The Magic Bean

[Ago]

A story of Patience, Love, Tolerance, and stupidity

Chapter I Granpa's story

I am an old man now, and have had many problems, most of which never happened. I grew up in a small farming community, where we grew a small plant we called "Sobriety". It took us many many years to learn how to successfully develop this plant, and we used to have town meetings every night to discuss the most effective way to cultivate "sobriety"

A little background is in order, when my Grandfather was young, they way they tried to grow "sobriety" is they would get a handful of seeds, close their eyes and just fling them randomly. A number of people tried staring at the seeds REALLY hard while contracting their anus and stomach in an elaborate pattern, they thought if they concentrated just right, and squeezed their butts perfectly the seeds would take root, they called this method "will power" because they would literally "will" the plant to grow. Occasionally a seed would fall on fertile soil, and get the right amount of water, and this method would work, and since the person always did this alone, they called this the "self will" method, the "self will" proponents were incredibly vocal, but were few and far between since it was successful so rarely.

Another way is many people worshiped the Grand Poobah, a mythical man that may or may not have existed who supposedly had magical powers, who preached a message of love that somehow his followers would argue about....and then kill each other. They also killed anyone who didn't believe in The Grand Poobah after torturing them first, most times just by lighting them on fire. They were considered the upstanding members of society.

So these folks would ask the Grand Poobah to grow their "sobriety". They would make Juvenile Primate begging gestures to the Grand Poobah. since TGPoo was their "alpha male" and ask TGPoo for help, and lo and behold, sometimes a seed would fall on fertile soil and it would grow.

The Self Willers and The Followers of The Grand Poobah hated each other, each insisting the other was wrong, when the truth was neither method worked very well.

Anyway, in my Grandfathers Day, one of the followers of The Grand Poobah kept trying to grow sobriety and wasn't having any luck. We refer to him now as "Bill" because he 'came" in the "male". He was quite a salesman and ladies man, Bill was, anyway, so he was trying to grow his own sobriety and he was having any luck, so he started studying, really studying what worked, he watched the self willers, he went to professors, and feed stores, he went to poobahpreachers, he tried everything, and lo and behold, he found if he cleared the field, pulled the weeds, got the ground ready, planted the seed, and put a ton of hard work helping others his field would grow, but was unable to teach anyone else how to grow their own sobriety.

He tried for years, brought in a nice field but was unable to teach anyone else, after four years he was getting frustrated, and was going to go back to selling toilet seat covers to the Air Force ($600.00 bux a piece, don't laugh) but instead called a PoobahPreacher and asked if there was anyone in town that was unable to grow sobriety. "There sure is" said the man, walk two miles, then turn right, he's easy to spot.

Bill followed directions and turned where he was supposed to and found himself at a lake. Surprised he walked around the whole lake looking for this fella he was supposed to meet. He was just getting ready to leave when he spied a head in the water, he hollered over, "hey, YOU bobbing in the water, you a follower of the Grand Poobah?" The fellow answered in the affirmative, so Bill asked "You trying to grow sobriety?" The guy said "yeah, but I'm not having any luck, as a matter of fact, I'm drowning!!!!"

So Bill dragged him out of the water and asked him what his name was, "The fella said, "Well usually I'm behind a SkiBoat so everyone calls me Skip."

Bill thought that was the dumbest thing he had ever heard, so he just called him "Bob", since that's what he was doing when they met.

Anyway, they started talking about growing sobriety, Bill told him about his progress and success but inability to help anyone else." Well, hell son, that's EASY, the secret ingredient is WATER, you got to WATER the seeds!!!!!"

The two started a new crop and it came in like Gangbusters, they found others willing enough to give this a try, and they helped them clear fields, plow rows, plant seeds, and then let them grow. After they had a few fields successfully planted, someone came up with the idea that chicken poop was helpful, so every morning they religiously gathered their chicken poop and spread it on the field while chanting "keep spreading Poo it grows if you spread it"

They became known as the "Messcan Two steppers" because they watered from Messcans they had got in the Army, and anytime someone watched them planting, since they actually took two steps, then stopped it was called "Doing The Messcan Twostep". Bill actually was caught a few times watering some girls that were wearing Tshirts, he'd take an extra step then 'accidentally" "water" the front of the girls shirt, ever since then we always called that "Three stepping".

