The Pied Piper Was a Kidnapper. But a Shrewd Businessman.

So in my previous blog, you’ll notice how I gorged myself on some twisted form of pepperoni pizza, and alliteratively enlisted Peter Piper in the headline (“Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pepperoni Pizza Pretzels…”).

So it’s weird that later that night, when I was babysitting, the first story one of the girls picked was the Pied Piper. Maybe I’m looking too much into this slight connection, but let me tell you, this story of the Pied Piper wasn’t how I remembered it, and I think holds a lesson for all of us pipe smokers, I mean, pipe players in the Game of Life (yes, there’s a SpongeBob Squarepants edition).

Sure, the Pied Piper gets called into town because the rats are running the place and biting babies and eating cats and dogs — and yes, he gets rid of the rats by playing a tune on his pipe and getting them to follow him to the river where they jump in and drown like acid-tripping lemmings.

But see, then the Mayor and his Council refuse to pay him the thousand “guilders” they had promised. So what does the shrewd Pied Piper do? He starts playing a tune, all the children in the town start following him, and he leads them into some secret door in the side of a hill into some magical land where they are supposedly super-happy for the rest of their lives (there’s probably a lot of pizza and Xboxes) and their parents never see them again.

The town keeps trying to send messages to the Piper that they’ll pay him even more than they had agreed on, but the Piper either never gets the message or couldn’t give a rat’s ass (I’m thinking the latter). There are various endings to this story I guess, some a little more gruesome than others.

Moral of the story? If someone gets rid of the grodiness in your life, pay them at least what you told him you would. Unless you don’t like kids.