Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology (4 page)

So one of the most inexplicable things about the Greek pantheon

is that Aphrodite is married to Hephaestus

Aphrodite is like the high school cheerleader of the Greek pantheon

and Hephaestus is the guy with the gimp leg

who is always making historically accurate World War II models.

He doesn’t actually make World War II models

because World War II has not been invented yet

but he does have a gimp leg I’m not making that part up.

He got it because when Zeus and Hera first had him

he was SO UGLY

that they actually THREW HIM OFF OF MOUNT OLYMPUS

and he fell for seven days

and they only ever let him back up on Olympus

once he showed them that he could make them really nice jewelry.

ZEUS AND HERA:

ULTIMATE PARENTING

Look, the point is that Aphrodite is the goddess of boning everyone all the time

and Hephaestus is the god of sitting in a forge all day

making armor and swords for all the muscle-y dudes

who go out and murder other muscle-y dudes and then bone everyone all the time

So why the fuck is Hephaestus married to Aphrodite?

How did he score such sweet tail?

Well, first of all Hera felt bad about chucking him off a cliff

and her idea of an apology was to GIVE HIM APHRODITE.

(Ultimate parenting)

And second of all

Aphrodite is the goddess of boning EVERYONE

ALL THE TIME

so it’s not like she’s gonna actually be faithful or anything

and in fact she is sort of making a habit of boning Ares the god of war

who is like the quarterback to her slutty cheerleader.

She is actually doing this IN HEPHAESTUS’S BED when he is out working at the forge

probably making armor for Ares even.

But Hephaestus gets wise to their crafty scheme

mainly because the Sun is a gossipy bitch

and he decides to show his cheating whore of a wife what’s what

WITH SCIENCE.

So he melts down the armor he was making for Ares

and he uses all the metal to make some chains

and then he uses his mad skills to turn these chains into a giant indestructible net

that is also invisible somehow

and then he hangs the net over his bed like a canopy

and the next time Aphrodite and Ares hop in there for a little bit of wango bango

Hephaestus leaps into the room all like

“SURPRISE, BITCH!”

Except he can’t leap because he has a gimp leg

but anyway he drops the net on them

and it traps them on his bed

BUT THE JOKE’S ON HIM because they had no intention of leaving the bed

and they’re both like “Welp

we’re caught.

Might as well continue our boner fiesta in plain view.”

BUT THE JOKE’S ON THEM

because Hephaestus invited all the other gods to come hang out in his bedroom today.

So they all start rolling in

and Dionysus is laughing his ass off

because he can totally see nipple

and Poseidon pokes Zeus and says “Would you tap that?”

and Zeus says “Probably I already have.”

(I am not making that up.

That shit is in
The Odyssey
.)

But really the joke is still on Hephaestus

because his wife is boning another man right in front of him

and even the best blacksmith cannot repair a broken relationship.

Seriously, this dude has all the hookups.

First of all his mom is a Muse

specifically the Muse of singing.

Second of all, when he is like five years old Apollo shows up at his house

all like, “WHAT UP, ORPHEUS

I AM HERE TO BANG ONE OF YOUR MOM’S SISTERS

HEY, DO YOU WANT A LYRE?”

For those of you who don’t know

a lyre is basically a kind of ultraharp.

Pretty much how it works

is if Apollo gives you one then you have a future in the music industry.

So naturally at some point Orpheus just goes down to Earth

and starts melting face with his amazing music.

Seriously, this shit is fantastic.

It is so fantastic that when this dude Jason is getting some Argonauts together

(Argonauts are dudes who go around on a boat called the
Argo
)

he is like

“I know we are all seriously bad dudes on this ship

with like muscles and stuff

but you know what we need?

We need a dude with a lyre.”

And they get Orpheus.

And then when they sail past the Sirens

who sing such sexy music that any dude who hears it
drowns himself
trying to hit that

Orpheus proceeds to solo SO HARD

that nobody can hear the Sirens

and anyway nobody cares

because Orpheus is wayyyy better than those skanks.

So obviously a dude like this is pulling down tail left and right

like he’s trying on costumes at the Godzilla costume warehouse

but his favorite chick is this broad named Eurydice.

I don’t know that much about her

but probably she was pretty hot

because, I mean Orpheus was essentially the ultimate rock star

with, like

additional rock stars taped to each of his fingers.

He had his pick of the crop is what I’m saying.

But Eurydice is none too bright.

because one day

when she and Orpheus are out walking

she steps on a shitload of snakes

and the snakes kill her, obviously.

This is what happens when you step on snakes.

If only Tiresias had been around this might never have happened.

So Orpheus just sits right down and composes THE ULTIMATE EMO SYMPHONY.

It is so incredibly drenched in secret pain

that Zeus comes down and is like “Hey, man

I cannot get these chicks in the mood with this Linkin Park shit you got goin’ on.

Play some Barry Manilow or something, jeez.”

But Orpheus says “Sorry, man I am just way too bummed.”

and Zeus says “Okay, crybaby

why don’t you just go down to Hades and get your lady back, then?”

Orpheus says “I think I will.”

So Orpheus goes to Hades

and he just charms the pants off of Hades so hard

with his lyre and his singing

that Hades says

“Fine, dude.

