Cassandra before the burning city of Troy.
Cassandra was the daughter of the king of Troy. The god Apollo gave her the power of prophecy in order to seduce her – the gods could be pretty raunchy at times – but when she refused him he laid a curse on her. His curse was that no matter what she said she would never be believed.
(Also for Three Word Wednesday and ABC Wednesday: "Y" is for "Yawner")
Here’s this week’s quiz. The
following scenelet might remind you of a certain well-known woman. Who?
“Our citizens committee is glad you decided to see us,
Captain. We believe what we have to say
is important.”
“Yeah. It’s about that
woman, right?”
“Right. She doesn’t want
to cause trouble, but she says she can’t get you to listen to her.”
“Oh, we listen to her.
For the past year or so she has come in to the station here demanding to
be heard. Finally I appointed one
officer to deal with her each time.”
“But that’s it; he’s just a cop. She insists she should be heard by the man in
charge, the guy she calls the Yawner.”
“That’s what she calls me?”
“I’m afraid so. She says
every time she tries to talk seriously with you, you start yawning.”
“No one told me, when I finally made captain, that such a huge
amount of my time would have to be spent with nut cases.”
“We understand how you feel, Captain. But the somber truth is, she has very important
information, more important than almost anyone can imagine. So we have obediently formed a citizens committee to make
sure her message gets heard.”
“All right, let’s go over this carefully. She claims to have the gift of foretelling
the future, given to her by God, right?”
“Well, not quite. I mean,
it does seem strange to us, but in her religion they don’t have a god, they
have gods.”
“Yes, I heard about them from the officer I assigned to listen
to her. Strange is right. They don’t act like gods, they act like
normal neurotic guys – always arguing, fighting, screwing around and so on.”
“They are indeed very different from our idea of religious
deities.”
“So you begin to get an idea of why I would very much like not
to have to sit here and listen to the raspy voice of this woman.”
“But forget about all that.
She has astonishing information on a possible invasion that is of
national importance. For the good and
safety of our country, someone in a
position of authority should listen very carefully to her.”
“Come on, that’s a bit much.
You really believe such nonsense? “
“Whenever we’ve had a major catastrophe in the past, it usually
turns out that there had been someone desperately trying to tell us what was
going to happen. Well, she’s the one
who’s trying to tell us now.”
“It’s all too far-fetched; no one’s going to believe her.”
(The answer will be posted
Saturday.)
