Once upon a time, in the mid 1800's, there lived a poor woodcutter. A great and annoying famine had struck the land. The poor woodcutter's family was very hungry and starving to death as the woodcutter had not yet figured out how to eat the wood he cut every day. The woodcutter had two children from a previous marriage, Hansel and Gretel. He wanted to pick out names that no one else would have heard of, and he sure did. Married to the woodcutter was his new wife, not the mother of Hansel and Gretel. She was a fat ugly old thing, unkempt and husky. As a step-mother she naturally hated his children and as all step-parents do, she dreamed of killing them.
"Dear Husband, why don't we just kill off your two children so we have more to eat??" said the bitch, kinda half joking but not really just to get a reaction from her husband to see what he would say. "What the hell, are you serious??? I won't kill my children! I wouldn't even dream of it! What kind of sick, twisted, monster are you anyway? Is this time period still ok to beat your wife, cause it's about time I...." the woodcutter was interrupted by his wife. "Ok, ok, I was only kidding! I would never KILL your children, or at any rate I certainly wouldn't lead them into the woods and leave them for dead!" The woodcutter, although suspicious, left for several days to go begging for food in the next town over. Once out of sight his jerk of a wife put her plan into action!
"Oh children! Come with me deep into the woods where I most likely will NOT leave you for dead so your father and I can have more to eat because we are both greedy and don't like you. Come along!" And with that the evil step-mother laughed one of those evil laughs that was a clear indication she had just been lying. Hansel and Gretel felt something was up, mainly because they heard the conversation between their father and their step-mother. "Don't worry Gretel, I have an idea," said Hansel as he had always had a fear of being stranded in the woods, it probably stemmed from being the son of a woodcutter, or perhaps it was because their biological mother had gone into the woods and never returned, either way Hansel's biggest fear was to be stuck in the middle of the woods. Their step-mother promised them yummy wild berries but only if they followed her into the black forest to find them. "Now that we are deep into the woods and I've been making circles to disorient you, I will look for wild berries over there and you look here!" said the step-mother, as she got ready to run away. After a few hours no berries were found and it was beginning to get dark. "Hansel what are we going to do? Step-mother left us out here in the woods all alone, and its getting cold, and its getting dark, and there are probably wolves wherever it is we are from, I think Germany. Not only that, but I'm starting to think we won't get any of those wild berries." Soon the moon was out and Hansel was not worried. "Look Gretel! I took as many white stones and I could shove into my pockets and left a trail leading back to our house! Now the moonlight shows us the way home!" And with that the children skipped merrily home.
Inside the cottage, the wicked step-mother was cooking up a big one person meal for herself and was measuring the children's room so she could make it into a sewing room before her husband, the woodcutter, turned it into a man-cave. "Oh step-mother, we're home! Did you miss us? What's for dinner?!" Exclaimed the smug children as they burst through the door, shocking and startling their step-mother. "WHAT IN THE HELLLLLLLO kids.....I.....I can't believe you're alive, I MEAN, I'm so glad you found your way home....some how." Said their step-mother. Secretly, their step-mother was not glad they found their way home, just the opposite, she was pretty pissed off. The next day she decided to go looking for more wild berries, or whatever it is she said to fool the kids. Hansel began to get more rocks when his step-mother noticed him. "Hansel, you put that shit down! We aren't collecting rocks, we can't EAT rocks you idiot!! Wait...can we? NO, WE CAN'T!" Terrified Hansel knew without a trail to take them home, they were doomed. Doomed the same way their father's stand up comedy routine was doomed from the start with his, "You might be a woodcutter if..." jokes, appealing and humorous to only a select few. Luckily Gretel had stolen a loaf of bread before they left and made a trail of bread crumbs for them to follow home. Their step-mother took them much further this time, she wanted to be sure they wouldn't return.
Deep into the woods the ass of a step-mother left the kids in the middle of nowhere, she wasn't even hot, I don't know what the father saw in her, probably a fear of dying alone. The forest was a veritable hell for Hansel and Gretel, and to make matters worse, the last thing she said before she left them was, "Welp, I'm gonna get you stranded now, see ya!" Alone now, the siblings sat together. "Don't worry Hansel, I have been leaving a trail of bread crumbs for us to follow home! I understand we're in a famine here and starving to death and all that but I thought, oh well, I'll drop our food on the ground anyway," explained Gretel proudly. "That's a great idea sister!" Shouted the excited Hansel, ready to return home and be all smug again to his step-mother. "Now as long as nothing in the forest eats bread crumbs, we should be on our way home!" However, unknowingly to the children birds love bread, they eat it all the time, especially ducks and pigeons. Birds in Germany are no different and the kids soon realized their trail could not be followed unless they wanted to take a trip through the gizzard of a flock of birds. "Well shit." said Hansel when they saw the birds eating their only way home. "I guess we just walk until we find our way home? Or until we starve to death, whatever comes first."
