope and pull out a load of papers.  Every one of these is covered on its entire surface with print, pictures or both.  The bright colors cause you a 30-second attack of blindness before you are able to focus on any of them.  The cover letter is littered with exclamation point warnings, such as “You might be a winner!”  “Don’t miss the deadline!”  Don’t lose your chance to win $348,000,000 in cash every year of your life!”  This puts the Greed Center of your brain on red alert, which is why the Chimera Corporation paid some advertising person to compose that letter in the first place.

Actual instructions are hard to find in the mess.  What you do get are warnings to follow the instructions.  This forces you to actually read everything in the packet, which is something you rarely do with anything, let alone junk mail.

You waste about an hour of your life sorting through the whole mess, finding stickers, pasting them on what looks like the application form, seeing the return envelope and pasting another sticker on it, etc., etc., etc.

Finally, it looks like you have a precise, correctly presented application.  You put it in the enclosed self-addressed envelope marked "place stamp here."  You dig through your desk drawers looking for a stamp.  You find an old, unused "forever" stamp with Elvis Presley's picture on it.  You put it on the stamp corner of the envelope and write your return address on the other edge.

You put the application in a mailbox on the way to church to light some candles.

---

[1] One of the definitions of chimera, according to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary:  an illusion or fabrication of the mind, especially : an unrealizable dream

Who's Afraid of Big, Bad Me?

Ah, come on, Mom!  I’m the Omega Wolf of the pack.  Nobody is afraid of me, and the females won’t come near me, even when they’re in heat and horny as the deer that we have for dinner.  Why do I have to take all these Big Bad Wolf tests, just so that I can learn to scare a few humans?

Okay, okay.  Rite of passage and all that.  I don’t have a choice, right?

How come you only agree with me when it means I have to do something painful?  No, I won’t shut up.

Did I hear you right?  You want me to go into this FROZEN lake and swim around?  You want me to catch pneumonia?

I know wolves don’t get pneumonia, but we get other rotten diseases.  You want me to get a rotten disease?  Again, I will not shut up.

Okay, I’ll step into the water.  Look, I’m stepping in.

OW!  This water is COLD!  What am I, a polar bear or something?

Okay, okay.  I’ll walk in further.  I’m doing it right now.  I’m up to my thighs in icy cold water.  Pretty soon I’ll freeze to death, it will be all over, and you’ll be very sorry you made me do this.

AAYYEE!  Something just touched me under the water!  A rattlesnake!  It must be a rattlesnake!

Oh, it was just a minnow.  Did that big, graceful, ballet-like leap I just made count toward my grade?

Yes, I’ll shut up.

========================

Inspired by a picture prompt posted on the Facebook page of the Writing Prompts Group on 6/14/2018 by Michele Rice Carpenter.

Always Plan for Death and Other Events

Note:  This story describes a Catholic wake and funeral.  We writers always hear, “Write what you know.”  Being a Catholic church singer, I know Catholic funerals very well.

My name is Eunice O’Neill, and I died in a car crash five days ago.  Why am I still hanging around, you ask?  I don’t know.  I went through the whole thing:  the tunnel; the light; seeing all my dead relatives, two departed dogs and a hamster; everything.  Then they told me I would have to spend some more time down here because this is my Purgatory.  Eventually, they’ll let me in up there, but I don’t know how long that will take.  In the meantime, we have to make the best of things, so I decided to haunt my wake and my funeral.

One of the nice things about being dead is that you don’t have to walk around anymore because you can float!  Floating is fun, especially when you float right through someone because you can see all their insides when you do that.  I know that doesn’t sound like fun, but when you’re a ghost, you have to take what you can get.

I floated into my wake early, out of habit.  I forgot that there was no need to get a good seat because I don’t get tired anymore.  Of course, nobody was there yet, so I took some time to check everything out.  Hmmm.  Big wreath of flowers from Uncle Joe and Aunt Kate.  One, two, three, four ... twelve Mass cards.  All those Masses should cut down some of my Purgatory time.  Guestbook, holy cards ... right where they should be.  Some nice pictures of me from fifteen years ago.  So far, everything was in order.

I put off the most important thing until last because I didn’t want to face it:  how I looked in my coffin.  The coffin was fine.  It didn’t scream “cheap,” but it wasn’t extravagant, either.  It was somewhere in the middle, just like my family.

