Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology (12 page)

So God makes a bunch of people

they fuck up and kill each other

but then they feel bad about it

so they have, like, CRAZY makeup sex

and the next NINE THOUSAND PAGES OF THE BIBLE

(depending on how big you make the text)

are about all the babies people made

because the Bible predates condoms

and I think we should all remember this.

So everyone has a bunch of kids

but it doesn’t matter

because apparently they all suck

and God decides he’s had enough of this shit.

He’s just gonna kill everybody

kinda like that other god in that Mayan myth.

See what I mean about how all this junk starts to run together after a while?

And he totally rips off Quetzalcoatl even harder

because his method of choice for killing everyone

is a GIANT FLOOD

(P.S.:

Did you know that whenever H. P. Lovecraft uses the word “antediluvian”

what he means is “predating the biblical flood?”

Because yeah

apparently H. P. Lovecraft knows EXACTLY WHEN THIS HAPPENED.)

But God can’t just kill EVERYONE

because he put a lot of work into this whole humanity thing

so he picks the least sucky dude in the world

whose name is Noah

and he’s like “YO, NOAH!

EVERYBODY’S GOING TO DIE, EXCEPT YOU

CONGRATULATIONS.

HOPE YOU DON’T HAVE ANY FRIENDS.

GONNA NEED YOU TO BUILD A REAL BIG BOAT, BUDDY

BUT NO FRIENDS ALLOWED ON THIS BOAT

JUST ANIMALS

SEVEN PAIRS OF EVERY KID OF ANIMAL

(unless they are really filthy in which case you can just get one pair)

’CAUSE YEAH, I SPENT A LOT OF TIME ON THOSE ANIMALS

BUT I FORGOT TO MAKE THEM SMART ENOUGH TO BUILD BOATS

SO THAT IS YOUR JOB NOW.”

So this sounds like a lot of work to Noah

but hey, it’s better than dying

so he gets some lumber and he gets to work

and somehow he manages to pull it off in time

with all his neighbors showing up at his house and calling him an idiot all day.

Well, joke’s on them.

They all die.

But then, joke’s on Noah

because now he has to live on a boat full of nothing but animals and his wife.

Nobody wins except for God

who is playing a game called “Do Whatever the Hell I Want Because I’m God”

So anyway, the whole world stays flooded for FORTY DAYS

which is actually just Bible speak for AN ARBITRARILY LONG TIME

but Noah is patient

because, oh yeah, I forgot to tell you:

NOAH IS SIX HUNDRED YEARS OLD.

Okay, now I’m super impressed.

This six-hundred-year-old dude managed to build a massive boat in just a couple months

AND

MORE IMPRESSIVELY

he managed to live six hundred years on Earth without committing ANY MORTAL SINS.

So anyway, the rain stops eventually

and Noah’s family and all the animals are getting pretty antsy

no pun intended

because only some of them are actually ants

but anyway, Noah’s solution is to send birds out to find land.

First he tries sending out a raven

but that’s useless.

The raven pretty much just flies back and forth a lot.

So Noah sends out a dove

and the dove fails to find land

so Noah KEEPS sending it out

until on the third try it finally brings back an olive branch

indicating that it found a tree somewhere

and this somehow became an international symbol for peace

when what it SHOULD symbolize is “HOORAY WE ARE NO LONGER COVERED IN WATER.”

So yeah, after that everything is pretty straightforward.

They find some land

and Noah makes an altar

and God makes a rainbow

which is his way of saying “Sorry, dudes won’t happen again.”

And he has kept that promise

SO FAR.

So the moral of the story

is that if you are planning on being a terrible person your whole life

you can just keep a big boat in your garage and you’ll be totally safe.

So there’s this king named Solomon.

It doesn’t really matter what he’s king of.

You know how it was in Bible times.

Kings all over the place.

But the thing about Solomon

is that unlike most of the kings who were all over the place in Bible times

Solomon is INCREDIBLY WISE.

Observe:

So one of the things a king used to have to do

was to sit in a room while people shouted their problems at him

and then solve the problems using his king powers.

So one day, Solomon is doing this

and two ladies walk in with a dead baby, a live baby and a SERIOUS DOOZY OF A PROBLEM.

