Ant Farmer's Almanac

Fairly Grim Tales: Goldilocks & the Three Tenors

GOLDILOCKS (she went by just one name) lived high on a hill, in a cantilevered castle that had the very best view of the Woodland.

For her birthday her mother and her mother’s new husband told Goldilocks that she could have anything she wanted.

“Feh!” whined Goldilocks, “That’s what I always get!”

What Goldilocks wanted this year was to have the most fabulously spectacular, birthday party ever; something like nothing she or any of her friends had ever had before.

Goldilocks announced that she wanted a very loud tenor to sing at her party. Now, Goldilocks didn’t know much about tenors, but she did know that no one she knew had ever had one sing at their birthday party.

Mother’s new husband, who had connections in the music business, commissioned a cantata for the occasion but Goldilocks insisted on casting the tenor herself.

She had her people put an ad in Daily Variety and on craigslist.

“Wanted . . .” the ad read, “. . . very loud tenor to sing at fabulously spectacular birthday party. Must bring down the house!”

On the day of the auditions, a line of tenors wound around the castle grounds and zigzagged halfway down the hill.

One after another the tenors came in, belted out an aria and left their head shots.

And one after another Goldilocks told them, “Thank you. Next!”

By late afternoon, there were only three tenors left.

“Hmmm,” thought Goldilocks, looking over the trio, “This one’s too fat. He’ll eat all the foie gras. And that one just hasn’t got, I don’t know, je ne sais quois. And that guy,” said Goldilocks, squinting at the third tenor, who was holding a leaf-blower, “Looks a lot like the gardener.”

No, none of them was just right.

Suddenly, Goldilocks got an idea.

She had all three tenors stand close together and told them to sing the same note as loudly as they could, all at the same time, and to hold it for as long as they could.

And on her cue . . .

“Okay, boys! Hit it!”

. . . they did.

As the trio boomed and bellowed, the chandeliers shivered, the tiles trembled and the walls wobbled. The whole castle quaked and there came a thunderous roar from under the floor.

The castle rocked this way and that, then toppled over and crashed down the hill into the valley below, leaving a terrible mess and tying up cross-town traffic something awful.

Sure enough, the three tenors had brought down the house.

With the castle now at the bottom of the hill, Goldilocks had her birthday party catered by a take-out Chinese joint which, while not fabulous or spectacular, was something that she and her friends had never done before.

Moral: People who live in cantilevered castles shouldn’t cast cantatas.

Fairly Grim Tales: The Pig, the Witch & the Cellphone

ONCE UPON A TIME there was a little pig who lived in an enchanted Woodland. Also in this Woodland lived an evil witch who only looked beautiful until you really got to know her.

The evil witch cast a spell that made the little pig rude and thoughtless and caused her to turn off her cellphone and ignore calls she was expecting.

Nearby there lived a handsome and talented bear, whose success and popularity really ticked-off the evil witch, who was all but washed up in the Woodland.

The bear bravely went out to rescue the little pig from the witch’s spell and straighten her out.

But when the bear tried to tell the little pig that she was under a spell, his fearsome-sounding roar startled many of the other Woodland creatures.

The evil witch took advantage of this and sent out nasty, highly paid trolls to tell everyone about how the bear had roared so ferociously and how very frightened the little pig had been.

Soon the whole Woodland had heard about the angry, roaring bear.

“Roaring is bad,” said everyone in the Woodland, “Especially roaring at little pigs.”

Of course, the trolls didn’t say anything about the spell or the witch, and nobody asked why the bear had roared at the little pig.

The bear was very upset and very confused, “Of course I roar,” he said to himself, since no one in the Woodland would talk to him anymore, “I’m a frikkin’ bear!”

Everyone in the Woodland demanded that he apologize for having roared, which the bear thought was strange since he hadn’t roared at them. But he did it anyway, since he had to live there and everything.

He also tried to apologize to the little pig but the evil witch wouldn’t let him, and threatened to send out even nastier, more highly paid trolls if he came anywhere near.

Knowing that he couldn’t beat an evil witch’s spell and so many lying trolls, the bear lumbered away sadly.

Although the bear stayed way over on the other side of the Woodland, whenever he passed by, there would be whispered conversations about him:

“There goes that bear who roared at that little pig.”

“A troll told me that he ate her, too.”

“No, he just roared.”

“Are you sure?”

“Who are you gonna believe, me or some highly paid, lying troll.”

“He seemed pretty sure. He said the bear’s gay, too.”

“You are a complete moron.”

Eventually, the evil witch’s powers diminished and the spell lifted. When the little pig realized how much hurt she’d caused the bear she felt just terrible about it.

So she spent several wild years on drinking binges, unwise marriages, and made a bunch of adult videos that wound up on the internet and crappy reality show pilots that didn’t get picked up.

The witch and her trolls went around saying the little pig’s misbehavior was because the bear had roared at her when she was littler. By now, though, everyone in the Woodland had figured out that trolls lie about pretty much everything and that the evil witch really was awfully evil.

The little pig finally went into rehab, sobered up and took responsibility for her actions. But by then, nobody really cared.

Moral: Answer your cellphone or you’ll wind up making crappy reality show pilots that don’t get picked up.