Tag Archives: Little Red Riding Hood

Fairy Tale Theater: Little Red Riding Hood

17 Dec

December 17, 2013

fairy tale theater header

from July 19, 2012

Once upon a time there was a little girl. Amazing, right? Like who would think that in all of history there was ever a little girl and believe it or not, she lived in the woods. Nobody ever lived in a rundown apartment over a liquor shop back then.  Seriously, a little girl who lives in the woods in a fairy tale is like leaves on a tree. Big deal. I can look out my window and see leaf after leaf. I can probably also look out my window and see little girl after little girl but I won’t. A man my age who looks out his window at little girls is a sure bet to wind up on the sex offender registry.

Anyway, this particular little girl was named Little Red Riding Hood. That may be hard to believe but there was actually a time long ago when it was common to name people after items of clothing. Her mother was named Plaid Socks and her father was named Old Denim Overalls. She also had a cousin named Pants with Stinky Brown Stain on Rear.

Little Red Riding Hood, whose last name was Schwartz, lived in the woods. This is not the same woods as the one in Snow White or Pinocchio, though they were all run by the same management company. In fact there were about 30 different woods and in each the ogres were threatening to go on strike. Little Red was a cute and sweet young girl. In fact she was too cute and sweet. She was so sweet you couldn’t stand her. Little Red was like one of those cute kids in a Stephen King novel whom you couldn’t stand but you’d keep reading because you knew she’d get killed in some horrible way, like the baby in Pet Semetary. But not only was Little Red cute and sweet, she was also kind and generous and good-hearted. Everyone hated her. Even Mother Theresa once slapped her.

Here is a typical page from her daily planner:

-wake up
-milk the cows
-massage the cows
-dress the cows in pretty dresses

And that’s just before 8am.

On this particular day Red took some time out of her busy schedule to bring a basket of food to her sick grandmother. Grandma lived even deeper in the woods, all alone. Great idea for a frail old woman, right? Anyway, she was sick so Red decided to bring her enough food to last a week. I would have brought her a Medic Alert bracelet and some aspirin too.

The woods were full of wolves. Big, hungry, ravenous, sexually repressed wolves. What? Didn’t think I’d go there? Fairy tales are full of hidden sexual imagery.  Think Rumplestiltskin wasn’t freaky like Chris Brown? Yeah, some wolf beat up Rihanna too.

So there was Little Red Riding Hood, skipping along through the woods singing along to Gotye when just when she got to “But you treat me like a stranger and that feels so rough” (yes that song is that old. Gotye stole it from a German folk tale) a wolf leaped out of the trees and demanded “open the door and let me in or I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house in!” Clearly he was in the wrong place. Seeing his mistake he politely apologized and left.

No sooner had he left than another wolf leapt out and demanded the picnic basket. Back then wolves would wait in line for a shot at a picnic basket. He snarled. He showed his fangs. He waved his claws. His fur bristled, his teeth glistened, even his busy tail was somehow menacing.

Little Red Riding Hood smiled and, being so sweet and obnoxiously good-natured, gave him the basket, kissed the wolf on the snout, and turned around and skipped back home, singing Lady Gaga all the way. And poor granny? She was still starving.

Later, the wolf took the basket back home to his den. Lair? Nest? Where do wolves live anyway? The point is, he ripped open the basket and found it full of nothing but Ensure, Metamucil, and more adult diapers than you would expect. After all, Granny wasn’t about to digest a T-bone steak at her age. This did nothing to slake the wolf’s appetite. He trashed the basket but he kept the diapers. The wolf was getting on in years, you know.

The next day the wolf decided to get even with Red. He’d guzzled a week’s worth of Granny’s Ensure and went into body failure. He showed up on Grandma’s doorstep and rang the bell. He claimed to be selling subscriptions to Vibe magazine. Granny wasn’t interested and didn’t open the door. The wolf decided that being sneaky was getting him nowhere so he jumped through the window and ate her. Honestly, he’s a wolf. Why didn’t he do that to begin with?

After completing various good deeds, like washing a leper’s feet and knitting scarves for bald sheep, Little Red Riding Hood Schwartz once again brought a basket to Grandma’s house. She knocked on the door and a strange, high-pitched growl that would fool absolutely no one but this silly kid said “come on in, the door is open.” 

She went in and there, in the inky shadows, was what looked like a wolf in Granny’s bed. See? I told you fairy tales were full of sexual imagery. Let me lay this out for you: The wolf was trying to lure the girl into bed. There’s a reason why men who hit on every woman in sight are called wolves.

Meanwhile, how dumb is Red? Be realistic, would you be fooled if you saw a dog in bed instead of a human being? Of course not. Even if your dog could talk and looked cute in a sweater you’d knit her, you’d still recognize that it’s a dog. So what was Little Red Riding Hood’s problem? Sheesh. I think she needed glasses. You know what comes next.

“My Grandma, what big ears you have!”
“The better to hear you my dear.”
“My Grandma, what big eyes you have!”
“The better to see you, my dear.”
“My Grandma, what big teeth you have!”
“Oh screw this shit!” And the wolf leaped out of the bed and tore Little Red Riding Hood to pieces.

A passing lumberjack heard Little Red Riding Hood’s screams and came to rescue her. Guess what? The wolf ate him too.

The moral of the story? A wolf will eat you. Avoid wolves.

———————–

Can you stand more?

Read My Memories of Cinderella here.

Read My Memories of Snow White here.

Read My Memories of The Boy Who Cried Wolf here.