Give me back my pants you just charmed off

and I will give you back your woman

but only if you pass a ludicrous and arbitrary test:

See, your chick’s ghost will follow you all the way out of Hades

but you can’t look at her until you’re both in the real world, or I get her for keepsies.

Make sense?”

and Orpheus says, “Not really, but okay.”

And he starts walking.

And on the way out he sees a bunch of demons

So he’s like “Hey, demons.”

And they’re like “’Sup, Orpheus?”

And he says, “Oh, just leading my chick out of hell.”

And they say, “Your chick? What chick?”

and then they kind of chuckle a little bit.

So this is making Orpheus nervous like, REAL nervous

and he really wants to look

but he knows he can’t look

so at the VERY MOMENT that he steps out of Hades

he turns around to see if she’s really there

and guess what?

SHE IS

but she is STILL IN HELL.

So Orpheus fails the test

and Eurydice disappears forever

and he’s back to square motherfuckin’ one.

This upsets him so much that he vows to only screw underaged boys for the rest of his life.

So he goes and sits on a hill

and dyes his hair black and just plays emo shit all the time

until one day all of these followers of Bacchus show up

and they’re like “Hey, dude, we’re having a party right here right now.

You still down with Bacchus?”

and Orpheus is like “Fuck no. I only worship the SUN.”

And they are like “Dude, are you sure about that?

We are a bunch of hot chicks and we are about to have an orgy

and only people who are down with Bacchus are invited to the orgy.”

And Orpheus says “Hell no. I only have sex with people’s SONS.”

And the chicks are all like, “Well, okay, if you say so”

and then they tear off his skin

and rape his corpse

and rip his head off

and chuck it into a river

along with his lyre which he is inexplicably still able to play

and he just floats off down the river making awesome music forever.

So the moral of the story is

Unless you can play your instrument with your head ripped off

and your arms and skin missing

You Are Not a Real Musician.

So this dude Minos is having all kinds of problems being king of Crete

because his brothers all want to be the king of Crete instead

so they are all murdering each other like nonstop

until Minos is like “Hey, Poseidon you should make me win.”

And Poseidon is all “Okay I am going to send you a bitchin’ white bull.

It means you will win

but you have to kill it later in my honor.”

And Minos says “Sure, okay, just make me king already.”

So Poseidon sends this bull

and Minos becomes king

but then he REALLY likes this bull.

I don’t think you guys understand what hot shit bulls were in ancient Greece

you have to remember Minos didn’t have the Internet

so bulls were like THE HEIGHT OF TECHNOLOGY

and this was like the APPLE IPAD OF BULLS

so he decides “How ’bout I don’t kill this bull?

What’s the worst that could happen?

I’m already king, right?”

WRONG.

Well, I mean, he is already king

but something bad definitely happens

because Minos has a wife

and Poseidon goes and hits up Aphrodite like “You know what you should do?

You should make Minos’s wife

fall in love with MY BULL.”

and Aphrodite looks up from giving Ares a blow job and she’s like “Okay, lemme just finish this.”

So all of a sudden Minos’s wife is like
mad
attracted to this cow

but the problem is that the cow is not at all into chicks.

Human chicks, I mean.

It’s not a gay cow.

Not that that would have been a problem.

Some of my best friends are gay cows.

But anyway Minos’s wife has this brilliant idea so she calls up this dude Daedalus

and she is like “I need someone to build me a giant wooden cow suit

so I can fuck cows”

and Daedalus

who is a fantastic genius inventor with no concept of right and wrong

is like “Sure, no problem.”

And he makes her the suit

and she puts it on

and she goes out and makes hot animal love to that bull

simultaneously inventing furries

and getting totally preggers

and Minos is none the wiser until she gives birth to a HIDEOUS COWBABY

aka THE MINOTAUR.

So Minos does the smart thing and calls up the Oracle at Delphi

because that never leads to bad decisions

and the Oracle says “Dude, just build a maze around it. No harm no foul.”

So Minos calls up Daedalus

(the same Daedalus who caused all these problems with his excellent cow suit)

and he hires him to build this awesome maze

and then instead of paying him with money

he pays him with years in prison

locked in a tower over the ocean with his son Icarus.

Minos is a dumbass though

because he has locked a master craftsman and his son in a tower

along with an apparently unlimited supply of feathers and wax.

So they make wings with that stuff

and jump out the window.

But you know who else is a dumbass?

ICARUS

because he does not understand that the sun is made of heat

whereas his wings are only made of wax and bird hair

so he flies way the hell up toward the sun

and the sun says “Aw
hell
no”

and Icarus’s wings melt and he drowns

and his genius dad lives happily ever after no longer hampered by his dumbass son

or else he flees all over the country for years trying to avoid Minos

before finally convincing someone to murder Minos in a bathtub

or maybe both

and then it turns out Daedalus even fucked up the labyrinth

because a few weeks later some dick named Theseus just rolls in and kills the minotaur

and then escapes and gets laid a whole bunch and then falls off a cliff and dies

but that’s a whole other story and I just told you all the good parts anyway.

So the moral of the story

is don’t count your chickens before they hatch

because the chickens might be minotaurs.