Trey Declares Fealty to Mars

Once upon a time, there were three little nails. One day a bee flew by and pollenated a flower. A seed fell to the ground and grew into a baby flower.

Anyways, the mommy flower and the baby flower eventually got together

and... well, you're too young for that, and anyway, that's how France became a

country.

One day, during the reign of the Golden Girls, Queen Juan-Paul Marie decided to take a walk in the park. Wait, where was I going... oh yes, there were three little nails. These nails were used in fine carpentermanship. The first was used to build a home made out of straw. Straw isn't durable and people blamed it on the nail because people actually like straw. It's shiny. The second nail was used to make a house out of sticks. Unlike most stories, this actually worked. But unfortunately, the carpentermanship was poor; the house fell down, the carpenter was fired and the second nail was merrily ever happily after. The third nail, however, was used as a screw. Some carpenters need to go to school.

Then France was taken over by Germany... yes, Germany. Everyone always feared the Nazis, and for good reason. They used torture, like slapping you in the face with luncheonmeat truncheons. The world fell to the Nazis feet until one day, the wannabe screw decided to take a stand.

"I will take a stand!" She cried as her poor tip rusted in the rain. It was a sad day for Jones. Jones lives across the street. The wannabe screw, now referred to as Yvan, was rather frantic as she rolled shakily down the road. "Onward! Defrosted tuna team!"

And lo and behold, the team did arise. Many types of tuna came. Canned tuna left in a freezer, ancient tuna lost long in polar icecaps, and even old digested tuna in Somalia (a rare delicacy indeed, especially with those hard winters) came to march with Yvan. The sun, however, had other ideas.

"Oh ho ho!" thought the sun as he burned with the intensity of many fusion reactions. "I do not think today should be cold enough for tuna to plague the Earth!" And it happened: God himself descended from the sky and spoketh to thine sun.

"OH SUN!" He cried in the dialect of a southern school girl. "THOU SHALT NOT COOK THINE TUNA. 'TIS I WHO SPEAKETH TO THEE AND... TEE HEE... I ALWAYS TOOK A FANCY TO OLD FISH. NOTHING QUITE AFFECTS THE STOMACH LIKE A ROTTEN FISH SAMMICH." And it was so. The sun decided to obey God's words of power and Yvan and her army of defrosted tuna were saved.

That's how the Nazis were defeated, you see? Capitalism cannot be defeated so easily. The rules are many. Not even lawyers understand them (even if they say they do.)

In short, the real cause of this (without which none of the above events would have transpired) was: "shrew subversives in the Swiss government." For hundreds of thousands of years they had been intimidating the more well-behaved Swissies (sissies...) During which time they had also been intimating with the wives of the Swi-.......... you're still too young.

Anyways, being across continents, there was no way for Yvan to interfere. It was this dire happenstance that resulted in the fall of the Swiss. Their fall was threefold: fold once, fold twice, fold chicken soup with rice.

During a high-stakes poker match - to determine who would be given the largest stick and be turned loose to do bodily harm to the Swedes - the Shrew players were all caught cheating and quickly thrown overboard. While sinking, they saw that the carpentermanship... of the ship... was piss-poor.

Thinking fast, they all gnawed about the keel and the ship was quickly reduced to only so much slag. As they gradually slid deeper and deeper into the water, the Swiss began to have second thoughts about hosting the game on a steamboat in the high seas of Uganda. As they entered the water lower classes first, (being inside the lower portions of the ship) their expensive Swiss colognes and perfumes began to slough off of their wearers and take to the wild currents of the sea.

Attracting any number of Tuna fish (which, full grown, can outmass a Volkswagen) is never a good way to have fun in the water. Kicking and screaming, only a few Swissies survived to be rescued by Indiana Jones (now out of work with the demise of the Nazis.)

The Shrews, being of small stature and having wee gnawy teeth and sacs of venom attracted no fish. And all were spared, save for Rodney, who never learned to swim and "sure as hell wasn't going to start in Uganda!"

With the smarts of one half of one hairball and the determination of 17 terrapins, the Shrews subdued the native Ugandans (all of whom suffered from hip displasia) and forced them to bake teacakes at all hours of the solstice.

Capitalism remained unfazed.

Meanwhile, there were walri about. Great blubbery hunks of oil and ivory, bleating and bleeding in the Arctic sun (???) The nordic gnomes realized that in order to steal Santa's sleigh, they would have to sell a lot of comic books and drink a LOT of Yatta-Cola. But, as an afterthought, they instead opted to purchase several crates of low-cal peanut brittle with their newfound wealth. A decision they regretted for the rest of eternity.

In their travels, the flock of seagulls (not the '80s band) witnessed many killings: children, rocks and snails - an advanced race of celerypeople, arsenic and vegans - Rioters, molotovs and store owners. The violence was gratuitous and emotionally scarring. It left one lingering thought in the heads of all the seagulls: "Wark?"

As luck would have it, the Ugandans unionized and demanded wheelchairs (which had not yet been invented.) This angered the Shrews who immediately took off for Bermuda, only to be diverted to Mexico - where they all got the runs from eating tacos of questionable origin from a strange mustachioed man.

After recovering from Montezuma's revenge, the Shrews tried to make some sense of this strange, hot place. They began a "learn-by-mail" Spanish course. After recieving 13 combination "weight loss/vocabulary expansion" tapes, they finally got the Spanish program.