One woman is like “Hey, Solomon I gave birth to this healthy baby five days ago

but then my bitch of a roommate gave birth to a DEAD baby two days later

and she thought it would be a good idea

to pull some Indiana Jones shit

and switch my live baby for her dead one.

Make her give me my baby back.”

And the other woman is like “Nuh-uh! This is totally my baby

your baby DIED because you are a terrible parent.”

So Solomon is like “Hmm, this is a tough one.

Oh wait, no, it’s not. I have swords.

Hey, guards

cut the baby in half give a piece to each of these ladies.

PROBLEM SOLVED.”

And the first lady is like “Jesus Christ just give her the baby.

What is wrong with you?”

And the second woman is like “DIBS ON THE TOP HALF.”

And Solomon is like “Ah-HAH!

The baby must belong to the first lady

because mothering instincts generally prevent people from agreeing to bisect their babies

and even if the first lady ISN’T the mother

the baby should still probably go to the woman who is NOT WILLING TO CUT IT WITH SWORDS.

Seriously, lady

what were you even planning on doing with the top half of a baby?

You’ve already got 100 percent of a dead baby no questions asked.

What are you, making a casserole?

Case dismissed.”

So the moral of the story

is you should always do a background check on all your potential roommates.

No culture before or since

has so flawlessly combined the disparate realms

of brutal murder

and epic dance battles

as did the ancient Hindus

which I suppose makes sense coming from the nation that gave us Bollywood.

People in Hindu myths are ready to cut a rug at the drop of a hat

and they are also ready to cut other things

and in fact, maybe the reason that the hat dropped in the first place

was that someone cut off the head it was resting on

and then ate it

because that’s how the Hindu gods roll

but it is not all decapitation and bump ’n’ grind, my friends

Hindu mythology gets up to some seriously cosmic shit as well.

Observe:

So back in the days before there was stuff and things there was a dude.

Just this one dude, as far as the eye could see

spanning the entire breadth of the universe, plus like ten extra feet for good measure.

His name

was the Dude

but not the Dude from
The Big Lebowski
.

This is a significantly Bigger Lebowski we are talking about here.

This is a Lebowski as Big as the entirety of creation.

He is so big that he exists at all times both before and after his birth

and like a quarter of his body is made up of all the animals ever

and the other three-fourths is all the gods

and he actually gives birth to a dude named Virj

who then gives birth to HIM.

WHAT.

So obviously the gods get tired of trying to conceptualize this universal dude

and they’re like “Screw this, let’s sacrifice him.”

So they tie him down and cut him up

and just start flinging pieces of his body ABSOLUTELY EVERYWHERE

and all the giblets start turning into things

like all the tasty clarified butter they boil off him turns into ANIMALS

even though I thought animals were already a quarter of his body.

I guess a quarter of his body was butter?

Fatty.

Anyway, the gods are pretty much making up ceremonies as they go along

so those kind of get written down and preserved for all eternity.

Also, I gotta hand it to these gods

it takes some serious effort/
cojones

to kill and butcher someting that is 75 percent COMPOSED OF YOU.

But anyway, his mouths become priests

and his arms become nobles

and his thighs become the general rabble

and his feet become the slaves.

His brain turns into the moon and his eyeballs are the sun

and the sky comes out of his ears and the ground forms under his peasant feet

and the gods make sure to start a whole assload of fires

because if you’re gonna butcher the universe it might as well also be on fire

and those fires turn into the IDEAL SOCIAL ORDER somehow.

No one mentions what happens to the Dude’s dong or his chest actually.

My guess is that some creeper god stole that shit and built himself a pan-galactic RealDoll.

So the moral of the story

is next time you are getting sexed up

just remember that both you and your honey are made out of the same dude

so basically

everybody is gay.

Okay, so there is this dude Brahma, right?

He is the creator of everything.

So one day

he takes his mind

and makes a hot chick come out of it.

This hot chick is his daughter.

But as soon as he pops out this brainbaby

Brahma is like “OH DAMN.

I WANT TO DO THINGS TO THAT

THAT HAVEN’T EVEN BEEN INVENTED YET.

GOOD THING I AM THE CREATOR

AND CAN INVENT THOSE THINGS RIGHT AWAY.”

And then he goes ahead and gives himself THREE EXTRA HEADS

so he can check out his daughter from all angles

thus causing the world to get divided into four directions

because the creator suddenly desires something that is outside himself.

