The Beautiful Maiden and the Cottage in the Woods

Once upon a time there was a beautiful maiden. All the eligible princes of the land yearned for her hand, but she was quite difficult to please. They brought her gifts of flowers and jewels, livestock and elixirs, silks and all the foreign delicacies one could imagine. But each and every gift she refused.

Frustrated with these lackluster lads, she hastily escaped from the watchful eyes of her guardians, out her bedroom window and off into the nearby forest. No moonlight shone down in that late hour, and as she wandered on she became afraid. A wolf howled from behind her and she felt eyes peering at her from every ghastly crevice of the thick wood. Starting to run, she quickly stumbled as her dress caught on a branch. Terrified, she looked up, only to see a small cottage enlightened by a low fire within. She entered cautiously and found inside an old woman.

"What brings you here, my dear?" the woman inquired. And the maiden replied, "The richest of the royals have asked for my hand, but they favor me only for my looks. I had to get away!" And with an eery smile the old woman exclaimed, "I have just the thing!"

So just as dawn broke above the mountains in the east, the maiden left the old woman's cottage quite differently than how she had entered it. Her face was now disfigured and ugly, warts strewn across her visage like a constellation in the sky.

"Finally!" she thought, "now I can find my one true love, who'll desire me for my intellect above all else, and who only then can be rewarded with my beauty!"

Unfortunately, the maiden overestimated her intellect. She had very little personality to speak of, and had significant troubles holding a conversation with anyone above the age of 6 or 7. Though she sought diligently for her one true love, she found not a one. And though she tried to return home, her family didn't recognize her, and thus rejected her. Finally, she resigned herself to make what little money she could by prostituting herself throughout the closest villages. She died just a few short years later of herpes-related complications. And as it turned out, her ugly face was quite permanent, even in death.

And the moral of this story, of course, is: Never turn down a perfectly good present.

The Pot Roast Recipe from the Gods

Start with the good stuff: prime boneless beef chuck. It helps to tie it with string.

Those Other Ingredients:

• Onion (chopped, as much as you can fit in the pot)
• Ketchup- just a bit
• Worcester Sauce- just a bit
• Garlic (fresh chopped and powder)- lots
• Paprika- some
• Salt and Pepper- plenty
• A dash of Rosemary
• A dash of Thyme
• Pomegranate Juice- a whole bottle of it
• Beef bullion- enough
• *Baby carrots, celery, and red potato at your own discretion

This is why I love crockpots: take all the above ingredients and stick them in the pot. Place on low heat. Let cook for about 8 hours. Eat.

Ok, it's only slightly less complicated than this. For the potatoes one should wait until about 3 hours before serving, then put the potatoes into the pot. Otherwise they get overcooked.

Bonus Points! If you want to make a quick glaze for the roast, smother that hunk of meat in wine and a few tablespoons of flour about an hour before serving. You can't go wrong.

And yes, the pomegranate juice is the secret ingredient. Feel honored; I know I did.

In the end, you might just get something that looks like this:

When I'm an Elementary School Teacher, I'll Keep My Shotgun in my Desk

When I was in middle school I saw the documentary Bowling for Columbine for the first time. As a 12 year old, I was both outraged and confused. While every teenager I've ever met detests high school at some points, I couldn't imagine someone hating it so much that they'd prepare and enact a plan to kill their fellow students. In high school we would have practice lockdowns several times a year, where we'd crouch in the corner of a darkened classroom behind locked doors, and the local police department would go door to door ensuring that we'd retreated correctly. I didn't understand the point, since nothing like that would ever happen in my town.

Now I'm a junior in college and I've witnessed the worst school shooting in recent history, at an elementary school. This is something I cannot accept. News sources are saying 27 are dead at this small-town suburban K-4 school, 18 children. But how is the media going to explain this one to us? What kind of justification will they give us for an adult setting out to terrorize and slaughter children? When I learned about the Columbine massacre, even as a "tweenager" the first thought that came to me was that guns should be outlawed. This thought formed more fully as I grew older: the only citizens that should be able to legally acquire guns are police officers and military.

I understand the debilitating features of my plan. Pro-second amendment morons often complain that if guns are taken away from the law-abiding citizens, the criminals will of course still have them and use them against the "good" Americans. But research has shown that in cases when an armed intruder entered a home of gun-owners, the gun-owners were more likely to shoot themselves than the criminal. I also understand that enforcing such a law would be vastly expensive and nearly impossible. But can you really put a price on protecting our children? Gun advocates iterate again and again: "People kill people, not guns." But you know what? The guns make it a hell of a lot easier. The CT murderer today would not have massacred nearly as many innocent children as he did if he'd been stripped of his weapons. Guns distance the killer from the victim in a way that is unacceptable; if someone wants another human being dead so badly that they'd commit the murder themselves, they better damn well do it personally, because we're talking about people, not livestock. Mass murder would not be possible without guns. It's as simple as that.

How can we ensure our kids will be safe? It's simple. Either no one can have a gun, or everyone must be required to carry one. Which of these extremes seems more likely?

Lately I've been narrowing down potential career options, and I've come to the conclusion that I'd be happiest teaching elementary school. Children of that age are the most fun. They're creative and curious, eager to learn and socialize. In my opinion there is no such thing as an evil child. But there are evil men; there are evil adults. So if and when I find myself teaching 1st grade in a suburb of New York City, I plan to keep a firearm in my desk. Because I'll be fucking damned if I'm going to let anyone hurt a bunch of innocent children just because they feel like it.