Chapter the One'th

Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was a magical kingdom called Foo. The land of Foo was ruled by a tyrannical King named A’mabo. He was a dark man, evil and foreboding, and he ruled Foo with an iron fist. He had only occupied the throne for less than a year but had already tripled the taxes on the kingdom’s people and taken much more of their wealth than any ruler before him. He abolished their freedoms, brainwashed their children, and spied on their activities. The peasants were mad; they were starving and they were growing rebellious.

Before King A’mabo assumed the throne, the kingdom was happy and prosperous. Food was plentiful and cheap and the water was cool and sweet. Unicorns gamboled in the villages, free to prance and frolic, and the sky was filled with butterflies and rainbows. Flowers bloomed everywhere and breezes smelled of jasmine and honeysuckle. Even the wart hogs and dung beetles were beautiful and the lowliest peasants had perfect teeth, silky hair (with no split ends), and slim, healthy bodies. It was a wondrous place.

King George (the old King) had wearied of doing king stuff and retired to the La Dientes Falsos senior living center in Florida to live out his days playing bridge and golf. The people of Foo, who loved King George, gave him retirement presents of white slip-on shoes and a white belt so he would fit in with the other elders.

His final decree was to let his subjects choose their next king. He had confidence that they would choose wisely and not vote for a charlatan who would promise peace and prosperity but deliver warts and toenail fungus.

When he later learned of the plight of his beloved people, he lamented, “I pity the Foo.”

But it was too late.

After the coronation, the royal family moved into the magnificent white castle atop the tallest hill in the country. The castle was surrounded by a moat filled with alligators. Townspeople said that there were so many alligators that one could walk across their backs to the other side. But that was an exaggeration attested to by Stumpy the smithy, Howard the gelding, and Hopping John.

The royal family included A’mabo’s queen, Queen Fartwaddle and their two daughters, Princess Uh-huh and Princess Nuh-uh. The Princesses were delightful, but Queen Fartwaddle was a tyrant just like the King. The twenty-two Ladies in Waiting who attended her spent all their time waiting for the Queen to choose her handbags and shoes. Their only other responsibility was to assure her that her a$$ didn’t look big. She was an evil, vain woman and insisted that her size-twelves be made from kitten or bunny fur. What townspeople thought was a petting zoo was actually a fur farm, growing the skins for her bags and shoes.

They lived the royal lifestyle, they threw lavish parties, inviting Kings and Queens, Lords and Ladies from all over the land. They came from the surrounding kingdoms of Fee, Fie, Foe and Fum and each tried to outdo the other in every form of competition.

Shortly after A’mabo assumed the throne, Foo hosted a summit meeting. Rulers of the neighboring countries gathered to discuss trade tariffs and illegal immigration. Attending were: King High of Fee, Why of Fi, Moe of Fo, and Who of Fum. As usual, there were a few problems. King Why of Fi complained of a lack of hot spots and King High of Fee groused about the cost of items in his minibar and the valet parking scratching his tricked-out Italian carriage.

As they entered the grand hall, they greeted one another: King Who hugged Moe while Why got High, then Who hugged High and Moe got Why. And finally, King Who got Why and Moe got High. Kings Moe and Why were last seen wandering around outside the castle looking for Twinkies and chili dogs. Luckily they all had those “Hello, My Name Is” tags so they could tell who was Who and who was High.

King A’mabo welcomed the leaders and then bowed before each leader and kissed their rings. He apologized for the previous King George’s warlike actions. “There is no place in the 11^th century for cowboys,” he said. “Foo’s Folly” he called King George, and berated everything he did. He committed to unilaterally cut back his legions, knights, and archers, and reduce the number of catapults and trebuchets manned by the Foolean Guard. He would be a peaceful King even if it meant surrendering to anyone who attacked Foo.

Behind his back, the other Kings made fun of him, “what a wuss,” they were heard to say. They’d accept his gifts of aid and pretend to be allies, but they knew he was all talk and had no cajones. He couldn’t be trusted And they knew that all was not well in Foo.

Lately, even the Queen had angered the townspeople by making regular trips into the village to get arugula and kale for the Princesses’ pet hamster, Cheney. Each time, her entourage required the royal carriage, three chase carriages, a scribe carriage, an ambucarriage and a contingent of the Queen’s flying monkey guard. Townspeople complained that the Queen could have sent a pigeon to Dominos, and they would have delivered in 30 minutes, saving the country beaucoup money.

The royal carriage was called “Peasant One.” It was pulled by a herd of peasants instead of horses. Horses were a protected species and pulling a carriage was demeaning. Besides, the peasants didn’t pollute the streets nearly as much as the horses (their droppings were much smaller) and the King wanted to be seen as reducing poo-lution.

