Once upon a time a young lad named Jack lived with his poor mother on the outskirts of a small rural village. Jack had no father, at least not one known to him, and this caused him no small amount of confusion as to how he came into being. Jack's mother didn't actually work for a living but there was always a steady stream of good village men willing to visit with food and the occasional penny or two which Jack was told to take to the village to buy bread and wine with. In the village Jack was referred to as Mrs Speedwell's little boy which Jack found very confusing since their name was Brown. Jack was an idiot. One week none of the village men came to visit, Jack and his mother were slowly starving on a diet of milk and air. Jack's mother, having already sold everything she had, decided that the time had come to sell off their last possession, Lucy the cow. Jack set off early the next morning with Lucy to the village markets determined to get a good price for her. On the way there he met a hippy who thought the cow reminded him of a lover in a previous life and offered Jack a packet of magical gunga seeds for Lucy. Jack, being an idiot, accepted the offer graciously and raced home eager to tell his mother of their amazing luck. His mother on hearing this news didn't get particularly upset at Jack, he was after all an idiot, but she did curse herself for not being more careful about birth control. So Jack planted his seeds and, against all logical reasoning, the next morning there outside the back door was a weed bush stretching up into the clouds. Jack's mother told Jack that the magical gunga beans grew at the top of the bush and he should climb it immediately and get them. She was working on the theory that he would get high up into the bush, slip, fall and break his fool neck. this proved to be an incorrect assumption. Jack climbed the bush for 12 hours and eventually made it to the top of the weedstork where he discovered a land among the clouds. He stepped off the bush and followed a pathway to an enormous mansion where he slid inside a slightly ajar door. Jack may have been stupid but he did possess a certain amount of rat cunning and he figured it might be wise to check the place out before revealing himself. Inside the mansion Jack saw wealth beyond his wildest dreams, piles of money and jewellery, and none of it under lock and key. He also noticed stirring on a lounge in the corner an old hippy. This hippy, thanks to a diet of hash cookies and magic mushrooms, mistakenly lived in the belief that he was a giant. When, sensing another presence in the mansion, he proceeded to stomp around the place yelling 'Fee Fie Foe Fun For Me !, Fee Fie Foe Fun For Me !'. Clearly this man needed to get out more. All this ranting and raving scared Jack enough to send him scurrying into the nearest cupboard where he sat peeking out at the old hippy who had settled down to his lunch of mushroom salad. After lunch the hippy got up from his chair went outside the back door and came back holding a goose. He proceeded to stroke the goose and talk lovingly to it and the goose responded by crapping all over the table. At this the hippy chuckled and exclaimed 'pure bloody gold' and scraped the goose shit into a bowl and took it outside to his garden. The moment the hippy left the room Jack, seeing his chance, ran from his hiding place, passed the pile of money, over the mound of golden jewellery, grabbed the goose and took off like a flash out the front door. He stuffed the goose into the front of his shirt as he ran (an experience he was later to describe as rather exciting) and clambered down the weed stork as fast as he could. Once at the bottom he grabbed an axe and proceeded to hack down the stalk which came crash to earth with a thud. Jack then raced inside to mother declaring 'look mum a goose that shits gold'. For the next two days the goose proceeded to shit on the kitchen table, not gold, just shit. On the third day the local police, having followed the trail of destruction left by the fallen stalk, arrested Jack's mother for possession as well as other sundry charges and Jack was sent to a boy's home where he was abused by paedophiles. The moral of this story is simple, if you want to avoid getting the Jack, wear a condom . (c) Bastard Incorporated 2000 portal2000@hotmail.com