Edwin McScaley's poisonous rhetoric

(written in exactly 6 minutes and 25 seconds)

The cobra was 11 years old and nearing retirement; he was sick of biting people on the ankles and having to wait 15 hours for them to die. He wanted a quicker way to enjoy his meals, so this cobra, whose name was Edwin McScaley, called up his mechanic cousin Deena on the phone and said, “hey Deens, can’t you provide me the name of anyone in the garage where you work who’s been working on a faster way to have the venom I project in my bite to get out there into the bloodstream and paralyse my patient so I can eat them for dinner?’ And Deena hung up and called the police, because Edwin was nutso. And so Edward McScaley went to prison, but since he was a snake he was able to sneak through the bars and return to society almost right away (these snakes were not the most proficient jailors of their own kind). And he went to the garage where Deena worked and said “where is my cousin the turncoat?’ and Deena appeared in the reception room and said “Cousin Eduardo, why have you come—you should be making license plates!” And this did not please the former who had just been apprehended by the authorities and so Edwin decided to use his rhetoric. But before he used rhetoric (which for snakes, who are immune to venom, is a much more deadly tactic than plain old reptile poison) he warned his cousin Deena, “I will use my rhetoric on you, thou scales-faced moronicus!” And Deena hissed (which snakes do all the time, so it was not unusual) and she then did something quite unusual—she made a flying leap onto cousin Eddie-poo and said “I will not tolerate this!” And Edwin was surprised at the display of fortitude, since this was not the Deena he had come to know who was easily intimidated, and also snakes don’t fly, and so he queried—‘what is up with this total backbone you’re showing this afternoon, my dear sweetums?” And Deena pulled out a signed receipt from a self-help class she had attended the night before—’12 tips on being more assertive,’ offered by the Incorrigible Silus Sluck, who was a well-known snake in that district. And so Deena said—‘you see here, my cousin Edoonicus, I have indeed attended a night course for those easily afflicted with intimidations, and so it is easy for me to flout your vaunted rhetoric.’ And Silus Sluck, who at that moment happened to be in the garage getting his car fixed, wandered into the argument and encouraged his snakey pupil Deena, saying ‘that is the way, my star pupil, apply the methods I have instilled in thee, and so onward toward your glory!” And Silus Sluck was late for his swimming lessons so he slithered out the door toward his destiny. Deena was sad to see him go, and for a moment she ceased to be invulnerable to rhetoric, at which point the venomous McScaley decided to employ a vicious syllogism to the back of Deena’s occipital lobe, which is to say he rocked her socks off in the arena of competition.

And then a gong sounded and the lights in the garage went out, so everyone made peace and went for pork—that is to say, they ate an entire pig, and it took 17 days to fully digest that pig, after which time Deena and McScaley forget why they even had a disagreement and went partners into the auto-shop business, where McScaley specialized in making and repairing license plates.
The End


(The moral is: don’t escape from prison too early--you may miss out on some key business skills)