The Beggar's Bread, By Paul Grayson

Once upon a kingdom lived a lone hungry beggar named Wenzel.  With all his being, Wenzel loathed his starving lifestyle and yearned for even a simple hunk of bread.  The bakers, candymakers, ice cream makers and artisans, all each morning went with one accord to their various shops and stores.  His tongue and eyes and soul followed their baked delights, and when they were gone he would weep.

One day, as his eyes watered after a certain large babor steak fried in hog lard, an old man in an Eldorado Deluxe screeched to a halt.  Out he stepped.  "Here, take this thing that the common reader would expect to be bread, but is really a fried babor steak.  Before you eat it, however," continued the old man, "I must tell you the facts, such as:  One, you will get one wish and only one.  Two, you must lick the tires of my Deluxe Eldorado Sedan Limited until they shine like the sun in the sky.  And, three, if you mayhap choose a wish that is amiss and vile, you shall gain what you wish upon another."  With that, accompanied by a screech of tires on asphalt, the little old man was gone, along with his green Eldorado Deluxe Sedan Limited Edition Sport.

Wenzel laughed at his good luck, then began to make his wish between bites of babor. "I wish..." Suddenly, he was bowled over by an artisan chef carrying a Frazzled Gizzard L'Entree d'Innard.  "Sorry!" said the chef sincerely.  "You're not really sorry!" screamed an irate Wenzel, and before he could stop himself, he had launched into a series of vile and colorful curses at the old cook.

"Why, I wish your gizzard was frazzled just like that'n you're holding now and that you'd..."  One and a half minutes later, Wenzel was running down the street, covered in warts and foulings of his flesh, a completely frazzled gizzard, and the fleas of 8,889 camels, 4,607 sheep, 5,201 cats, 9,410 dogs, 6,665 gorillas, 5,880 babors..."  THE END.