Ropes, Penegrins, Tears and Tortured Metaphors

Day 1,473, 18:27 • Published in USA Ireland • by Fitisin

Hey Guys, IT'S STORY TIME YAY!!!

This is the story of a friendly little game of tug-of-war. Once upon a time a guy from Serbia walks into the park, challenges you to a game of tug-of-war with a BIG MUD PUDDLE IN THE MIDDLE and you accept. You show up with a couple other Americans and the Serbian guy shows up with 19 other people.



20-3 odds. Not gonna work out well for the BlueBuddies here...

So, you decide you need to recruit some other players for your side; but they're hungry and would pull harder if they had something to eat - preferably free food. So...you walk over to some people standing there and take a quarter of the food out of the picnic baskets made by those other people from them and give that food to five other people in return for pulling on your end of the rope.

The people from whom you have taken food from aren't thrilled but, hey, it's a tug-of-war right? The odds are 20-8...still bad but way better than 20-3.

So, you and your free food eatin' "friends" are pulling away and it's definitely better, but it isn't looking good.

Then, lo and behold, another 5 guys show up - and they've already eaten - and volunteer to pick up the end of the rope and help you out!

Awesome right? Still 20-13 but at least there's a fighting chance ('cause a couple of the volunteers are DAMN BIG) and it's GAME ON BABY!


Gonna be tough, but with more players - these guys have a shot!

Suddenly, one of the hired guys turns magically into a Grumpy Penegrin! A Grumpy Penegrin is a dangerous creature that can drown you with its tears. But, if you give it somebody else's food (it 'specially likes food made by someone else leaving them a little hungry and Grumpy Penegrin thuper-dee-DUPER FULL) and tell it exactly what to do and when, it calms down and reverts back to a normal person for short periods of time. Wouldn't you know it...that Grumpy Penegrin starts whining and hollering! "Hey! Get those big guys in the back off my rope!" he exclaims in a high-pitched, sort of weasel-like voice. "They didn't get somebody else's food to be here! They weren't ordered to help out! Well I was so this is MY DAMN ROPE AND I WANT THEM OFF IT NOW! And don't anybody say 'thanks for helping out' either, and we better warn everybody in the park that there are some CRAZY PEOPLE wandering around being helpful and not wanting anything in return! We better make a message to give to all the new people in the park letting them know these big guys in the back aren't official 'CUZ THEY DON'T WANT SOMEBODY ELSE'S FOOD!!!"


Grumpy Penegrin is grumpy!

One of the guys in the back says, "Whoa dude, we're on the same team right? Pulling this rope here...bunch of Serbians over there...how about leaving us alone and we'll keep pulling in the same direction? We want to help out, and you don't have to give us any stuff in return either, free help amigo!"


Helping each other out, that's what makes a game like tug-of-war fun, right?

"NO!" cries Grumpy Penegrin! "This is MAI ROPE and I have a little red bar on my shirt that says I get FOOD 'N SECH to pull this rope and you don't have a red bar, so you get OFF MAI ROPE!"


But it's my rope, my rope, my rope! Uncle Pfeiffer! Get those mean helping people OFF MAI ROPE!!!!! [SOB, GASP, SOB]

You know what happened next? Well, the leader of the group did nothing to stop Grumpy Penegrin's tears and tantrum and so the guys in the back said, "m'kay here's your rope back" and....



--end of tortured tug-of-war parable--