Politically Correct Bedtime Stories (6 page)

nce there was a young princess who, when she grew tired of beating her head against the male power structure at her castle, would relax by walking into the woods and sitting beside a small pond. There she would amuse herself by tossing her favourite golden ball up and down and pondering the role of the eco-feminist warrior in her era.

One day, while she was dreaming of the utopia that her queendom could become if womyn were in the positions of power, she dropped the ball, which rolled into the pond. The pond was so deep and murky she couldn’t see where it had gone. She didn’t cry, of course, but she made a mental note to be more careful next time.

Suddenly she heard a voice say, ‘I can get your ball for you, princess.’

She looked round, and saw the head of a frog popping above the surface of the pond. ‘No, no,’ she said, ‘I would never enslave a member of another species to work for my selfish desires.’

The frog said, ‘Well, what if we make a deal on a contingency basis? I’ll get your ball for you if you do me a favour in return.’

The princess gladly agreed to this most equitable arrangement. The frog dived under the water and soon emerged with the golden ball in his mouth. He spat the ball on the bank and said, ‘Now that I’ve done you a favour, I’d like to explore your views on physical attraction between the species.’

The princess couldn’t imagine what the frog was talking about. The frog continued, ‘You see, I am not really a frog at all. I’m really a man, but an evil sorcerer has cast a spell on me. While my frog form is no better or worse—only different—than my human form, I would so much like to be among people again. And the only thing that can break this spell is a kiss from a princess.’

The princess thought for a moment about whether sexual harassment could take place between species, but her heart went out to the frog for his predicament. She bent down and kissed the frog on the forehead. Instantly the frog grew and changed. And there, standing in the water where the frog had been, was a man in a golf shirt and loud plaid trousers—middle-aged, vertically challenged, and losing a little bit of hair on top.

The princess was taken aback. ‘I’m sorry if this sounds a little classist,’ she stammered, ‘but… what I mean to say is … don’t sorcerers usually cast their spells on
princes
?’

‘Ordinarily, yes,’ he said, ‘but this time the target was just an innocent businessman. You see, I’m a real estate developer, and the sorcerer thought I was cheating him in a property-line dispute. So he invited me out for a round of golf, and just as I was about to tee off, he transformed me. But my time as a frog wasn’t wasted, you know. I’ve got to know every square inch of these woods, and I think it would be ideal for an office/property share/resort complex. The location’s great and the numbers add up perfectly! The bank wouldn’t lend any money to a frog, but now that I’m in human form again, they’ll be eating out of my hand. Oh, will that be sweet! And let me tell you, this is going to be a big project! Just drain the pond, cut down about 80 per cent of the trees, get easements for… .’

The frog developer was cut short when the princess shoved her golden ball back into his mouth. She then pushed him back underwater and held him there until he stopped thrashing. As she walked back to the castle, she marvelled at the number of good deeds that a person could do in just one morning. And while someone might have noticed that the frog was gone, no one ever missed the real estate developer.

nce upon a time, on a little farm, there lived a boy named Jack. He lived on the farm with his mother, and they were very excluded from the normal circles of economic activity. This cruel reality kept them in straits of direness, until one day Jack’s mother told him to take the family cow into town and sell it for as much as he could.

Never mind the thousands of gallons of milk they had stolen from her! Never mind the hours of pleasure their bovine animal companion had provided! And forget about the manure they had appropriated for their garden! She was now just another piece of property to them. Jack, who didn’t realize that non-human animals have as many rights as human animals—perhaps even more—did as his mother asked.

On his way to town, Jack met an old magic vegetarian, who warned Jack of the dangers of eating beef and dairy products.

‘Oh, I’m not going to eat this cow,’ said Jack. ‘I’m going to take her into town and sell her.’

‘But by doing that, you’ll just perpetuate the cultural mythos of beef, ignoring the negative impact of the cattle industry on our ecology and the health and social problems that arise from meat consumption. But you look too simple to be able to make these connections, my boy. I’ll tell you what I’ll do: I’ll offer to trade your cow for these three magic beans, which have as much protein as that entire cow but none of the fat or sodium.’

Jack made the swap gladly and took the beans home to his mother. When he told her about the deal he had made, she grew very upset. She used to think her son was merely a conceptual rather than a linear thinker, but now she was sure that he was downright differently abled. She grabbed the three magic beans and threw them out of the window in disgust. Later that day, she attended her first support-group meeting with Mothers of Storybook Children.

The next morning, Jack stuck his head out of the window to see if the sun had risen in the east again (he was beginning to see a pattern in this). But outside the window, the beans had grown into a huge stalk that reached through the clouds. Because he no longer had a cow to milk in the morning, Jack climbed the beanstalk into the sky.

