Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Doc's mythological dream

Monkey KingThe emperor of the Qin Dynasty had a surprise visitor late one night.
It was Lord Confucius, come from the Jade Palace in Heaven.
He said, "Lord Emperor, the King of Heaven has sent me with an urgent message."
Well, the Emperor had fallen on his face in front of Lord Confucius.
Confucius said, "Do you want to hear the message or not? Get up, sluggard!"
He got up.
Confucius said, "Unless you follow my instructions exactly, the world will end tomorrow."
With fear and trembling, the Emperor said, "What must i do?"
Confucius said, "Your daughters must learn to bowl."
The Emperor said, "Right away. Wait... what?"
"They must learn to bowl.
"They must also learn to keep score.
"And they must each pick up at least one frame, or the world will end."
The Emperor said, "You're kidding, right?"
Confucius said, "Do I look like I'm kidding? I AM carrying bowling shoes for your daughters, after all!"
The daughters -- their names were Rose and Lily -- were taken to the celestial bowling alley to be taught to bowl.
"Honored Father," they said, "it smells like smoke in here!"
Confucius said, "Yes, girls, it's Open Bowling night."
The Monkey King (pictured, with a friend :-)) taught the older one, Rose, to keep score. Rose was very interested in Monkey's cudgel.
I taught Lily myself. (It WAS my dream, after all.) Lily liked the cudgel too. I wonder sometimes if they would've had better scores if they could leave the cudgel alone... until I saw Monkey could make the smoke do giant rings with it.
But Rose had a 123 and a strike in the ninth frame.
And Lily had a 117 and three spares.
The world was safe... or so we thought.
Breathing a sigh of relief, the Emperor said, "Are we safe?"
Lord Confucius said, "You have other tasks to perform. but the world will not end for tonight, at least."
I noticed the girls were keeping their bowling shoes. Then I woke up.
And I haven't been back yet.
But while I was there, they called me "Scorekeeper From Above," you know. :-)
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
-- Confucius

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posted by Ron @ 9:33 PM

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