Waking Up Grumpy
A Fergus Johnson story of gender relations
It all started with a harmless but cynical little joke. It
was the kind of old throw-away line that men and women repeat to each other
when commiserating with their kind about the unsteadiness of their steady beau
or the unfairness of the fairer sex.
Fergus was in the usual bar telling stories with his usual
buddies from the office. It was too early in the evening (and they had had too
few beers) for the regular ladies to start looking good. Fergus had just
offered the “Did you wake up grumpy this morning? No I let her sleep,” joke.
Really, it was lame and innocuous. It was just as likely that a girl at the
chick table would look around and observe that “The odds are good, but the goods
are odd.” No harm, no foul.
However, as it would happen, the gods, also having nothing
better to do at that moment, heard him and looked up from their rather tedious
game of Canasta. This could get interesting. Dagon glanced at Loki who rolled
his eyes and said, “Why does everybody think I want to get involved in every
lame-ass, ignorant, thankless dork with a bad attitude? Persephone kicked
Loki’s shin under the table and he winced. Loki sighed with resignation and
took his turn at meddling in the affairs of men.
“OK, how’s this?” Loki suggested. “Every morning, Fergus
wakes up next to a different unknown woman in bed. They all have pre-existing
histories with him that he doesn’t yet know about. It keeps up until his
attitude improves.” Thor gave a leering grin and a big thumbs-up. Phaethon just
curtly nodded his consent, followed by a smug smile as he
