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