Once upon a time there was a woman named Ivory who had reached the age of thirty-seven without ever having had a suitor, for she was so foolish that no one wanted to marry her.
One day, however, a man in a white shirt and black tie, naming himself Steven, arrived to pay court to her, and her mother, beaming with joy, sent the woman down to the cellar to draw a jug of beer. As her daughter did not come back, the mother went down to see what had become of her and found her sitting on the stairs, her head in her hands, while by her side the beer was running all over the floor, for she had forgotten to close the tap.
�What are you doing?� asked the mother.
�I was thinking what I shall call my first child, after I am married to that man. All the names in the calendar are taken already,� said Ivory.
The mother sat down on the staircase beside her daughter and said, �I will think about it with you, my dear.�
The father, who had stayed upstairs with Steven, was surprised that neither his daughter nor his wife came back, and he in turn decided to go down to look for them. He found them both sitting on the stairs, while beside them the beer was running all over the ground from the tap, which was wide open.
�What are you doing there? The beer is running all over the cellar,� he said to them.
�We were thinking what we should call the children that our daughter will have when she marries that man. All the names in the calendar are taken already,� replied the mother.
�Well,� said the father, �I will think about it with the two of you.�
As neither the daughter nor mother nor father came upstairs again, Steven grew impatient waiting for them and went down into the cellar to see what they could all be doing. He found the three sitting on the stairs, while beside them beer was running all over the ground from the tap, which was still wide open.
�What in the world are you doing that you don�t come upstairs and that you allow the beer to run all over the cellar?� he asked.
�Yes, I know the beer is flowing, my boy,� said the father, �but if you marry our daughter, what shall you call your children? All the names in the calendar are already taken.�
When Steven heard this answer, he replied, �Well, good-bye, I am going away. When I have found three people sillier than you, I will come back and marry your daughter.�
So he started his journey and, after walking a long way, he reached an orchard. There he saw a man knocking down walnuts from a tree and trying to throw them into a cart with a fork.
�What are you doing there?� Steven asked.
�I want to load the cart with walnuts, but cannot manage to do it,� said the man, who introduced himself as the Goodfather.
�Well,� Steven said to himself, �I have already found someone more foolish than those three.�
So, he went on his way, and by and by he came to a wood. There he saw a man who wanted to give his pig some acorns to eat and was trying with all his might to make the pig climb up the oak tree.
�What are you doing, my good man?� asked Steven.
�I want to make my pig eat some acorns, but I can�t get him to go up the tree,� said the man, who introduced himself as the Bull Buchanan.
�If you climb up and shake down the acorns, the pig would pick them up.�
�Oh, I never thought of that.�
�Here is the second foolish one,� said Steven to himself.
Some way farther along the road, he came upon a man who had never worn any trousers and who was trying to put on a pair. He had fastened them between two trees and was jumping with all his might high up in the air and tyring to hit the two legs of the trousers as he came down. This man�s name was Val Dickhead- er�Val Venis.
�It would be much better if you held them in your hands,� advised Steven, �and then put your legs in, one after the other.�
�Dear me, to be sure!� replied the ex-porn star. �You are sharper than I am, for that never occurred to me.�
And, having found three people sillier than the woman or her father or her mother, Steven went back to marry Ivory. And, in the course of time, they had a great many children.
Oh, hell.