Everything seemed to be going well and everyone was making good enough progress to be able to aptly swear at cabbies and roadside fruit-vendors.

Finally, someone encountered a sentence that, translated straight across with no grammar changes, reads: "For why Juan did burn himself the arm?"

Needless to say, everyone was thuroughly unimpressed and after many failed attempts for a refund they left in disgust.

A tenuous alliance held the clan of the shrew together with the seagulls (who, truth be told, had been a "murder of crows" prior to accidentally being painted white by 19, 19-year-old nudist ladies who mistook them for...... well, that too, is a story for another time.) As allies, the Shrews got free rides (and occasionally free popcorn) from the gulls. This allowed them to quickly get to where they were going. Which is, of course, where we all intended to go also: Townsville, Australia.

As all the televangelists had predicted, this was to be the setting for the final fight. Satan vs. God? NONSENSE! It was to be the fight between Guy Hombre Manfellow vs. Missy Mujer Ladybird. Yes, the battle of the sexes! With MEXICANS! No, not really. The Mexicans (a Norwegian family of trapeze and high wire artists) had been booked to perform at the barmitzvahs of no less than 639 three-legged iguanas. Obviously this tied up their schedule until approximately the point in time when the sun is a lump of ash the size of your forehead.

Deciding the time for change was at hand, the Shrews placed an online order for warm woolen frocks. Unfortunately, they selected "super saver" shipping, shich is essentially: "We send a poverty-stricken Croatian out running towards towards your dwelling with your parcel, a map, a stick and a whistle." Needless to say, everyone got bored and left Townsville without a warm woolen frock.

The Croatian was presumed "lost at sea."

Fortunately the Shrews realized that frocks were the least of their worries. Sadly enough, the greatest of their worries was touching down in Scotland where they were assaulted hourly by the din of a bagpipe. Perhaps you are familiar with the height of a shrew? Not big. And the a far-too-common mode of dress for a Scotsman? A kilt. And do you know what is customarily worn beneath a kilt? Nothing. Quite simply, these Shrews were never able to feel safe about looking upward and the island was prudently abandoned.

This heartless action on behalf of the shrews resulted in the Scottish plague of beagles. Which was the single greatest cause of tooth decay in 3500BC Oklahoma (pretty much all of which could've been avoided had the dirty Scots worn some goddamned underbritches.)

"ARRRRR lads! Whar de ya think ye'll bih goin' nu?!?!?" yelled the Scots from below, completely failing to match the volume with which God yelled at the sun. Already out of earshot, the shrews paid no attention.

Unsurprisingly, the band of flying rodents crash-landed in Turkmenistan.

(They mistook it for Turkey.)

As it so happened, a number of sympathetic trout were nearby when the disaster occured. Happy to be of assistance in any way, they offered to testify as witnesses, balance checkbooks, frighten locusts away from crops and all variety of other useless actions.

They were spitted over a grand fire and the energy they gave to those who ate them allowed the consumers to pester a bakers dozen of alpaca-riding, South American nuns - nearly to the point of coaxing a murder out of them.

This was an extremely tricky business because one of the nuns, who had previously been maligned in Mersailles by several inebriated sailors, now kept a light Japanese crossbow concealed in the folds of her robe... often loaded with shrew-piercing bolts.

Potential disaster was averted when a fleet of octopi cascaded forth from the water that housed the trout. Spraying everything and everyone with ink, they incapacitated the nuns long enough to precipitate the Shrew's escape.

The gulls took off, but the Shrews were able to reach the forest on foot where they found cover and the occasional pompous grub. The followed the trout stream and came to an unnatural lake that was gradually flowing out into a small river.

All around them were woodchucks. Walking backwards, righting trees and depositing wood at their bases until they could stay up again, tearing apart their dams. And all the while they worked, they sang a little tune...

"Danoo, ash nik ashnumafik ash ash numarik nush namaa!"

They approched a wood chuck cautiously:

"skroawch, ap iggrydip eww"

Not knowing what this meant, they tried communicating to him that they were in need of an automobile (by moving their paws in a semi-circle and intermittantly putting their left paws out and behind them, with 3rd digit raised)

"seich num VALYA... seeginum"

They jumped and hooted and hit each other with sticks (to express a desire to visit the nearest zoo and see the primates.)

"erdall wilay whusneers nud"

They then mimed throwing up. (trying to convey that they all craved Mexican food once again. Clearly, this was getting them nowhere. The Shrews shuffled away, sad and without food.

"ooryu, embday dualla?" The woodchuck called after them.

The Turkmenistaniscarymani jungle was not the safest place in the world. There were German shepherds lurking. Word of the Nazis defeat had not yet reached them and so their campaign to bite "ever' damn thing to within' an' inch of its life" sped ever onward.

Luckily, the shrews had anticipated adversity. They came prepared with the best weapons that modern science had to offer them in combatting the Nazi hordes: A paddleball game, "celebrity moles" trading cards, a brass shoehorn and a seltzer-powered fire extingusher.

Their most potent weapon was an ancient physics technique: Being that matter is mostly made up of space and only slightly of nucleii, walking through walls is merely an issue of lining yourself up just right and going for it (all of which was well known to Confucius, Ghandi, Aristotle... and Sir Thomas Crapper.)

Using this technique, they passed through walls and floors always a step ahead of the German shepherds.