Date:         Fri, 16 Jan 1998 15:04:56 EST
From: Round em up Raw Words <mbarker@MIT.EDU>
Subject:      [WRITERS] FILLER: Eggs'n'catsup

[whipped up and posted with as little thought as possible...if I think
about it, the little critic inside would probably say "NOOOOO!"]

On Fri, 16 Jan 1998 05:36:21 PST, "Anthony V. Toscano"
<atoscan@IX.NETCOM.COM> postulated:

:) But if you take it back to the
:) first squeeze, do you meet a devious and independent agent, a god pulling
:) strings, or an accidental stampede of fertile hens cackling through a field
:) of ripe tomatoes?

And in a flash of whimsical outsight, I recalled the day...

        Zeus was being a pill.
        I mean, it's hard enough having the whole gang up there on
their hilltop, but when they get into the joyrides, brave men hide
under their beds.

        So, on the morning I remember, Zeus was amusing himself racing
clouds through the countryside.  Black thunderheads, with a blast of
icy wind, and the crackling spear of his lightning whipping through
the farms.
        Odd Iseus, as usual, had his funny piece of wood on his
shoulder and was asking people if they knew what it was for.
        Ileum likes his humor jejune, and he said he knew what it was!
        Poor Iseus shuddered and said, "What?"
        Ileum grinned, winked at us, and said, "It's for spanking
chickens!"
        Odd Iseus took a swing at him with it, and you know, Ileum
might be right, the darn thing would work pretty well for spanking
chickens.  That is, if you had any reason to spank a chicken.

        It was about then that Zeus decided to get into the act.
Maybe he didn't like bad jokes either?
        First he zaps Ileum's chicken coop, and all the chickens come
racing out.
        We hear Zeus laughing fit to kill in the clouds, and the
lightning starts whipping along behind and around the chickens.
        I don't know if you've ever seen chickens run, but they never
know where they are going.  And of course, Zeus isn't the most careful
god around when he's having fun, so about every fourth or fifth bzzzt
there's either a major SQUAWK or an ominous frying splat as chicken on
the run meets the flickering finger of Zeus.
        The whole thing really got strange, though, when Zeus herded
the fertile hens into a field of ripe tomatoes.  Here he sets up a
virtual cage of lightning bolts around the fearful chickens, which
terrifies them.  Almost every one of them suddenly drops an egg, some
of them two or three...and Zeus has got his fiery fingers right there,
catching them as they fall!
        So he stirs this whole mess of eggs up, pops tomatoes over it
all, and sets it down in the town square.
        Then we get his face-in-the-clouds bit, and he yells at us
all, "Come'n'get it!"

        That's when the lights all flashed and that voice started
booming out "ANACHRONISM FAULT!"

        That's the kind of screwy stuff you get when the gods run
wierd, chasing fertile hens through the wild tomatoes.
        After all the excitement, it didn't taste too bad--but I
wouldn't want to make a habit of it.
        I don't want to encourage Ileum making bad jokes.

tink