Once upon a time, there was a kindly couple. Through years of toil, this kindly couple had fostered a well-intentioned dream of creating a quiet country village filled with happy, productive people. The village would consist of cottages on one side of a creek and homes on the other, all connected by both warm hearts and a humble thoroughfare. When the time was right, the kindly couple undertook the creation of their dream. Like many well-laid plans, they ran into obstacles of misunderstanding, unforeseen complications and sleight of hand. But while the growing village had some rainy days that didn’t unfold like their sunshiney, blue-skyed dreams intended, the end result was a Hawthorne-lined slice of heaven. All was well.

For a time…

As this is a fairy tale, unwritten rules–employed since at least the introduction of corset and bodice–dictate almost all fairy tales have a bitter old codger shrill, stinky goblin of some persuasion lurking about in the narrative. Some goblins lurk under rocks, others under bridges, some hide between the lines or stay tucked away in forest shadows.  But this tale’s stinkpot? This tale’s stinkpot was lurking in a gingerbread hamlet to the West. In this gingerbread hamlet lived both goblin and Fair-Folk, but they kept to, and squabbled amongst, themselves. Soon, the pettiest of the goblins, who was tired of making mischief in the gingerbread hamlet, heard whisperings of new cottages in a Hawthorne-lined slice of heaven. Seeing new mischief to be made, the goblin packed up his fiber, complaints and generally bad attitude and promptly moved to fertile ground.

There’s an old saying (or maybe I just made it up): You can take a goblin’s stinky disposition out of the gingerbread hamlet, but you can’t take the stinky disposition out of a goblin. Soon enough, the goblin was perpetrating his waggish devilment of one kind or another, peeing in cheerios here, howling/screeching there and generally passively-aggressively haggling all cottage passersby. The new cottages, always polite and welcoming, did nothing. The goblin was patient.

Soon, like a rotting apple in a harvest bushel, the goblin’s cantankerous ways began worm their way into the hearts of the cottage people one at a time. The cottages slowly gained sympathy to the goblin’s cantankerous and stinky ways. Before long, the village began to split– the goblin and his honorary cottage subjects on one side and the Home-folk on the other. It wasn’t long before the jolly banter between the villagers became filled with strife. Eventually, the goblin constructed a Great Gate and locked it solid, permitting neither the Home-folk or any living soul other than goblin and minion to pass through.

The home-folk were sad. The home-folk protested. The home-folk pleaded. But the tyrannical goblin, now King, would have none of it. Misery was the order of the day and misery it was to be!

Then, it began to rain. It rained and rained and rained. And rained. For 60 straight days it rained. Then it rained again. It rained so often and for so long, many cottage people began to forget what sunshine looked like. They’d just peer out of their windows and watch as the world went soppy. All the while, the goblin king danced a stilted, gleeful jig at the Great Gate every day, sticking his tongue out and wagging his hands and wilted rump at the Home-Folk on the other side. It was during this long rain the cottage people began to see the sad results of the goblin’s mischievous deviance.

One night, after a particularly obnoxious and flatulent Great Gate display, they decided they’d had enough. Marching right up to the crusty old goblin, the cottage people grabbed him and packed him into a box filled with garlic and old shoes, which they quickly shipped away to a far-off land called Grumperburrow– a grump-filled city where the goblin could bask in the grouchery of other goblins who loved discontent as much as he did.

No sooner had the goblin been stamped “Parcel Post” than the rain stopped. A cheerful yellow sun quickly shone upon the land as blue-birds warbled across green fields and cliched magic unicorns danced across a new rainbow bridge guarded by fluffy puppies and kittens that had been built over the Great Gate. The village clasped hands in joy and goodwill while everyone (even the goblin!) lived happily every after.

The End.

Of course, that whole last part?  Kind of bogus, but since this was a fairy tale, it needed a happy ending.