Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology

by Cory O'Brien

  I AM SORRY FOR THE CONFUSION

  JUST KIDDING, TOTALLY NOT SORRY.”

  So Isis is understandably upset about this

  and so is this super-wise dude named Thoth

  so he comes down and is like “Hey, Isis how would you like to escape this prison?”

  And Isis is like “I would like that a lot.”

  so Thoth is like “Boom. You got it.

  Here, have some scorpions.”

  And Isis is like “WHAT, WHY WOULD YOU GIVE ME SCORPIONS?”

  And Thoth is like “Chill out. These scorpions will guide you to safety.

  I’m the god of wisdom, okay? I’ve got this handled.”

  so Isis takes Horus, and they follow these seven scorpions for like a WEEK.

  No one has any ideas where they are going

  probably because the guides in this scenario are SCORPIONS.

  SCORPIONS ARE NOT THE ULTIMATE GUIDES, MY FRIENDS.

  THEY ARE FANTASTIC AT STINGING THE CRAP OUT YOU

  BUT I FEEL LIKE THEY ARE NOT KNOWN FOR THEIR SENSE OF DIRECTION.

  But after a lot of bullshit, Isis and the scorpions and Horus finally arrive in some town

  and Isis goes and knocks on the door of some rich chick’s house

  and the rich chick is like “Oh, why hello there HOLY SHIT SCORPIONS.

  NO NO NO NO NO.”

  But so no sooner has the rich chick slammed her door

  than this poor chick is like “Hey there.

  I see you have some scorpions.

  I’m so poor that I have even pawned my fear of death.

  Come crash at my hovel.”

  But then PLOT TWIST

  the scorpions all throw a fit about not being invited into the other house

  so they go inside and sting the crap out of the rich chick’s baby

  and she hears the baby crying and she is like “What’s that noise?

  I hope it’s not the sound of my baby getting stung by SCORPIONS.

  OH SHIT SCORPIONS.”

  And Isis hears all this commotion

  and she is like “SCORPIONS YOU ARE THE SHITTIEST GUIDES.

  NOW I HAVE TO SOLVE ALL THE PROBLEMS.”

  So she runs up to where the baby is busy dying

  and she is like “Hey, poison, get out of that baby.”

  And the poison is like “Maaaan . . . fine.”

  and then Isis leaves, like “ANOTHER DAY SAVED

  THANKS TO ME AND NO THANKS TO THESE SCORPIONS.”

  And then she ends up in the marsh she was supposed to check out

  and she hides Horus in the mud, like “Okay, son

  I am going to bury you in marsh filth now

  among poisonous animals some of which I KNOW to be irritable scorpions

  so just try not to move around too much. I’m gonna go get burgers.”

  So Isis comes back later

  and she is like “Hey, Horus would you like some burgers?

  Hmm . . . you don’t seem to be moving at all or breathing or anything.

  Oh noooo.

  Set, did you turn into a snake and poison my baby?”

  And Set is like “Yup.”

  And Isis proceeds to scream the most heavy metal scream possible

  it is so metal that it STOPS THE SUN

  or more accurately, THE SUNBOAT.

  And Ra is chilling in the boat with all of his hookers and stuff

  and it stops all of a sudden

  with one of those record scratch noises you hear in bad teen movies

  and everyone is like “Whaaaat?

  Thoth, go find out what Isis is angry about.”

  so Thoth goes down there like “Woman, I hooked you up with scorpions and everything. What now?”

  and Isis is like “Look, I know you are itching to get your bone on in the backseat of the sunboat

  but could you do me a solid and just revive my son real quick?”

  and Thoth is like “Oh yeah, no problem. Done.

  By the way, how were those scorpions? Pretty sweet, right?”

  and Isis is like “They were a pack of angry scorpions

  that you gave to a single mother with a child.”

  Anyway Horus is alive now

  but he and Isis still have to hide out in the marshes

  while his balls gather sufficient mass to allow him to murder Set.

