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

by O'Brien, Cory

  so strapping in fact

  that by the time he is sixteen

  every last person in his town wants to bang the bajeezus out of him.

  But Narcissus is like “Sorry ladies/dudes/centaurs

  I have unreasonably high standards.”

  So basically, no one is happy.

  Then one day

  Narcissus goes walking in the forest

  where bad shit just generally tends to happen

  and this nymph named Echo sees him

  and of course, being as this nymph has eyes

  she is instantly head over vagina in love with him.

  There is a problem though

  which is that “Echo” is not just some kind of playful nickname

  it refers to the fact

  that she cannot say anything except for things she has just heard other people say

  because Hera got pissed off about how she used to use her silver tongue

  to buy Zeus some precious escape time during his adultery runs

  and maybe also used her silver tongue on Zeus in other ways.

  Would that feel good, even?

  A silver tongue?

  ANYWAY.

  So Echo is stalking Narcissus through the woods

  not able to say anything

  but I guess she makes some kind of noise

  ’cause then Narcissus is all “WHO’S THERE?”

  and Echo is like “WHO’S THERE?”

  and Narcissus is like “NARCISSUS”

  and Echo is like “NARCISSUS”

  and Narcissus is like “YES”

  which Echo mistakes for consent

  so she jumps out of the woods like “YESSSS”

  and comes running toward him, totally nude

  and Narcissus is like “Hey, totally naked hot nymph

  allow me to introduce you to my unreasonably high standards.

  Unreasonably high standards, meet naked hot nymph.”

  So Echo runs back into the woods crying

  except she probably can’t even cry without hearing someone else do it first

  but anyway she gets pretty butthurt about the whole thing

  and not in the good way that she wanted

  so she just mopes around the forest

  until her body actually DISAPPEARS

  and only her voice remains

  and then she uses that voice

  to pray to Aphrodite

  (or actually Venus because this is the Roman version of the story)

  and is like “Mess this dude up for me, okay?”

  I’m not sure how she managed to make up this prayer all on her own

  but I like to think she probably did it

  by hanging around the legions of chicks

  who all wished Narcissus was dead because he wouldn’t bone them.

  So Venus hears the prayer and is like DONE

  and Narcissus suddenly gets super thirsty

  and the only water in the woods happens to be this deep pool

  of crystal-clear springwater

  so he starts drinking out of it

  but then he stops

  because he realizes that what he is drinking

  is the face of the most beautiful man he has ever seen.

  He falls so in love with this hunk of pubescent glory

  that he pines after this dude for like, days

  until he realizes

  PLOT TWIST

  the dude in the pond is actually a reflection OF NARCISSUS HIMSELF

  because apparently

  for the last SIXTEEN YEARS OF HIS LIFE

  he has NEVER SEEN HIS OWN REFLECTION.

  He has never taken a bath

  or like, had a cup of water

  or, you know, stared REALLY HARD at a bald guy.

  He has led a pretty sheltered life, apparently.

  So anyway he gets REALLY DEPRESSED

  and like, rips off all his clothes

  and refuses to eat

  which not only makes him more attractive to himself

  but also dead

  and he goes down to basically the shittiest part of hell

  and spends the rest of forever staring at his reflection in the river Styx.

  Meanwhile, Echo’s voice shows up in the woods and finds Narcissus’s body

  and is like “Dammit.

  Wish I’d kept my body.

  Can’t even fondle his corpse now.”

  And she kind of feels pretty bad about the whole thing

  and makes a flower grow out of his corpse

  as a kind of a consolation prize for dying.

  So from now on

  every time you see a narcissus flower

  just remember

  that if you are beautiful

  you should never drink water

  because it is too dangerous.

  PERSEPHONE IS THE MOTHER OF INVENTION . . . NO, WAIT . . .

  So Persephone is the daughter of this chick Demeter

  who is the goddess of like fertility and crops and whatnot

  and she is also incredibly hot.

  So hot, in fact

  that Hades is down in the underworld (which is also called Hades actually)

  and he looks up one day and he sees her and he goes “DAAAAAAAAAAA

  AAAAAA

  AAAAA

  AAAA

  YUM.

  I gotta get me some of that.”

  So he just pops on up to the world in his black chariot of ultimate wretchedness

  and he says “Hey, little girl do you want to come to hell?”

  and she probably would have said no

  only he kidnapped her.

  Basically Hades is the ultimate ladies’ man.