At the top, above the clouds, he found a huge castle. It was not only big, but it was built to larger-than-average scale, as if it were the home of someone who just happened to be a giant. Jack entered the castle and heard beautiful music wafting through the air. He followed this sound until he found its source: a golden harp that played music without being touched. Next to this self-actualized harp was a hen sitting on a pile of golden eggs.

Now, the prospect of easy wealth and mindless entertainment appealed to Jack’s bourgeois sensibilities, so he picked up both the harp and the hen and started to run for the front door. Then he heard thundering footsteps and a booming voice that said:

‘FEE, FIE, FOE, FUM,

‘I smell the blood of an English person!

‘I’d like to learn about his culture and views on life!

‘And share my own perspectives in an open and generous way!’

Unfortunately, Jack was too crazed with greed to accept the giant’s offer of a cultural interchange. ‘It’s only a trick,’ thought Jack. ‘Besides, what’s a giant doing with such fine, delicate things? He must have stolen them from somewhere else, so I have every right to take them.’ His frantic justifications—remarkable for someone with his overtaxed mental resources—revealed a terrible callousness to the giant’s personal rights. Jack apparently was a complete sizeist, who thought that all giants were clumsy, knowledge-impaired, and exploitable.

When the giant saw Jack with the magic harp and the hen, he asked, ‘Why are you taking what belongs to me?’

Jack knew he couldn’t outrun the giant, so he had to think fast. He blurted out, ‘I’m not taking them, my friend. I am merely placing them in my stewardship so that they can be properly managed and brought to their fullest potential. Pardon my bluntness, but you giants are too simple in the head and don’t know how to manage your resources properly. I’m just looking after your interests. You’ll thank me for this later.’

Jack held his breath to see if the bluff would save his skin. The giant sighed heavily and said, ‘Yes, you are right. We giants do use our resources foolishly. Why, we can’t even discover a new beanstalk without getting so excited and picking away at it so much that we pull the poor thing right out of the ground!’

Jack’s heart sank. He turned and looked out of the front door of the castle. Sure enough, the giant had destroyed his beanstalk. Jack grew frightened and cried, ‘Now I’m trapped here in the clouds with you forever!’

The giant said, ‘Don’t worry, my little friend. We are strict vegetarians up here, and there are always plenty of beans to eat. And besides, you won’t be alone. Thirteen other men of your size have already climbed up beanstalks to visit us and stayed.’

So Jack resigned himself to his fate as a member of the giant’s cloud commune. He didn’t miss his mother or their farm much, because up in the sky there was less work to do and more than enough to eat. And he gradually learned not to judge people based on their size ever again, except for those shorter than he.

he picturesque little town of Hamelin had everything a community could wish for—non-polluting industries, effective public transport, and a well-balanced ethno-religious diversity. In fact, the town council had managed to legislate or intimidate away every element that could keep the citizens from living a good and sensitive life. Every element, that is, except the caravan site.

The caravan site on the edge of Hamelin was a civic embarrassment. Not only was it a terrible eyesore, with its rusted pick-up vans and rubbish heaps in every backyard. Within it dwelled some of the most unregenerate and irredeemable people you could ever imagine—murderers of nondomestic animals, former clients of the correctional system and cross-country bikers. With their plastic daisy wind-mills, loud music and drunken weekend brawls, they sent a shudder through every respectable person in town.

One day, after a particularly riotous road rally through the caravan site, the town council had a meeting. After heated debate, they decided that somehow they had to eradicate the caravan site. But they were at a loss to know how to do it without ignoring or infringing upon the rights of the people who lived there. Finally, after even more oratory, they decided to let that be someone else’s worry, since they were already so burdened with more important concerns, such as declining property values. So the councillors decided to advertise for someone to solve their problems.

Soon after the advertisement was sent out, a man appeared in town. He was very vertically gifted and of lower-than-average weight for his size. His clothes were worn in combinations never before seen or imagined, and his mannerisms and high-pitched voice were certainly unique. Although he looked as if he came from some world other than (but certainly not unequal to) our own, he gained the trust of the desperate town councillors.

‘I will be able to rid your town of the caravan site dwellers,’ said the man of enhanced strangeness, ‘but you must promise to pay me 100 pieces of gold.’

The town councillors wanted this whole unpleasant business finished as soon as possible, so they readily assented. The sooner the caravan site was eliminated, the sooner they could all revert to their open-minded, progressive selves.

So the man of enhanced strangeness got down to work. He reached into his tattered knapsack and pulled out a sophisticated, compact recording machine. The people around him looked on with interest as he inserted a few tapes, set some knobs, and checked the sound levels. Then he began mumbling into the built-in microphone. No one could hear exactly what he was saying, but the man seemed to be lacking in coherence. Abruptly, he stopped mumbling, stood up, and told the town councillors that he needed a van with a public-address system.