BUT ENOUGH SPIRITUALITY.

BACK TO TITS AND BAD DECISIONS.

Okay, so Brahma’s daughter gets wind of all this exquisite voyeurism going down

and she gets pretty embarrassed

and since she can’t stop being hot

she decides to stop being on Earth instead

and she goes up to heaven.

So now Brahma is like “AUGH.

I WANT TO CONTINUE TO LOOK AT TITS

BUT MY HEADS ONLY LOOK DOWN.

LOOKS LIKE I NEED ANOTHER HEAD.”

See this is the thing about being the creator.

You do not consider options such as

oh, I don’t know

moving your neck.

NO.

You grow an extra fucking head

looking STRAIGHT UP

and then you send it shooting toward heaven

all like “NOM NOM NOM, TITS TIME.”

So at this point

Brahma’s daughter is up in heaven

like “What am I going to do about this encroaching molester head?”

and this is when Shiva steps up to the plate

like “THAT IS ENOUGH BULLSHIT, BRAHMA.”

Then he chops off Brahma’s head

USING ONLY HIS THUMBNAIL.

But instead of a hearty thank-you

and maybe some victory poontang

Shiva gets Brahma’s gross skull stuck to his hand

and he is like “AW BALLS.

THIS IS MY JERKIN’-IT HAND”

And he transforms into Bhairava

aka THE SHIVA OF ULTIMATE RAGE

and he is like “HERE IS WHAT I AM GOING TO DO:

I AM GOING TO WRECK SOME SHIT

AND THEN I AM GOING TO
WRECK
SOME
SHIT
.”

And Brahma is like “Oh no you are not, son.

You are going to get banished all the way on out of here that is what you are going to do

and then you are going to roam around the land as a mad beggar

until you get arbitrarily forgiven.”

So this is exactly what Shiva does

until one day he stumbles upon a group of sages

all sitting around praying the bajeezus out of themselves

and Shiva rolls up

like “HEY HEY, OOGA-BOOGA CRAZY HOMELESS GUY HERE, WHAT’S UP?”

And the sages are like “What.”

And the sages’ wives are like “OH MAN, I WANNA TAP THAT LIKE A KEG O’ BONERS.”

and they all go dance the crazy wango-bango tango with Shiva

and the sages are like “WHAT.”

So obviously they send a tiger after Shiva

and Shiva responds by TAKING OFF THE TIGER’S SKIN

and WEARING IT AS A SKIRT.

So then they send a poisonous snake after Shiva

and Shiva picks up the snake

and WEARS IT AS A GODDAMN NECKLACE.

So then they send an evil dwarf after Shiva

rightly assuming that there is probably no way for Shiva to wear a dwarf.

(That’s right, guys.

They have fuckable gold in India too.)

But Shiva just sort of kicks the dwarf over

stands on his face

and takes his club.

Then he turns around like “COME ON, HOT BITCHES.

FOLLOW ME INTO THE FOREST.”

So they do

and then Shiva (aka Bhairava, remember)

goes to Vishnu’s crib

like “Hey, Vishnu, lemme in”

and Vishnu’s bouncer is like “Who are you? You’re not on the list.”

And Bhairava is like “I AM THE GUY WHO IS STABBING YOU TO DEATH WITH A TRIDENT.”

And then Vishnu jumps out of the back room like “OH SNAP

I WILL SHOOT BLOOD OUT OF MY FACE AT YOU UNTIL YOU GO AWAY.”

And Bhairava fills Brahma’s sticky skull with Vishnu’s blood

like “THANKS, SUCKER.

I WAS JUST DROPPING BY TO ASK IF I COULD BORROW A CUP OF YOUR BLOOD.”

And then he dances off into the forest

carrying the doorkeeper’s body and a skull full of blood.

He dances all over everywhere

until he gets to the holy city Varanasi

at which point he is pardoned for his crimes

and gets to go back to heaven

. . . ?

So I guess the moral of the story

is if you are ever indicted for murder

your best bet

is to do more murders

and then fill the skulls of your victims

with the blood from your other victims

and maybe stage an impromptu dance party with some women you stole

and eventually people will realize that you can’t be stopped

and you can go to heaven.

Excuse me while I go convert to Hinduism.