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Shake up that Mason jar, there, Shorty. You see how them bubbles form? How they split right down the middle, just like a ol' zipper? That's how you know you got you a good jar o' 'shine. This here's some o' ol' Clem's best. Taste that, Shorty... whoa, not too much, now! That stuff'll put hair in your ears and make your pecker stand up and pay attention! Don't it? Huh?

Hee hee... ol' Clem's about the best 'shine-stiller goin' anymore, Shorty. Learnt it from his daddy, who learnt it from his daddy afore him. I guess that tradition goes way back. Anywho, ain't nobody does 'shine like Clem. Pass me that Mason jar afore it's all gone, wouldja, Shorty? I need me another snort.

You remember how Clem was havin' all that trouble with them hippies up there near his place not too long ago? They was a wild, raggedy bunch, yessir. All shaggy and like that. They was about eight or fifteen of 'em, runnin' around half-nekkid there in the hollow, and they was so hairy couldn't no one tell the boys from the girls. All they did was talk about free love and smoke that there herojuana all day, I tell you, it was damn disgustin' is all it was. You could ask anybody.

Clem, now, he didn't cotton much to people too close to his works, seein' as how it might draw attention to what he was doin' up there. So every oncet in a while, he'd take a few shots at that ol' hippie house, just kinda friendly-like, you know, plinkin' away, not really aimin' at no one. That wasn't no big deal until one time, I guest he jus' got a little too close, and he winged a couple o' them hippies, and Lordy, you shoulda heard the screamin' and the carryin' on like Satan hisself was flyin' around inside that ol' shack. Them hippies was runnin' around like wrung-necked chickens, ever' which way but up. Ol' Clem near laughed hisself to death that night, watchin' that bunch.

What finally got rid of 'em, though, was when ol' Clem brought a few copperheads back from the Pentecostal service and tossed 'em in the window late one Sunday night. Come Monday afternoon, they wasn't no more hippies to be found nowhere in the hollow, and Clem was just as happy as a ol' blue-tick hound under a shady porch. He went on down to that ol' hippie shack, and poked around inside, just to make sure they wasn't none o' them still hidin' in there. He said the smell o' that herojuana they smoked and them patchy-oily sticks they burned like to make him heave his guts up, but he stayed in there long enough to find a few things.

They was all kind o' them Orientalist rugs and such, and he brought a few of 'em home to patch up his ol' place, even though he said the colors and the patterns on 'em was enough to make you dizzy if you looked at 'em too long. The other thing he found was some kind o' hippie still. They was all these big ol' glass tubes and beakers and that, and they had them a Mason jar full o' clear liquid, just like 'shine. Only when Clem tasted it, it didn't taste nothin' like 'shine. Fact is, it didn't taste nothin' like nothin', is what he said. But after he carted all that stuff back to his place, he said he spent the rest o' the day talkin' to his dead gran'pappy and watchin' the trees breathe.

He figgered it musta been the hippie 'shine that did him like that, so the next day, he went back to the ol' hippie shack and brought up the whole hippie still and all them jars of chemicals and everythin' they had there. He says maybe he learnt a few things about makin' 'shine from them hippies, but I don't know. I never had no problem with the stuff he been makin' all these years, you know what I mean, Shorty? Ol' Clem's stuff is the best around, and that's one hunnert percent true. You could ask anyone.

Hey Shorty, lookit what I can do with my hand. I can catch my own hand! Lookit that, wouldja! Wouldja just- hey, Shorty, how come your face is meltin'?

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Since the beginning of time, the seasons have intrigued, beguiled, and frostbitten man. With summer came the Sun, and with winter came the Sun's cold and evil brother, Stan. But why? Who among the Gods would allow Stan's icy reign over the nethermonths, shining his cold rays down on a helpless populace year after year? Is this the work of Bertle the Brown? Or Oscar the Finn? Who dropped the proverbial ball and kicked it so proverbially across the street? Ye Gods, why hast thou screwed us so?

As is the case with many questions, it turns out that the answer to this one is more scientific than one might expect. Disheartening as it may be to believe, mere fairy tailery alone can not account for the vast fluctuations in temperatures between the summer and winter months. Who, then do we blame for the profanity-inducing hot steering wheels of summertime or the millions of people falling down in hilarious ways during the winter?

For years, primitive peoples believed that the flat, disc-like earth rested in a giant celestial frying pan, and that in the summer months the flame was turned on, heating the earth. The Gods were then believed to wander away to check out a noise they thought they heard on the celestial roof, leaving the earth unattended in the frying pan. By late fall, the earth would get too hot and burst into flames, sending smoke billowing up through the heavens and setting off the celestial smoke detector, which beeped weakly thanks to the Gods being too damned lazy to check the celestial batteries in the thing more often than once or twice a millennia. Eventually, the Gods would hear the beeping and dash back into the house, screaming "Holy Shit!"

The Gods would flounder around the celestial kitchen for a little while, not sure quite what they were supposed to do, then in a panic they would hose off the earth with a gigantic fire extinguisher that they kept next to the celestial stove. Thankfully the Gods knew themselves to be shitty cooks and were prepared. Hencely, a soothing blanket of snow would cover the earth until the springtime, when the Gods would start the whole rigmarole over again. It's best to remember that in primitive times, the Gods were not revered for being exceptionally bright.

Thanks to satellite photography and advanced knowledge of physics, modern man and the occasional modern woman need no longer toil under the weight of such gross misinformation. Today we know that the seasons are actually the result of a power struggle between the two sons of the one true God, Muzamtecca Brown. Muzamtecca's twin sons, named Sun and Stan, were given the earth as a present on the event of their mutual fifth birthday. At first, they were overjoyed, and the earth was a paradise with sunshine and rivers of marmalade. But before long, the two brothers grew jealous of each other, and started fighting over the earth.

Sun, the warm and cheerful brother who was nevertheless a selfish little shit, would grab the earth away from Stan, hugging it close to his chest, causing the glorious summer months. Stan, the cold-hearted and rather slow brother, would notice a few months later that he was no longer holding the earth and would snatch it back from Sun, kicking him in the knee and causing the earth's bitter cold winters.

Back and forth they have gone through the years, repeating the same routine that has resulted in the predictable pattern of the seasons here on earth. The discovery of this celestial struggle by scientists has understandably caused a rift in the religious community, as many consider it heresy to suggest that Muzamtecca's two sons are total assholes. But the reasonable man cannot argue with science. Assholes, they are.

Over the years we on earth have developed a useful calendar based around the struggles between Sun and Stan, creating our years, months and days. Except for the Mayans, who couldn't get with the program and had their own bizarre calendar with cookies and birds on it just to piss off tourists and neighboring countries. Eventually the Mayans were killed off by a mob of irate tourists who were being overcharged for not checking out of their hotel rooms by cookie-bird-moon day. The Mayans called to their neighbors the Incas for help, but the Incas answered back that they wouldn't be able to send anyone until the day after radish-spoon-donkey day, and nobody knew when that was going to be.

So the next time you awake in February to find your car encased in ice like a Jello snack, blame not the cooking-challenged Gods or the fickle freezing point of water, instead reserve your one-finger salute for that pudgy little bastard in the sky. No, not Neil Armstrong. You know who I mean.

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