The King’s inner circle (his soothsayers, sorcerers, and wizards) advised him on all matters, large and small, since the King was born without a brain (he had only a small part of his uhh-poral lobe). He spoke beautifully, but could only do so when reading his decrees from scrolls. He had no thoughts of his own but depended on his staff to feed him his ideas. He had no memory of what he’d read and frequently contradicted himself. At court, his Deputy Wizard, Rhamaczar, spoke the words (while hiding behind a curtain) and the King mouthed them to appear as if he were speaking. This subterfuge was widely known ever since the King nodded off and snored briefly, even while “his” words continued. But he was the King and no one dared confront him.

“Anger the King at your peril,” was whispered among the population. It was said that the King used a Board of Appendages to determine punishment for an offense. His Czar of Punishment, Lord Cleaver, threw a dart and where it landed determined which appendage was chopped off. Unfortunately, many men brought before the Board suffered due to the large space allocated to the uniquely male appendage. This contributed to many male members being whacked off.

Second in command was Lord Axlerod, who developed the King’s wealth redistribution decree. The King’s advisors felt that the peasants were not capable of handling wealth, and so it should be redistributed to a royal “lockbox” attended to by Lord Gore, and invested properly by the King. Supposedly, the wealth (along with generous interest) would be kept safe and would be returned to the peasants to support them as they grew old. Lord Madoff was the King’s Czar of Schemes and he assured the King that the condominium development in Ponzi was a sound investment.

Lord Madoff’s children, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were on the board of Acorn (A Crappy Organization Responsible for Nothing) which specialized in registering peasants, filing their taxes, and acquiring land for a nonprofit subsidiary, The Pimpenho Home, who provided housing for immigrant orphan teenage girls.

Being a greedy tyrant, the King’s tax policies had increased tributes manyfold and he confiscated most of the corn and grain from the villages - the peasants were starving. “Let them eat Chinese takeout,” was his solution. But alas, there were no Chinese restaurants yet, only a very expensive Thai buffet and a Ruth’s Chris steakhouse. As a result, his subjects were malnourished and many contracted a deadly virus. The disease was spread by birds and became known as the Bird Foo virus.

The King also decreed a Humour Care plan that would ensure free blood-letting and treatment of phlegm disorders. The townspeople rebelled and fought his A’mabocare program, calling the plan a phlegm flim-flam, but to no avail – it could not be stopped. In reality, the program was a sham, it was really a scheme to enrich the King’s treasury. The program required that healers use only free-range leeches supplied by a royal subsidiary and his minions sold the blood from blood-letting to Count Barackcula for “research.” In fact, so much blood was drawn from villagers, that they became pale and colorless – a result of the Single Pallor system.  

He started a “Cash for Cows” program where villagers could trade in their old, shriveled-up, milked-out cows for a newer model. The newer cows gave more milk and reduced fart volume (thereby improving air quality). But, as with the King’s other mandates, the program didn’t work. The old cows immediately became steaks for the royal family while the villagers were still waiting for the delivery of their new, improved Cow, release 2.0. The townspeople were udderly disgusted and a new moo-ment began to rise up.

An undercurrent of rebellion was spreading in Foo. Some villagers began holding PEA parties (Peasants Expressing Angst) and talking trash about the evil King and the changes he’d made to their country - once filled with hope. The PEA nuts (as they were called) met in secret to avoid the King’s spies and those pesky villagers who were encouraged to rat out the patriots. A loosly-formed group (the Foopublicans) would attempt to gain control of Foo, but they were weak and ineffectual. Their only hope lay with Sarah of Wasilla, a good witch, and her ability to cast a spell over the land.

Three wise men, Count Larry, Count Moe, and Curly (couldn’t count) were dispatched to find Sarah and beg her to intercede. She lived in a cold, far-off land called Moose-on-ice.

When the travelers finally found Sarah the good witch, she welcomed them with "special" brownies and decaf mead and bade them to tell tales of their quest for good witchery. As Sarah listened, she recognized the work of her arch enemy, the evil wizard, Ratbastard of Soros.

Ratbastard was known far and wide as the most loathsome creature ever to walk the earth. It was said that when Satan cursed, he used Ratbastard’s name. He never got his hands dirty, but cast his evil spells on humans to do his dastardly deeds. He gave bribes of gold and silver to those in charge to do his bidding, and he always got his way. He would be a formidable adversary.

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Don’t miss the next exciting episode of “In the Land of Foo,” when we’ll see Witch Sarah short-sheet Ratbastard and send her pet barracuda to gnash on his gnoogies.