Yee Hawwwww!

"You indeed be a god!"

Maybe we kin e'en get that pudry english teacher ta come skool us mens in hows to spake gud!

GIVEN that we're talking about genesis, I hereby proclaim the following as the unofficial etymology of "wednesday." Wednesday was the day that the original goddess of greek love, namely aphrodite (also the matron sainte of rounde fuzzy haire does) was duly wed to her elusive mate, hephaestus, the god of living in hot smoky caves, burnging things, and pounding on hot metal. Now here's the cool thing about this myth: beautiful hot sexy venus, with a brain on her the size of new jack city (including all the underground tunnels, I meant she was one smart lady, if ye gits me drift, matey), doesn't marry the hot stud in the pantheon, no, she nails the geekiest of the greek god geeks. The guy who can pound a slaggy lump of ironic iron into the finest filigree. I mean boy was that boy good.

But unfortunately, having his head in the forge for most of the day (when he wasn't upstairs in frothy bedding on the mount of venus holding forth with his cunning linguistics), and also attributable to the fact that the american experiments of the sixties (not to mention early 20th century parisians) hadn't happened yet, it turns out that he didn't quite understand polyamory (nor polyf*ckery, for that matter). Thus the following story.

This happened on yet another wednesday, in which the mythological predilection of eros and thanatos to intertwine was played out with yet another set of archetypes, when aphrodite got the hots for ares, and vice versa. Venus and mars, it's not just for a paul mccartney album title anymore. No, it's the old story. THe hot beautiful woman is attracted to the big bad boy (even this particularly astute woman who married herself a geek's geek). So they spend a bit of time having at it when that old prude in the sky, apollo hissself, looks down and sees them surreptitiously. Aghast at what he saw (and also not being quite in touch with the future trend towards poly), he hastened to inform hephaestus that he had been irreparably cuckolded. Oh the shame. Hephaestgus was incensed (and no, I'm not referring to the ancient replacement for deodorant -- which also hadn't been invented yet).

So in his now blackening little geek heart he hatched a plan. He took the strongest gold platinum alloy, added in a box of wheaties for olympic strength, and fashioned of the finest filigree, a golden net. He carefully laid it on the bedclothes in the morning after aphrodite got up to do her ablutions, and hastened his sorrry ass down the big elevator in the rock, and got his butt to work.

Apollo, now firmly a part of the conspiracy, reported over secure wireless connection, to agent 00H, that the pair in question was now in flagrante delictae. 00H then summoned Hermes, who invited all the gods who weren't already out in the hamptons over to the scene of the climax, and agent 00H, now revealed to be the cavrone in question, pulled the cord that raised the net, capturing ares and aphrodite into the air for all to see. struggle as they might, the geekiness of hepaestus was stronger than the belligerence of the war god: they were stuck. Apollo the grand prude called out to all the gods, pointing out the shame of the flagrant pair, and exacting hephaestus's revenge.

History (or rather, mythology) does not reveal the counseling fees that aphrodite and hephaestus had to endure in their endless couples counseling session after that episode, but it does record the following exchange:

apollo turned to hermes, mumbling under his breath, oh the shame, the shame, how to endure such? Hermes got his trademark ocular twinkle, delivering the riposte: ah, but for a night with such a beauty, it would be worth it. Whether he was talking about a night with venus or a night with mars, I will leave up to the predilections of the reader.

And that, my fellow pharm phreaks, is your story for wednesday.

-Simbubba
(not the brightest bulb in the tulip patch)