Tall Tale Tuesday: The Greenhorn and the Mule Egg
The Greenhorn and the Mule Egg
as retold by S. E. Schlosser
Well now, there was a chap that got real sick of working in the big city. One day, he quit his job, packed up his wife and kiddies, and hi-tailed it out to Kansas to become a farmer. Bought a big parcel of land with a grand old barn and some fields just ready to plow and plant.
Now, being a bit of a greenhorn, the poor fellow didn’t know where to start with that there farm. His wife suggested that they get a mule to pull the plow for them, and the greenhorn thought this was as splendid idea. He set off down the road to visit their neighbor and ask him where he could buy a mule.
Well, that neighbor was a bit of a wag. He’d sized up his new neighbor as a greenhorn in about five seconds and decided to have a bit of fun with him.
”Well, you could advertise for a mule in the local paper,” the neighbor said. “But if you want to do it the Kansas way, well then you should get yourself a mule egg and hatch your own. That way you can train the mule up from birth to do exactly as you want.”
The greenhorn’s eyes got real wide. “I didn’t know mules hatched from eggs,” he said excitedly. “Where do I get one?”
”It just so happens I have one mule egg left from the last batch I raised,” the neighbor said. He went into the shed and came out with a round, hairy coconut. The greenhorn’s eyes lit up.
”How much do I owe you?” he asked his neighbor.
”That’ll be a dollar. And mind you, you’ve got to sit on the mule egg night and day for a week before it will hatch,” the neighbor said, accepting the greenhorn’s money and handing over the coconut.
Well, the greenhorn ran all the way home and showed the mule egg to his wife and kiddies. Everyone was thrilled with his purchase, and they all took turns sitting on the coconut, waiting for it to hatch. They waited one week. Then they waited two. By the third week, everyone’s bottoms were sore from sitting on the hard coconut, and still there was no sign of a mule.
”It must be a bad egg,” the wife said at last. “Better throw it out and see if our neighbor will give us our money back.”
As the disappointed family watched, the greenhorn took the coconut outside and pitched it into the bushes. All at once, a giant jackrabbit burst out of the tall grass next to the bushes and hopped away lickety-split.
”It’s the baby mule!” shouted one of the kiddies. “Catch it, Pa! Catch it.”
Well, the greenhorn ran after that long-eared critter as fast as he could go, shouting: “I’m your momma, baby mule! Please come back!” But he was no match for that jackrabbit. It darted here and there; it slithered hither and yon; and finally it slid down a hole in the ground and disappeared.
The greenhorn fell to the ground and lay panting in exhaustion. A few moments later, his wife and kids caught up with him and pulled him to his feet.
”Where’s our mule?” asked his wife.
”The dad-blame thing got away,” said the greenhorn. “And I’m not sorry it did. That’s the speediest mule I ever laid eyes on, and I don’t aim to plow that fast!”
Last night at work, the cook and I had to throw out every steak in the house. Every single one. Even the ones in the freezer were so rotten, you could smell the spoilage in the frozen meat. It was awful.
Since they were coming out of the freezer spoiled, they were clearly delivered to us spoiled. So, the distributer owes us some money.
Good lord, that was a horrible stink. *gags* I couldn’t even eat for hours after the fact.
July 12th, 2006 at 2:40 pm
[...] When I sit down to write a post, the first thing I usually ask myself is, “Do I even have anything intelligent to say, today?” More often than not, the answer is “No.” The coffee usually hasn’t kicked in yet, you see. Be that as it may, I soldier on. At the Restaurant, I have this cook, whom we’ll call Dick. Dick is 20-something, invulnerable, and a super-genius. He’s clearly the best thing that ever happened to us, and far superior to we mere mortals, whom he has graced with his presence. Anyone who’s ever worked in a restaurant, has worked with this guy. He’s useless. He can’t cook, he won’t clean, he doesn’t stock. He’s an asshole to everyone, and he’s constantly stirring up trouble, and cannot conceive of why he’s being punished for that behavior, since he is clearly so damn awesome. Our particular version of Dick is complicated somewhat by the fact that his dad, St. Don the Dishwashing Savior, works for us, too. St. Don is godlike is his dish washing abilities. There is no rush so mighty that he cannot keep up by himself, single-handedly. All that he does is perfect. When he cleans, lo, the sparkling of his cleaning is blinding. His dishtank even smells decent, and that takes some serious effort. His floors are spotless. His bathrooms could be used by the Queen of England, and she would be most pleased. He’s helpful and friendly and never causes problems. He rarely calls off. He comes in early, he stays late, he comes in on his days off. We would cheerfully sacrifice virgins in St. Don’s honor, if he but asked it. So Dick, the son, gets away with quite a lot, simply because we don’t want to piss his dad off. Now, for that matter, even though a father can’t really admit it, I think St. Don realizes that Dick is digging himself quite a hole, and is likely to get himself fired any minute now. Frankly, Dick is hanging himself faster than I can reel the rope out to him. Back a couple of weeks ago, I had to throw out something like $600 worth of steak. That stuff was foul beyond words. I mean — damn. Dick was there that night, and I’d also had another cook, who’s worked for us about forever, Bryan, and who was there as a customer, check the nasty steak as well. (Because, you know, I have tits, and therefore can’t recognize rotten steak on my own. So I had the men confirm that the steak was rotten, because my poor little female brain can’t handle such chores.) The week after that, the opening cook called out, and after much juggling of shifts, got the shift covered with Dick. Dick wanted extra hours for doing the favor, which he was getting. He was trading an eight-hour shift for a ten or twelve hour shift. All good. Well, Dick proceeded to throw a baby-fit temper tantrum, because he wanted to open and close that night (an 18-hour day, which there is no way in hell he could have made it through; he’s too lazy and whiny). So, the lil’ fucktard called out on the opening shift, leaving us totally screwed, and thought he would just pick up the closing shift he’d originally been scheduled for. Well, I’d covered that with another cook, so Dick could open. I decreed that if Dick couldn’t open, he damn well wouldn’t work at all that day. He purposefully called out to screw me, because he didn’t get his own way. You fuck me over, I fuck you over. That’s how it works. Now, Dick is going around telling everyone that I did not, in fact, throw away that $600 worth of steak, but instead, stole it. Me, and the cook who covered his night shift, whom, I might add, wasn’t even at the restaurant the night we threw the steak away. Now, my ass is covered six ways to Sunday on this, as is the other cook’s. For one thing, I’ve got Bryan to say that yes, indeed, the steak was rotten and thrown out, and another morning cook who saw all the steak in the garbage dumpster the next day. I’m going in today to chat with the Boss about this crap, because regardless of whether St. Don gets mad or not, Dick has got to go. He’s been useless for ages, and now he’s trying to get me in trouble. If the Boss were dumb enough to believe this sort of thing, I could lose my job, and then, I’d be screwed. There are no other jobs, at least not that pay the kind of money I make. Restaurants. Like soap operas, only with uglier people and crappier scripts. [link] [...]