Anyhow, once they had devised a successful method, they wrote a manual describing EXACTLY how they cultivated sobriety. Since they were both Followers of The Grand Poobah, they wrote the manual using the Grand Poobah in the format, but were very clear and very explicit that you could use ANY form of a power greater then themselves, they learned that the seed grew and they didn't MAKE it grow, it grew by itself, or with "The Grand Poobah's" help as it were, but they knew it didn't matter if you used Thehippygod PeaceLoveGranolaGuy, or even the one from Overseas Thegreatfatfook, or even a lake, you just had to realize it wasn't YOU growing the seed, that you were responsible for clearing the field, fertilizing it, plowing it into rows, weeding it, and keeping it weeded on a daily basis, they realized that farming was actually hard work

Chapter II Next "The Town Meeting"

[Ago]

Chapter II "The Town Meeting"

"The Players"

Anyhow, as was mentioned in the beginning of this story, the town would meet every night to discuss effective ways to cultivate sobriety, the meetings would frequently have visitors that had heard of some of the successful methods practiced in town, so frequently as you walked in you would see people staring at a seed on the ground looking like they were going poopoo, sweat starting from their brow as they tried to perfect the self will method, and quite often people came, saw the chickens, thought the chickens were the answer so they stuck feathers up their @ss and just came to meetings hoping their crops would grow.

Many people tried to emulate the messcan twosteppers by coming to the meetings but the majority didn't actually do any work, then they would leave and say the method didn't work without ever having pulled one weed or really planting one seed. Some would leave after hearing The Words The Grand Poobah, even after we explained you could use TheHippydudeGod, or any concept where you didn't grow the seed yourself, that you were just responsible for doing the work.

They'd stomp off in a snit saying it sounded like "magic" and "superstition" now matter how many times we tried to explain it was the work and that The Grand Poobah wasn't important, and that a great many of us were successful Messcan Two Steppers without ever believing in the Grand Poobah, and that the important thing was doing the work and working as a team and living in the village harmoniously with each other.

The Messcan Twosteppers were frequently unpopular for a number of reasons, their seeming arrogance, How smug they appeared, some weren't very nice people or even very successful, etcThe Grand Poobah had a number of pretty rigid followers, but the truth is, even the messcan twosteppers were split into groups. There were the followers of TGPoo who somehow got the idea that you had to follow the instructions EXACTLY and be followers of the Poo although the book said explicitly that wasn't the case. They also came up with the idea that you had to plant the seed EXACTLY one inch to "The Right" of the plowed area, so they were always dropping seeds with their right arm, so they were either called "hardliners" or "right wingers" and they spent much of their time telling everyone who wasn't doing it their way they were wrong, and quite sure to die a horrible death, followed by an eternity of burning in "hell", which evidently was a barbeque full of liberals and deviants on a hot sunny day down south with no deodorant or beer or hot chix, who the hardliners supposedly hated but kept getting caught chasing after.

They also had the "left wingers" who had long hair, smelled funny, and insisted on hugging everyone, these folks spent a lot of time talking about their day and "processing their emotions" and telling people they loved them, but were awful in rush hour traffic and used a lot of profanity and hand gestures, evidently they mainly loved other people that smelled funny and liked to hug too. They were "laid back" in their approach to doing the work, but frequently did so when they got hungry enough, whereupon they liked to kick their chickens to make them work faster, then they were called @ass kicking liberals"

The third group was called "The Middle of The Row" or MOTR for short, because while they insisted on following the instructions from the manual exactly, they didn't care whether the seed fell to the right or the left, had smelly long haired friends and hardliner friends. They knew the important thing was following instructions and working together, but were sneered at by the hardlliners because they didn't insist everyone do it "their way" and worship the Grand Poobah

At the town meeting that night however all met, including the self willers, and some folks some called "cafeteria style farmers" because they took an idea from here, and another from there, some self willers and cafeteria style farmers were successful but the vast majority weren't.

So The stage is set:

[Gypsy Feet]

awww, Im right back to reading the funnies. . ..