The Boy, the Man, and the Gout

The young boy watched his grandfather squeal with pain from the gout that had plagued him for almost a century (his grandfather was very old, and he had got the disease at age three).
After watching and listening to his grandfather for about thirty-two minutes and sixteen seconds, Gordy, as the boy was known, spoke. "Grawndfawtheh," he said, for he had an English accent which will not be written into what he said for the rest of the story,"why are you squealing like a pig?"

The squeals stopped abruptly, and the old man peered over his miniscule spectacles. "How dare you address your elders thus, eh? Who do you think I am? Saint Peter?"

Gordy didn’t understand what Saint Peter had to do with anything, and he said so.

"Saint Peter never had the gout," his grandfather said very slowly, as if to make the wisdom of the statement seep into his young descendant like milk seeps into bread when one is making French—or freedom—toast. "If I were Saint Peter, I would not have the gout, and therefore I would not squeal." With that, he leaned back his head and resumed his squealing with a fervor.
Gordy sighed, and looked out the window to see if there was anything worth seeing out in the wide open world. Of course, there is always something worth seeing, but at this point, Gordy didn’t see anything he considered to be of interest. Sighing heavily, he leaned back his head and—to his surprise—squealed! His hand rushed almost involuntarily to his mouth, and he stared at his grandfather with wide open eyes. His grandfather had stopped squealing, and was returning his grandson’s gaze.

"Aha, the pig got your tongue?" he asked with scintillating eyes, and laughed uproariously at his own "joke."

Gordy’s eyes narrowed to tiny slits, and he exclaimed in a loud voice, "Alas, dear Grandfather, with your loosely-given words you have deeply wronged the very soul of my being, and my actions toward you shall not be compassionate and long-suffering as they once were. I know you have meant little harm—and little harm have you done—but my heart by your careless words has been steeled toward you. Look now into my eyes; does their cold, spectral gaze not send an icy shiver up your spine? If not, I pray thee, art thou yet human? For no man has ever before stood to equal my gaze."

Gordy’s grandfather was understandably startled by this eloquent and extremely melodramatic stream of words which passionately flowed from his grandson’s mouth. Gordy was almost equally amazed and collapsed sobbing into a ball before his grandfather had a chance to compare spectral gazes with him.

"My dear, dear boy!" cried the elderly man, who jumped up to go to his histerical grandson, but, remembering his gout, sat down again quickly. "What ever is the matter? Would Alexander the Great have cried like that if he was in your present situation, eh?"

The boy looked up and grinned. "Yes!" He curled up again and continued to sob.

"Alright then, how about William Wilberforce, eh?"

Gordy, who was a great fan of history, sat up, blew his nose, wiped his face, smiled slightly, and asked, "Who was Mr. Wilberforce, grandfather?"

The grandfather was relieved to have brought an end to Gordy’s tirade, so he explained quickly that William Wilberforce put an end to slavery in the great and hopefully everlasting (for this was in 1905) British Empire, of which he and every other self-respecting English subject who had any brains at all was proud to be a not-insignificant part of, eh? He then had a twinge in his right foot, and squealed for about three seconds. Then he stopped and asked, "Am I bothering you?"

Gordy said, "No, I think it runs in the family to have a strange habit of squealing. Didn’t I just do it a minute ago?"His grandfather was glad, and he squealed happily for the rest of the day (except during meals, naturally), and Gordy (having learned that everyone squeals sometimes, and why not now?) even joined him in a duet occasionally. And they lived happily together for weeks and weeks (after which their landlord kicked them out and they became beggars, who squealed so loudly while they begged, that they never had any money until they were hired by the London Opera Company, where they were both employed for a good number of years. After that they lived happily ever after for the rest of their lives.)

The End

-- Aaron