Hansel and Gretel walked for what seemed to be hours, but kids are lazy and they probably only went about a mile, which is long if you have little legs, but not that far of a distance if you were in a car or on a horse or something like that. Soon a smell began to fill the air, Gretel was sure it was ginger bread she was smelling and Hansel was sure she had lost her mind. Then in a clearing the two spotted a house, not just any ordinary house, no, this one was made of wonderful things to eat! The walls were ginger bread, it was held together with frosting and icing, there were candy cane posts and load bearing lollipop I beams. Hansel and Gretel about shit a brick when the saw the house and ran towards it. "How strange is this? I just got done saying, I'm so hungry, I could eat a house, didn't I Hansel?!" "No one appears to be home Gretel," guessed Hansel, not really taking the time to actually look around. "What good is a house if you can't eat it mom always used to say!" "No she didn't....she never said anything like that, she said, what good is a house if you can't pee in it. Because indoor plumbing hasn't been invented yet." The two argued for a bit longer until their growling stomachs told them to both shut up. "I suppose we can have just a small bite, just so we don't starve to death." reasoned Hansel. "I agree, no one will notice one shingle missing," justified Gretel. The two began to nibble parts of the house and found it so irresistibly delicious that they dove in head first eating it much in the way that Jaws ate that boat in the movie Jaws at the end...............spoiler alert for Jaws.
Suddenly the sponge cake door flew open and an old woman stepped out onto the peppermint patio and yelled, "What the hell do you think you're doing to my house???" She of course knew that it was being eaten, she wasn't asking as much as she was just using an expression. Hansel and Gretel felt bad but if eating a house was wrong, they didn't want to be right. Hansel and Gretel told the story about being lost in the woods and being so hungry they just had to have a quick bite of her home. "You poor children, please come into my Cake Cod style home and I'll make you something for dinner." The two unwittingly followed the nice old woman inside.
Turns out she wasn't a nice old woman, she was a mean old witch. Once inside she threw Hansel into a cage. It was one of those dog cages but she hung hers from the ceiling. It wasn't a big deal, people leave their dogs in those cages all day and you wouldn't say anything about it but now that it's a human child in there you have a problem with it? Don't be a hypocrite. Now the witch was blind and forced Gretel to be her slave as she fattened Hansel up to eat him. That's what witches do, they eat children. Oddly enough, the witch had plenty of good food to feed Hansel for fattening him up, but she didn't eat it herself, she just wanted to eat him. Each day Gretel cleaned the witches house and it was a non stop battle against the ants because when you live in a house made entirely out of sugar, you're gonna have ant problems. Gretel would scrub the chocolate wall paper and wipe down the licorice or sweep the gum drop floors. Hansel didn't mind being fattened up, he figured, if he was going to die, at least he was going to get some good food out of it. Horrifyingly in the same cage as Hansel were some human bones, probably from a former "guest" of the witch. Every day the witch would feel Hansel to see how fat he was getting, Hansel, being the clever boy he was, stuck the bone out for the witch to feel. "How the hell? Your finger is so boney! Why couldn't you have been one of those fat little American children and I wouldn't have had to feed you so much! I should just move there. I'm sure they like German people, we never did anything to them." The blind old witch continued to feed Hansel and he continued to eat and share with his sister Gretel.
Hansel and Gretel knew they had to escape the clutches of the evil witch. Living in a cage and being a slave isn't as glamorous as it sounds and the two knew death was quickly approaching. "First the evil step-mother and now an evil witch, I'm not sure which witch is which and which witch we were better off with!" Confusingly said Gretel. "I'm sorry Gretel, I'm all out of plans, my bone finger trick is buying us some time and if lasts as long as I hope, we will simply out live with witch, she is going to have to die of old age sooner or later. I mean, it's a race she can't win, she has a good 60 years on us at least."
Hansel's bone trick worked for a long time before the evil, blind, stupid, ugly, smelly, bald, old witch caught on. "Trick me with a bone will you? I'll still cook you in my oven and your sister too, I don't care about either of you! In coincidentally, Gretel, will you get very close to my oven and see if the temperature is ready??" Gretel had a feeling the witch was going to shove her into the oven the moment she got close, so Gretel acted like she had no idea what the witch wanted her to do. The witch explained it over and over again but just assumed Gretel was a moron, so she finally started to act out what she wanted Gretel to do. "Open the oven door, LIKE THIS, ok? See that? Now take a few steps, LIKE THIS and get closer, now stand very close, JUST LIKE I AM HERE, now look inside, WITH YOUR HEAD LIKE I'M DOING, WATCH ME. You really need to pay attention now because I swear I'm not doing this again!" With that Gretel pushed the old woman into the oven and slammed the door shut. Burning the witch to death instantly. The curse on the house was lifted and all the wonderful delicious food turned back into wood and bricks. Gretel laughed and said, "Would you like your sand WITCH toasted??" Hansel laugh and added, "Don't worry you old hag, I'm sure Hell won't be as hot as that oven!"
Hansel and Gretel left and miraculously found their way home. Their father welcomed them crying and hugging them saying their step-mother had told several different stories of why they weren't living there anymore. When Hansel and Gretel asked where their step-mother was, their father told them she had died by repeatedly falling onto his ax with her head. "I wondered where you two have been all this time, which reminds me...If you know where all your axes are, but not where your children are....you might be a woodcutter." Hansel and Gretel looked at each other and then said, "Please stop father, we have been through enough already." And the three lived happily ever after. The End.
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