Free Politically Correct Bedtime Stories by James Finn Garner Page B

they were finished, the pigs were satisfied with their work and settled back to live in peace and self-determination.
    But their idyll was soon shattered. One day, along came a big, bad wolf with expansionist ideas. He saw the pigs and grew very hungry, in both a physical and an ideological sense. When the pigs saw the wolf, they ran into the house of straw. The wolf ran up to the house and banged on the door, shouting, ‘Little pigs, little pigs, let me in!’
    The pigs shouted back, ‘Your gunboat tactics hold no fear for pigs defending their homes and culture.’
    But the wolf wasn’t to be denied what he thought was his manifest destiny. So he huffed and puffed and blew down the house of straw. The frightened pigs ran to the house of sticks, with the wolf in hot pursuit. Where the house of straw had stood, other wolves bought up the land and started a banana plantation.
    At the house of sticks, the wolf again banged on the door and shouted, ‘Little pigs, little pigs, let me in!’
    The pigs shouted back, ‘Go to hell, you carnivorous, imperialistic oppressor!’
    At this, the wolf chuckled condescendingly. He thought to himself: ‘They are so childlike in their ways. It will be a shame to see them go, but progress cannot be stopped.’
    So the wolf huffed and puffed and blew down the house of sticks. The pigs ran to the house of bricks, with the wolf close at their heels. Where the house of sticks had stood, other wolves built a time-share resort complex for holidaying wolves, with each unit a fibreglass reconstruction of the house of sticks, as well as native curio shops, snorkelling, and dolphin shows.
    At the house of bricks, the wolf again banged on the door and shouted, ‘Little pigs, little pigs, let me in!’
    This time in response, the pigs sang songs of solidarity and wrote letters of protest to the United Nations.
    By now the wolf was getting angry at the pigs’ refusal to see the situation from the carnivore’s point of view. So he huffed and puffed, and huffed and puffed, then grabbed his chest and fell over dead from a massive heart attack brought on from eating too many fatty foods.
    The three little pigs rejoiced that justice had triumphed and did a little dance around the corpse of the wolf. Their next step was to liberate their homeland. They gathered together a band of other pigs who had been forced off their lands. This new brigade of porcinistas attacked the resort complex with machine guns and rocket launchers and slaughtered the cruel wolf oppressors, sending a clear signal to the rest of the hemisphere not to meddle in their internal affairs. Then the pigs set up a model socialist democracy with free education, universal health care, and affordable housing for everyone.

    Please note: The wolf in this story was a metaphorical construct. No actual wolves were harmed in the writing of the story.

RUMPELSTILTSKIN
    ong ago in a kingdom far away, there lived a miller who was very economically disadvantaged. This miller shared his humble dwelling with his only daughter, an independent young woman named Esmeralda. Now, the miller was very ashamed of his poverty, rather than angry at the economic system that had marginalized him, and was always searching for a way to get rich quick.
    ‘If only I could get my daughter to marry a rich man,’ he mused, in a sexist and archaic way, ‘she’ll be fulfilled and I’ll never have to work another day in my life.’ To this shabby end, he had an inspiration. He would start a rumour that his daughter was able to spin common barnyard straw into pure gold. With this untruth, he would be able to attract the attention of many rich men and marry off Esmeralda.
    The rumour spread throughout the kingdom in a manner that just happened to be like wildfire and soon reached the prince. As greedy and gullible as most men of his station, he believed the rumour and invited Esmeralda to his castle for a May Day festival. But when she arrived, he had her thrown into a