May 24: So Damn Sleepy, Fairy Tale Friday, Sleeping Marty

He didn't say anything again for quite a while.  I don't know if you've ever done it, but it's sort of hard to sit around waiting for somebody to say something when they're thinking and all.  It really is.  I kept trying not to yawn.  It wasn't that I was bored or anything--I wasn't--but I was so damn sleepy all of a sudden.

The key phrase of the Catcher passage above is "...I was so damn sleepy all of a sudden."  For some reason, I am beat today.  I was tired when I woke up, and I've been tired all day long.  It's the kind of tired where your eyes feel like they've gone ten rounds with Apollo Creed.  I could fall asleep right now.

But I'm not going to.  I owe my disciples a fairy tale.  So, we begin, as we always do...

Once upon a time, in the kingdom of YouPee, there lived a hardworking cobbler named Marty.  Now, Marty was so hardworking that, when he was finished working on shoes during the day, he moonlighted at a local apothecary shop, making magic wart remover.  You see, every summer, YouPee was plagued by thousands of toads, and all of its citizens ended up being covered with warts.  So, September through May, the local union of apothecaries worked day-and-night to produce enough Wart-Be-Gone for June, July, and August.

Marty usually only got two to three hours of sleep a night.  One morning, as he was working on a pair of Hermes high tops for Phatboy, the royal hip hop dancer, Marty fell asleep.  When he woke up a little while later, a toad was sitting on the bench next to Phatboy's left shoe.

The toad cleared its throat.  "Greetings, Sleeping Marty," it croaked.  "I am a magic toad.  You see, many years ago, I lived one kingdom over in the palace.  I am actually a princess.  But I was a wicked little girl.  I stole money from the royal treasury and blamed it on Kermit, the court jester.  My father ordered that Kermit be drowned in the castle moat.  As Kermit was being dragged away by the guards, he cursed me to life of ugliness.  He said I would never be a girl again until I could convince a true and noble man to kiss me.  You are a true and noble man, Marty.  If you kiss me now, I promise you a life of wealth and leisure.  You will never have to work another day in your life, and I will love you until my dying day."

Sleeping Marty took his hammer and smashed the toad with it.  "Damn talking toads," he said, and he went back to work on the Hermes high tops.

The moral of the story:  Don't trust toads.

And Saint Marty lived happily ever after.

Would you trust this thing?