“And so Hercules had to make up for his behavior with twelve labors,” I read.

“What were they, Dad?” Sean asked, leaning forward a bit under his blankets.

“Slay the Nemean Lion. Slay the nine-headed Lernaean Hydra. Capture the Golden Hind of Artemis. Capture the Erymanthian Boar…” As usual, The Big Book of Greek Mythology wasn’t helping my attempts at educating the boy through bedtime stories. Did anyone but a classics scholar even know what half of those adjectives meant?”

“Wow, Dad, that sounds really…boring,” yawned Sean. “I catch Pokémon with cooler names than that all the time.”

“Hahaha,” I laughed in a really fake laugh. “Good catch, Sean. Those were just fakes to make sure you were paying attention. The real labors were much, much cooler.”

“Like what?”

“Ah…the capturing of the Nemean MissingNo with the Golden Pokéball, for one,” I said.

“Oh wow!” Sean said. “You can’t get that one without hacking!”

“And neither could Hercules,” I said. “He also had to slay the, uh, nine-headed Creeper of Craftmine, which grew another head every time it exploded.”

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