I had to know if I looked presentable, so I took a peek at myself.  If a ghost could scream, I would have done it.  There I was, wearing the one dress that I hated, and a pageboy wig that looked like the Dutch Boy on an old paint can.  It wasn’t even the right color.  My real hair was light auburn; the wig was dark auburn.  My sister Alice must have picked it out.  She never had an eye for color, but she was Mom’s favorite.  So, of course, who else should be in charge of my hair?

Tammy Faye Bakker must have done my makeup.  I looked like a $10 hooker.

You can imagine how I felt later when my sister Alice and her husband passed by my coffin.  Alice was crying, and she said, “She looks so peaceful and nice,” meaning me.  That idiot brother-in-law of mine answered with, “Yeah, she looks better than she did when she was alive.”  If I still had legs, I would have kicked that bastard right where it would hurt the most.

The funeral Mass the next morning was okay.  Only the family and a few friends came, but almost everyone I knew had been at the wake the night before, so that was okay.  Cousin Lizzie, who insists on singing at every family function, even though she has a voice like a foghorn in a hurricane, butchered the “Ave Maria.”  The organist managed to keep up with Lizzie, who doesn’t read music and can’t count, but I could see he was suffering through the whole number.  The regular church singer sang everything else, and he has an awesome set of pipes, so it wasn’t a total loss.

A lot of people said they would miss me because I was a lot of fun.  Maybe I’ll use my time here on earth haunting them.  It’s only right.

==============================

Inspired by a prompt posted by author Rachel Christiansen on Facebook’s Writing Prompts Group on June 8, 2018:

Write about a funeral from the dead person’s viewpoint.

A Dilly of a Dildo

Dear Mother Hildegard:

As a good Catholic alum of your school, and according to the penance imposed on me by Father Riley in Confession on Saturday, I apologize for my behavior to your sister nuns last Wednesday.  I acknowledge that my actions put them in the occasion of sin by tempting them to impure thoughts that should never enter into the mind of any good Catholic woman, especially a nun.  Father Riley also made me say two Rosaries.  He did this after he was finished laughing so hard his nose was running.

In my defense, I would like to explain why I was walking down the street in front of the school on Wednesday carrying a huge inflatable penis.

 

To begin with, It never occurred to me that a nun would even know what that thing I carried represented.  I forgot that Sister Mary Eloise teaches biology, that she used to be an exotic dancer and that she likes to talk.

So okay, it all started on Wednesday morning when Angie Ricciardone and Lourdes Valdez decided at the last minute to give Mary Frances McBride a bachelorette party that night.  Mary Frances married Johnny Burke on Thursday.  The reason they didn’t get married on Saturday was that they could get a catering hall cheaper in the middle of the week.  Mary Frances and Johnny are both cheap as a $2 dress.  Mary Frances even wore her mother’s old wedding gown, which I have to admit did look pretty good after forty years of lying in a box in the closet.  Knowing Mary Frances, she’ll preserve it until it’s almost petrified then pass it on to the next female in the family who gets married.

Angie and I put ourselves in charge of decorations.  One of the places we hit was Eros’ Lair, which sells (excuse me for saying this to you, a nun) sex toys and other erotic paraphernalia.  I only knew about the place because other people had told me about it.  To this, I can swear.  We bought a few items, which I won’t mention to a nun, including the thing I mentioned earlier, which I had to tell you about because this whole story is about it.

I asked the clerk behind the counter how big it would be when inflated.  To show us, he took it out of its package, brought an air pump up from behind the counter and inflated it right there.  Holy Moly, that thing was HUGE!  Of course, we bought it.

By the way, if you’re worried about the effect of a giant you-know-what on Mary Frances, don’t.  She and Johnny have been going at each other for a year now, and he wasn’t her first by any means.  She knows what a man looks like.  It’s okay now, though.  She’s gone to Confession, and she got married in St. Brendan’s church, wearing white, figuring that if she wore white nobody would guess what a tramp she had been in former days.

Angie and I figured we had better bring the inflated hoo-hah out of the store as it was because none of us had an air pump and we weren’t about to blow that thing up ourselves.  We were in a hurry, so we took a shortcut.  That’s how we ended up on the corner across from the school with me carrying the big piece of junk and a group of startled nuns across the street.

Again, I apologize.  I have now done my entire penance, so it looks like I am forgiven, even though I smiled and waved at the group of nuns just for the fun of it, to make sure they saw me.  It was all a big joke, and I’m sorry I made Sister Bernadette faint.

Yours truly,

Annie McNeely

===================================

Inspired by a picture prompt posted by Audrie Michelle on the Writing Prompts Group page on Facebook.