  So then they’re kind of hanging out down in hell

  and it’s always been pretty depressing in hell

  but it’s actually a little bit better with Persephone there

  because she’s not a little emo bitch like Hades is all the time

  even though he has a WHOLE BADASS KINGDOM ALL TO HIMSELF.

  Seriously, why’s he always gotta be moping?

  Anyway, Persephone pulls some interior decorating like some spooky feng shui and shit

  and WHAM

  hell is a pretty okay place to live all of a sudden.

  But all is not well

  because meanwhile, Persephone’s mom, Demeter, is up in the regular world

  fretting the shit out of herself over her missing daughter

  and it does not help at all when she finds out that she was kidnapped by the king of hell.

  So Demeter gets real depressed

  and when Demeter gets depressed

  all the plants die

  and everything freezes

  and being alive just kind of starts to suck

  because she is the goddess of like crops and seasons and whatnot.

  And see, up to this point no one has even heard of winter

  but now they are getting nothing but winter

  nonstop and out of control

  24/7/365

  except actually maybe only for several months

  but either way

  shit is intolerable.

  So Zeus gets fed up

  and he goes and hits Demeter up, and he says

  “HEY, BITCH, WHAT’S WITH ALL THE WINTER?”

  and Demeter says “Hmm, I dunno.

  Maybe it’s because your brother is raping my daughter in hell?”

  And Zeus says “Hmm, good point.”

  So he goes down to the underworld

  and he says “Listen, bro


  I hate to block your cock, but like

  shit is completely intolerable up in the real world

  and it is downright impossible for me to get any quality dick laid down

  at this ball-freezing temperature.

  So give Demeter her daughter back

  and don’t you dare try any funny business

  such as for example feeding her any food at all from the underworld

  because as you know

  if she eats any of it

  she will be forced to stay in Hades with you forever.

  ’Cause that’s one of those dumb rules you have when you’re a god.”

  And Hades says “Yeah, bro, for sure. That would be a tragedy.

  Nobody wants that.”

  and then as soon as Zeus is out the door Hades turns around

  all like “’Sup, Persephone?”

  and Persephone says “’Sup?”

  and Hades is like “Hey, are you hungry?”

  and she says “Well, now that you mention it

  I haven’t eaten or drunk a single thing since you brought me down here months ago.”

  (Hades is the consummate host)

  So Hades goes “Well, hey

  absolutely the only thing we have to eat here in the underworld

  is POMEGRANATES.”

  (Which is yet another reason the underworld is awesome and Hades should stop whining.)

  So he starts feeding her the pomegranate seeds one at a time

  and he manages to stuff six into her mouth

  when her mom shows up

  like “Okay, honey

  time to go home”

  and Persephone says “Okay

  I was getting kind of tired of getting raped in hell anyway.”

  and Hades says “HAHAHA PRANK’D

  I FED HER SOME FOOD SHE HAS TO STAY NOW”

  And Demeter is like “ZEUUUUSSSS!”

  And Zeus is extremely flustered

  because he has probably just been interrupted in the midst of a whole litany of vigorous boning

  and he says “OKAY

  YOU KNOW WHAT YOU GUYS

  JUST . . . JUST FUCKING COMPROMISE

  LIKE I KNOW THERE’S A RULE ABOUT THE FOOD OR WHATEVER

  AND I DONT EVEN KNOW WHY WE HAVE THAT RULE HONESTLY

  BUT LIKE

  I AM LITERALLY FREEZING MY BALLS OFF UP HERE

  SO HOW ABOUT HADES GETS HER FOR SIX MONTHS

  AND DEMETER GETS HER FOR THE OTHER SIX?”

  and Demeter says “Fine

  but I’m gonna freeze the shit out of everything for the six months my daughter is gone.”

  and Zeus says “Fine

  guess I’m just going to have to double up on the amount of banging I do in the summer.”

  and Hades says “Fine

  I guess I’ll have to double up on the amount of banging I do during the winter.”

  And it works out in the end

  because both Zeus and Hades know

  that when either one of them is getting laid

  he does not have to ever worry about thinking about the other one having any sex

  and just ruining the mood

  because they both know for a fact

  that they are never getting laid at the same time ever.

  That’s how that works.

  So the moral of this story is once again for the gentlemen:

  Gentlemen

  learn to cook

  one home-cooked meal, and BAM

  she will be trapped inside of your house forever

  or for half the year if she has a good lawyer.

  HEPHAESTUS GETS DICKED AROUND A LOT

  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.

  ORPHEUS ROCKS HARD

  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 l
ike 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