  So basically the moral of the story

  is that scorpions are only good for one thing

  and that one thing is rad tattoos.

  HORUS JERKS OFF IN SET’S SALAD

  So Horus grows up

  and Isis is like “Hey, son, remember that asshole Set? The one who you are destined to ruin?”

  and Horus is like “I mean you never stop talking about him

  and also he turned into a snake and poisoned me to death when I was a baby.

  That tends to make people pretty memorable when they do stuff like that.”

  and Isis is like “Well, why haven’t you killed him yet?”

  and Horus is like “JEEZ, MOM, FINE GET OFF MY BACK.

  HEY, SET, I’M ’BOUT TO KILL YOU GET READY.”

  So Set shows up like “OH NO, YOU DIDN’T.”

  And Horus is like “HOLD STILL FOR A SECOND. LET ME STAB YOUR FACE.”

  And Isis is like “OH SHIT, STOP. I JUST REMEMBERED THAT SET IS MY

  BROTHER.”

  and Horus tries to break her legs

  but then she stabs him

  and Set gets away

  and Horus is like “Wow, Mom.

  Seriously?”

  But Isis heals him later so it’s fine.

  Wait, what am I talking about

  shit is so un-fine you could coat sandpaper with it and then use it to shave off a goat’s face.

  Because now Set is thinking as HARD AS HE CAN about how to screw over Horus

  and finally he’s like “I KNOW

  I will use my SEMEN to solve this problem.

  HEY, HORUS, WANNA HAVE SEX?

  And Horus is like “Well, normally I would say no

  but today I am an idiot, so okay.”

  and they have a bunch of sweaty sex

  but then right at the crucial moment

  Horus uses his lightning reflexes to parry Set’s manbatter

  because apparently it’s not gay if the jizz stays outside your butt.

  So then he’s got a handful of manana cream pie

  and he’s like “Eww, what am I going to do with this?

  I KNOW, I’LL THROW IT IN A RIVER.”

  and thus invents hand washing and pollution SIMULTANEOUSLY

  so now HORUS is thinking about how to fuck over SET

  and he’s like “Hmm . . .

  Apparently the name of the game

  is ‘get your semen inside of the other guy’s body.’

  I don’t make the rules

  I just make the jizz.

  Let’s make this happen.”

  So he sneaks into Set’s house and jerks off in his salad

  and then Set eats the salad and Horus is like “HAHA YOU JUST ATE MY SPOOGE.”

  Is it just me, or is spooge the single least attractive synonym for dickglue?

  Anyway, Set is like “BULLSHIT.

  LET’S GO BEFORE THE REST OF THE GODS

  AND NEEDLESSLY AIR OUR DIRTY LAUNDRY

  IN HOPES OF DETERMINING SUPERIORITY.”

  So they call together the other gods

  and Set is like “Guys

  I totally jizzed in Horus’s butt.

  That means I’m better than him, right?

  and Horus is like “You didn’t jizz in my butt. What are you talking about?

  Go ahead and call for your sperm.

  See where they’re at.”

  Yeah, apparently these dudes keep in touch with all their sperm.

  Talk about being a devoted father.

  Anyway, Set is like “FINE.

  OHHH SPERRMMMM. WHERE AAARE YOUUUU?”


  And the sperm is like “HERE WE ARE IN THE RIVER.”

  and Set is like “Dammit, Horus

  Did you block my cock?”

  and Horus is like “That is in fact exactly what I did.

  Now hold on lemme find out where my sperm is at real quick.”

  And the sperm is like “HERE WE ARE IN SET’S STOMACH.”

  And Set is like “NOOOO.”

  And everyone else is like “Wow.

  This is astonishingly stupid

  how about we settle this pissing contest with a reasonable competition

  like a boat race

  except the boats are made of stone.

  THAT’S PERFECT THAT’S NOT STUPID AT ALL.”