The Harebrained Royal Heir

ANNOUNCER:  I present Her Royal Highness Princess Ivory Eugenia Barbie Margaret Dollie Alexandra of the House of Dummschaff, Crown Princess of the Kingdom of Allwettia

PRINCESS:  As you all know, I will soon be Queen, if everything goes right.  My poor father, King Rudolph, known to you commoners as Rudy the Wolf, is dying.  He has had one of these attacks at least once a year for the last 20 years, so there is always a chance that he’ll come through this one.  In that case, I shall remain Crown Princess, and my only duties will be to look good, get married, produce some royal kids, and show up at all the right ceremonies.

You wouldn’t want my life.  Believe me.

By the way, I love a joke as much as the next person.  But will whoever has been posting all those “I’ve had Ivory” notices all over the place, please stop it!  I have never had casual sex in my life.  Well, okay, I’ve had a few encounters with strangers just for the fun of it, but only a few.  And I have never had an illicit affair.  What?  Well, that one doesn’t count.  The Duke and I were only long-term friends with benefits.  We could only get together, anyway, when the Duchess wasn’t home.  Hmm?  No, that one doesn’t count, either. ... Neither does that one. ... Oh, just take those signs down!

You over there – what did you say?  Something about the apple not falling far from the tree?  Well, let me assure you that my father’s reputation is grossly exaggerated.  If he had bedded as many women as everyone says, he wouldn’t have had any time to do anything else.  And the first person who makes a wisecrack from THAT will have his taxes audited for the last 20 years!

It seems that everyone wants to know how much energy I will put into ruling the kingdom.  According to rumor, I have never shown any desire to do any work or anything requiring thinking.  Well, that’s why a Queen has advisors, secretaries, and servants.  After all, I can’t do everything myself, and I can’t think of everything.  It’s much more pleasant if I can trust everyone else to do things right so that all I have to do is sign things and show up at the right parties and balls and whatnot.

Yes, please?  Why, of course, I will be a real monarch!  I will not be a figurehead, even if other people are doing all the real work.  Anyone who has any ideas of taking over my job will be fired.  I plan to keep all the power, with as little trouble to myself as possible.

What will I do for poor people, you ask?  Well, poor people don’t dress well, and they live in such awful houses.  I’m sure they are chagrinned to appear in public.  I will have high walls built around all the poor districts of every city and divert all roads away from poor villages.  This way, the poor can hide from everyone with dignity, and we won’t have to know they are there.

Yes?  No, I will decidedly NOT be imprisoning the poor inside ghettos.  They simply won’t be able to go through the gates unless they are properly dressed.  I can’t help it if they don’t have the money to dress like billionaires.  They’ll have to share, or something.

I beg your pardon!  That remark was not necessary!

I think it’s time for me to flounce out now, so I can go to my room and sulk in peace, like the princess I am.  Good-bye, all.

**********************

Inspired by a writing prompt by Jenalyn Cloward Barton

Posted on Facebook’s Writing Prompts Group on May 14. 2018,

“You may be the rightful heir to the throne, but you’re definitely not the right one for the job.”

The Monster has Risen

**

In other news, scientists, tourists and startled gondoliers have reported a sighting of the famed Grand Canal Monster, popularly known as "Grandie."

Unlike the Loch Ness Monster, which is usually seen as a long neck with a little head on the end of it, the Grand Canal Monster appears as two gigantic white human arms and hands. In the past, Grandie has been mistaken for some large, submerged ancient Roman statue, but that idea was debunked when it was seen by two people who were selling knockoff Gucci handbags to let go of a building it was grabbing and sink back into the water. In addition, Venice was not an ancient Roman city, so no statues were built there by the Romans. Other people built statues there later, but not the Romans, because they weren't there to do it.

The appearance of the monster has caused great concern within the ranks of the Venetian municipality. They are wondering if the creature will wreck some kind of havoc on the annual Regatta and on the gondola business. Tourists, on the other hand, are heading to Venice in huge droves and bringing their iPhone cameras with them. Several people have been accidentally pushed into the polluted water, causing them to get very angry. Venetian police are putting in a lot of overtime trying to control the crowds of people, most of whom can't even speak Italian.

We'll have more on this later. Right now, let's go to Jim James for the latest sports news.

This was written in response to a photo writing prompt by author Jody Townsley Morse, posted on Facebook on February 3, 2018.

=============

**The image is of the sculpture "Support," by the artist Lorenzo Quinn.  It set up in the water of the Grand Canal to call attention to the problem of Global Warming, which is causing sea levels to rise.