(With emphasis on the "random" in "random curiosity", here is a silly tale with a beginning, middle, and that's about it. It's worth at least a chuckle or two. Enjoy!)
According to legend, before deregulation, there was only one goddess of electricity. Her name was Peggie and though she was only a minor deity in the pantheon of gods, the people adored her and worshipped her devoutly.
During the Puce Age of Deregulation (puce is roughly eighteen steps below gold), several gods were demoted. By dividing powers and responsibilities among a greater number of lesser gods, deregulators hoped to decrease deity unemployment while improving response time to prayers and pleas through competition.
Peggie took her demotion particularly hard. She had always been a fair and receptive goddess. She had never been greedy - asking for her own priestess and temple or requiring firstborns or virgins as sacrifices. She was quite content to be represented by a shared priestess in a common temple (as long as it had an unassuming statue of her somewhere smart) and only asked for a modest basket of lemons or limes once every three months. And even when the people failed to present a basket, she was never spiteful. She didn't stop electricity from flowing or summon swarms of Energizer bunnies.
That isn't to say she was a pushover. When displeased, she was known to make people extremely susceptible to static, which doesn't seem so bad until you've zapped yourself and your loved ones for several hours straight. That's when you realize a basket of fruit is a fair price to pay for not having to flinch every time you touch something or someone.
After Peggie left, a struggle for dominance in the dominion of electricity ensued. Gods offered more power and greater reliability for smaller and smaller sacrifices. Some offered free deity bobble heads for those who converted. Fighting between the gods was common and electrical surges were prevalent during this period.
Time passed and eventually equilibrium was restored. Where there was once one goddess of electricity, there were now three gods: Ronnie, Eddie, and Dookie. To keep the deregulators from demoting them, they formed a secret pact and promised not to undermine, annihilate, or pull the classic hand buzzer trick on one another. They also agreed to feign competition by asking for different quantities of lemons and limes (they had adopted Peggie's old ways) and covertly met at crochet club gatherings to evenly redistribute the fruit (cleverly hidden in balls of yarn).
Their arrangement worked well until Afelicio, the god of unions, intervened. Seeking to increase his influence, he petitioned Zeus to unionize the gods. Zeus refused, but Afelicio tricked him into playing a brutal game of Rochambeau and beat him. Zeus granted his petition and he wasted little time in establishing his first three bylaws...- No god is allowed to work more than eight hours a day.
- Every god is entitled to full dental coverage and two weeks of leave a year for feasts and orgies.
- Every god will deduct no less than two percent of his or her offerings to maintain mandatory membership in the union.
Fearing an increase in competition and an end to their secret arrangement, Ronnie and Eddie approached Afelicio to strike a deal. In exchange for the status quo, the gods of electricity promised to abide by the bylaws and provide the god of unions with one hundred pairs of crocheted slippers (gods have notoriously cold feet and wear through footwear quickly).
Before they left, the two gods also claimed the coveted day and night shifts, leaving Dookie with the most demanding shift of all... the swing shift - the time of day when people came home and needed tremendous amounts of electricity to cool or heat their dwellings and power their televisions and game machines.
And where was the future swing shift god of electricity during these proceedings? Why, he was sitting in a dental chair, having his teeth whitened, as it was now fully covered by his new union-mandated benefits.
That evening, when he heard the news, Dookie was furious. He had received the short straw and it was either that or no straw at all, so he fumed, gritted his newly brightened teeth, and started working his yarn and crochet hook furiously.
By morning, thirty-three pairs of slippers lay at his feet. Ronnie and Eddie let Dookie sleep in, neither one wanting to wake and tell him he still had one more pair to go.