  So Set and Horus get their boats ready

  but Horus has a secret

  which is that his boat is actually MADE OF WOOD

  it’s just painted to look like stone

  which raises a couple of questions:

  First of all

  why didn’t anyone check to see if Horus’s boat was actually made of stone?

  And second of all

  since they didn’t

  WHY DID SET NOT DO THIS?

  DOES HE NOT REALIZE THAT STONE IS THE WORST THING TO MAKE BOATS OUT OF?

  I mean, maybe he thinks they are trying to race to the bottom of the lake

  in which case I understand

  either that or he’s SCRUPULOUSLY HONEST

  but we’re talking about the god of storms, chaos, and evil

  who has been known to do things like eat the balls of his enemies

  and then try to kill their babies

  and then when their babies grow up

  try to have buttsex with the very same babies

  so I feel like honesty is not top of his priority list.

  But anyway they have the race and Set’s boat sinks

  and Horus wins

  and as a result he gets to be king of Egypt

  and Set has to be his bitch forever.

  So the moral of the story

  is next time you are jockeying for a sweet promotion

  consider jizzing in your coworkers’ food

  but make sure to also brush up on your boat-racing just in case.

  MAYAN

  I’ve never been freaked out by a calendar even a little

  just getting a rise out of me with a calendar is a feat on its own

  but the Mayans are the MVPs of making calendars, man.

  You have to hand it to a culture that can make a calendar SO INTENSE

  that it is still freaking people out CENTURIES LATER.

  And they didn’t stop at just freaking people out.

  No, see, these dudes wrote a whole fan fiction for their calendar.

  It’s called the Popol Vuh

  and it is basically just a super-complicated code version of the calendar itself

  secretly translated by some Mayan dudes

  around the time that the Spanish were killing everybody

  and now

  it is time to take that sacred and clandestine work of those brave souls

  and mock the shit out of it.

  THE MAYANS HAVE THE MOST BRUTAL CALENDAR

  So there is this one Mayan dude, right?

  he has like fifty goddamn names

  Like Hurucan, and Gugumatz, and Heart-of-Sky

  and I’m not even really sure if he is one Mayan dude

  or like, a collection of Mayan dudes

  because they keep acting like he is two people

  but the two people never do anything independently

  so they’re basically just one person

  or some kind of hive mind.

  Anyway, we’re going to call this thing Quetzalcoatl.

  Quetzalcoatl is bored, because all there is anywhere

  is just a whole bunch of water and some sky

  and it’s not even interesting sky because there is no light

  so Quetzalcoatl is like “Okay, boom.”

  And there is some light

  and then he goes boom again

  and there is some land

  but this is still pretty lame because what is the point of being able to do this kind of shit

  if there is no one around to get freaked out by how cool it is?

  Now, this may sound pretty familiar so far

  but here’s where it gets crazy:

  Quetzalcoatl’s master plan for getting worshippers

  is to invent JAGUARS.

  And then he’s like “WHOA, JAGUARS LOOK, I JUST FUCKING MADE YOU.

  PRETTY NEAT, HUH?”

  And the jaguars are all “Rarrrr, we are jaguars.

  We can’t talk or be impressed.”

  So Quetzalcoatl is like “Aww, fuck you guys.

  I’m gonna make some way more awesome creatures

  and they are going to worship me

  and you are going to be their SLAVES.”

  So he gets some dirt

  and he makes dirt-people

  but the dirt-people really suck

  because first of all, they are made out of dirt

  second of all, they only speak gibberish

  and third of all, they dissolve in water

  so Quetzalcoatl figures that even if they COULD worship him

  he would get pretty embarrassed

  so he kills all of them by dumping water on them

  and then he calls these two other dudes

  Xmucane and Xpiacoc

  who have names that sound like prescription drugs

  designed to treat nasal congestion and erectile dysfunction respectively

  and he’s like “Hey, is it a good idea for me to make people out of wood?”

  And they say “Yeah, go for it.”

