Let’s say you’re a god. With a small g, because we all know you’re not the Big G. But, for educational purposes only, let’s continue to say you’re a lower case god like back in the day when they had sand and swords and the sheep looked nice if you squinted.

They also had multiple gods in those days, which goes back to the day when The Big G cut the ribbon at the opening of the Okefenokee swamp in Florida. Harold, a troublemaking angel, always up to no good, stayed behind in heaven as punishment for his role in a notorious wind-breaking incident, sometimes confused with Hurricane Jolene).

So, while the festivities played out in the Florida swamp, Harold promoted everybody back in heaven to lower-case god status. As a joke, of course. All in good fun. But you know what? When someone, no matter who, declares you are a god, it sounds just about the same as being declared God. After awhile, you’re drinking Bud Lite lime before lunch and pretty certain your stuff don’t stink.

When The Big G got back from the swamp and saw all the other gods running around acting like they were God, he just about went through the roof. Not such a hard thing to do, because as most people know, heaven has no roof. Still, he was beside himself, which was very unnerving because, with all the other gods, it was hard to tell if the god standing beside you was a little g or the big G. (Note: If you’re a god, all other gods look the same, which was never a problem when there was just the one God.)

GOD himself called all the new gods into a conference room. He then sent in a guy named Moe, whom he was grooming to be part of a semi-holy trinity called The Three Stooges. He had Moe walk around the room sticking his finger in eyes, bopping heads, jabbing bellies and pulling ears.  If anyone complained he said “Oh.  A wise guy,” and he tried to twist off their noses.

But I digress. That all happened a while back and you probably read all about it in the papers, when they had papers.  Look, the life of small g gods today leaves much to be desired. I mean, let’s say you’re a small god named Apollo. Your super power is correct grammar usage. Anytime you hear someone using bad grammar, you puff up into a blue nosed gopher and dig a long tunnel into that someone’s back yard. It’ll take some time, but sooner or later it will dawn on you that a backyard crisscrossed by gopher tunnels is not a big deterrent to keeping people from using the passive voice.

Really? Okay, I see the doubt in your ears. So listen up. Let’s say you hear someone say “The gopher crawled into the tunnel.” Of course, you have no trouble with that.

But then the gopher says (yes, yes, it’s a talking gopher; accept the premise, you’ll enjoy the bit.*)… So the gopher says “The tunnel was crawled into by Pete the gopher-hater who took his 12 gauge Mossberg into the past tense where the actual gopher, known as Ed the goofy gopher, was blown.”

Is there a lesson in this story? Why does every story have to have a lesson? More to the point, why does every lesson have to have a story? Can’t we all just get along?

Of course, the sharp eyed reader will immediately see the point I’m trying to make:  passive gophers stand not a chance against an armed copy editor.

Have a nice day.

*Stolen from David Letterman

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