Vern Lives!

"Once upon a time", is how most fairy tales start. That would be a normal tale, you know, with unicorns, and talking frogs who turn into princes, stuff like that, that you would just take for granted.

This isn't your everyday, basic B flat, fairy tale.

This is the story of how a homely, very unlucky moth became a beautiful young girl, who just happens to be my pre-niece. (I probaby spelled that wrong, its hard to know how to spell words that are just kind of made up as they're needed, seems like Webster would have thought that one through).

So this particular tale starts at a cabin in the Rockies somewhere, where 4 or 5 drunken siblings were sitting around playing Euchre (loosely, sitting means we, I mean they were all in the same room, most of the time). If you don't know what Euchre is, get out your Michigan map. It won't tell you there either, but you're one step closer to figuring it out.

It was late, the moon was full, out there somewhere, it usually is and said drunks were blatently cheating at a card game named Euchre (see another hint!).

As it is with a lot of the fairy tales composed by drunken siblings, this one happened to have a very unlucky moth, who (which?) very unluckily happened to fly into the light. Didn't fare out well, this moth, so in their serious "lack of sobriety" state, one of the siblings decided that this moth was only probably out trying to collect a bug or two to take home to the wife and kids, at any rate it shouldn't have died.

Now, this is the part where I try to reassure you that I was not a part of this, I'm sure you believe that.

Knowing that this moth didn't need to die, these 5 did what any drunken good samaritans would have done. They attempted CPR to bring it back to life. Several times, in between more card games and beer, we, I mean they tried their best to save this poor critter. Still unsuccessful, it was decided that since this noble creature had died trying to provide for his family, the 5 planned a funeral. For the moth.

First however, was writing the obituary, which proved difficult since they didn't know what his name was. It became increasingly difficult to notify the family, when his serious lack of ID on his moth-ness didn't give any clues as to where he might live (or really that he was even a he!). But since he was a Colorado moth and not a California moth they were pretty sure that whether it was a he moth or a she moth, most likely the other half was the other half and should be invited to the funeral.

First, we they had to settle on a name, and for whatever reason, "Vern" was chosen. So now that Vern's identity was intact we they had to notify the family. This involved much yelling, howling at the moon and talking to other moths until they were sure that enough moths knew of the event so as to get the word out.

The service was a quiet event, as after awhile, the body seemed to disappear.

Until.... ta da.... Vern lives! Vern is now a fun, sparkly pre-niece who lives in Colorado (see, the connection here?) and goes to school in S. Dakota. She prefers to be called Sunny, but alas, some things just can't be granted, so Vern it is, and being the gracious pre-niece that she is, she lives with it. I think deep down inside, she might have issues with being a moth in a previous life, if not being a possibly transsexual moth in a previous life, so we don't really mention it, but if we did....

And that's Vern's story, and if I hadn't been there myself (quietly sitting in the background watching) I would never have believed it, but it happened, yes it did!

Now if you're wondering why I chose to call Vern out of the closet, you should read the comment he/she/it left on my Space Time Continuum post; that will explain a lot!