Read My Memories of Pinocchio here

Fairy Tale Theater: The Boy Who Cried Wolf

15 Dec

December 15, 2013

fairy tale theater header

from March 21, 2012


The Boy Who Cried Wolf takes place back in the days when child labor laws were nonexistent and it was ok for kids to play with guns. In fact, any kid over the age of nine who hadn’t shot a charging bull at ten paces was considered a wuss. The fable was written by Aesop way back around 600 AD. Aesop was popularly known as the biggest bullshitter in all of Greece.

The boy, whom I will call Arnold for no particular reason, was a shepherd. His father was a shepherd and his father’s father was a shepherd. What were his mother and his mother’s mother? Sexually frustrated. And why not? Their husbands were all day long out in the fields with the sheep.

So Arthur was another in a long line of shepherds and by the time he was ten years old his father had enough of watching sheep- it was a dead-end job- and it was Arthur’s turn to watch the flock. So he watched the sheep. He watched the sheep graze. He watched the sheep sleep. He watched the sheep stand around and bleat. He watched the sheep watching him. It was boring. Eventually he started to hallucinate that the sheep spoke to him. “Arnold,” they said, “what are you doing with your life? Why don’t you go out and meet a nice Jewish girl?” For some reason he daydreamed that the sheep were Yiddish.

Soon, after an intolerable amount of time spent staring at the wooly beasts, very nearly 15 minutes, Arnold was bored. The Boy Who Cried Wolf is the first recorded case of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. 

Arnold figured that if he cried out that a wolf was attacking the flock all the villagers would come running. Crying wolf was actually his second idea. He rejected the idea of crying duck.

Arnold looked around,  took a deep breath, and texted into his iPhone “OMG! EMFBI but HLAC a wolf is attacking the sheep! IDBI! WTF?” Typical kid. As you would imagine, no one came.

Arnold was still bored so next time he simply yelled out “Wolf! A wolf is attacking the sheep! Come quick! Bring me a soda!” This time all the villagers came running because the whole village depended on the sheep for their livelihood. Villages were very sheep intensive back then. In fact, there was an era in history when sheep were considered currency, just as good as gold coins. However, with a loaf of bread costing three sheep, it was a pretty unwieldy operation to go shopping and people soon went back to coins, which could be carried much more easily in a purse than a dozen sheep.

The villagers arrived and there was no wolf, which made them very relived. They looked around, counted the sheep (which put not a single one of them to sleep) and complimented Arnold that it must have been his yelling that scared off the wolf and saved the flock. The villagers soon left and went back to whatever the heck they were doing. No TV, no wifi, what were they doing anyway?

However, far from being happy with all the attention, Arnold was very upset. Not a single villager brought him the soda he had asked for. He decided he’d try it again.

“Wolf! A wolf is attacking the sheep! Come quick! And don’t forget my soda this time! I want a Mountain Dew! Seriously, I want a soda! And oh yeah, there’s a wolf attacking the sheep too!” See what makes this a fairy tale? Who would ever intentionally drink a Mountain Dew?

The villagers came rushing back, guns at the ready, pitchforks sharpened, and would you believe it? By the time they got to the field there was not a wolf in sight, only the sheep and Arnold, looking very smug and maybe just a bit thirsty.

“Arnold,” they asked, “are you sure you saw a wolf?”
“I cannot tell a lie. Sure I saw a wolf.”

Unfortunately, Arnold had a bit of a reputation around the village. People still remembered the time he claimed to have been abducted by a UFO to avoid his chores.

“Can you describe the wolf?” Seriously, this was the best the villagers could come up with.
“He had big teeth and furry ears.”
“Just like my grandmother!” exclaimed Little Red Riding Hood, and since everyone knew that she was still traumatized ever since the time a cross-dressing wolf ate her grandmother the villagers dropped the subject and went home. And of course, they once again failed to bring Arnold his soda.

Arnold waited an hour to give the village time to cool down and he even fell asleep for a few minutes (in which time a wolf really did devour three of the sheep) and when he woke up, he screamed at the top of his lungs “Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!”

The villagers didn’t come running quite so fast this time. In fact, many of them didn’t come at all. A few of them were at Arnold’s house giving his father an earful about what a miserable son he had, but still, some came running to the field and when they saw no wolf and Arnold rolling around on the ground laughing like a loon, it crossed the minds of more than one villager that they had found the new village idiot.

Silently, wordlessly, but with a great deal of glaring and evil looks, the villagers trudged back home.

It wasn’t long before Arnold got bored. Sure, it was fun for a while, but what did crying wolf get him? Nothing, not even a Mountain Dew. Being full of energy and ADHD, It wasn’t long before Arnold found new diversions, like throwing rocks at some frogs and pulling the wings off flies. It was while he was torturing a small snake that he looked up and saw- and this is going to be quite a shock so hold onto your hats- a wolf stalking the sheep.

“WOOOOLF! There’s a wolf after the sheep! For realz this time! And no, ‘realz’ is not a typo!”

Hearing yet another Arnold wolf alert, none of the villagers bothered to investigate, except for one kindly old man, the village elder, the wisest man in the area. He went to fields, saw the wolf, and raised his gun. With one sure pull of the trigger, he let his bullet fly and his aim was sure and true. It flew into the field, a full ten feet to the left of the wolf, and right into Arnold’s chest.

Satisfied, the wise old man returned to the village, secure in the knowledge that they might have lost a few sheep, but no one likes a smart ass.

The moral of the story? Undiagnosed ADHD can be dangerous for a young child. Have your child screened before being allowed to tend sheep.

Can you stand more?
Read My Memories of Cinderella here.

Read My Memories of Snow White here.

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