  So he makes people out of wood

  like a whole bunch of wooden robots, basically

  and they can speak and walk around

  and they don’t dissolve in water

  but they are TREMENDOUS assholes.

  One might even say they have a STICK up their asses.

  Get it? Get it?

  Aw, screw you guys.

  Anyway, they totally forget to worship Quetzalcoatl even a little bit

  and he’s getting pretty pissed at this point

  because he has seriously made EVERYTHING THAT EXISTS

  and no one is giving him ANY CREDIT

  so he kind of freaks out a little

  and causes fire to rain from the sky

  and burns everything to cinders

  and then makes all of the wood-people’s cookware come alive and kill them

  and all the animals move into their houses and eat them

  even though they are made of wood and totally not tasty

  and meanwhile Quetzalcoatl makes a bunch of ACTUALLY delicious people out of tortillas

  and those people are supposedly us

  and as soon as Quetzalcoatl gets bored he is going to make us into burritos

  and then feed us to jaguars or whatever

  and this story was apparently plausible enough

  to freak out THE ENTIRE GODDAMN WORLD ALL THE WAY THROUGH 2012.

  But anyway, everyone lives happily ever after

  except the wood-people

  who get chased into the woods and turned into monkeys.

  So the moral of the story is

  never set fire to a monkey

  because it is made out of wood

  and you will start a forest fire.

  HUNAHPÚ AND XBALANQUÉ: ULTIMATE BALLERS

  So there are these two dudes

  Hun Hunapú and Vucub Hunapú.

  They are twins, or at least brothers.

  Anyway, they piss off the gods of the underworld with their constant ball playing.

  Yes, that is right

  they play sports SO HARD

  that it upsets MAYAN SATAN.

  Anyway, the gods summon them down to the underworld

  (which is called Xibalbá />
  because no Mayan story is complete

  without about six thousand proper nouns beginning with the letter “X”)

  and the gods are all “Hey, guys we heard you like ball playing

  GET IT?

  WE HEARD.

  BECAUSE YOU ARE SO LOUD.”

  And the twins are like “What of it?”

  And the gods are like “Well if you like ball games so much

  how about you play ball with us

  FOR YOUR LIIIIVES?!?!”

  And the twins are like “This sounds like THE ULTIMATE RUSH.”

  Now, if this was a Greek myth

  the twins would use some kind of mad skill or insane trickery to beat the gods.

  But this is a Mayan myth.

  The dudes get killed before the game even starts for smoking a cigar the wrong way

  and then they get decapitated and buried under the ball court

  except for Hun’s head which they put that on a calabash tree for some reason.

  This turns out to be a bad idea

  because some chick named Xquic walks by

  and Hun spits in her hand

  and he is such a true man that this causes her to get pregnant and she gives birth to TWINS.

  Fellas

  think you’re hot shit because your penis is one and a half inch longer than the national average?

  try impregnating a random chick in her hand

  with your saliva

  from a tree

  on which someone has deposited YOUR SEVERED HEAD.

  Wait, wait, I went and read it again

  it wasn’t even his head

  it was just his skull.

  Skulls don’t even MAKE saliva

  so . . . I guess when he still had skin and stuff he just collected a big glob of spit in there

  and he HELD IT.

  WAITING.

  I want that shit on one of those posters that says “HANG IN THERE.”

  So yeah, Xquic gives birth to twins

  they are called Hunahpú and Xbalanqué

  and these two guys are alive for like five minutes

  before they discover their dad’s ball-playing gear

  and start playing ball SO GODDAMN HARD

  that they piss off the underworld AGAIN

  and THEY get summoned down there

  and the gods are like “Hey

  you may have noticed that severed head hanging from that tree by your house.

  That was the last dude who kept us awake with his ball playing.

  That was also your dad, FYI.

  Why the hell do you guys even like playing ball this much?

  Okay, look, do you want to play ball for your lives?”

  and the twins are like “THE ULTIMATE RUSH.”