Ray Punzel (a Southern fairy tale)

Obviously writing for adults is getting me nowhere fast so I’m going to switch gears today and offer up a delightful children’s story, suitable for children of all ages. Feel free to read it to them at bedtime, it’s perfectly safe and in no way resembles my earlier effort “Gary the Dragon With Erectile Dysfunction.”

Once upon a time in a far-off place called Muscle Shoals, Alabama there lived a man called Ray Punzel, owner and operator of the Punzel Auto Body Shop. It was the finest car repair shop in all of Northern Alabama. Ray was renowned far and wide for his long flowing muttonchops. Even his tow trucks sported a caricature of his face on the door and his muttonchops stretching all the way back to the bumper.

If you don’t know what a caricature is kids, it a picture, description, or imitation of a person in which certain striking characteristics are exaggerated in order to create a comic or grotesque effect.

If you don’t know what grotesque means, it a very ugly or comically distorted figure, creature, or image, but because Ray wasn’t ugly it doesn’t apply in this case.

(Writing for kids is a bit trickier than I’d anticipated.)

Be that as it may, most people agreed that the success of his Auto Body endeavor was directly tied to his signature sideburns.

Then Ray met a beautiful woman. Bad news from the get go, let me tell you. All of his friends said so right to his face.  But you know how love is, blind as a bat and twice as dumb. I would give a more in-depth recap of her physical assets but as this is a children’s story I’ll just mention that her Daisy Dukes accentuated her strongest features and leave it at that.

If you don’t know what accentuated means, look it up.

The bottom line was that this woman was trouble with a capitol T.

Again and again she would appear beneath his window in the depths of night, police hot on her trail, shouting the same refrain in a strong Southern accent;

Ray Punzel!

Ray Punzel!

Let down your muttonchops

That I may climb up and escape the cops!

Dutifully he would open the window and haul her up and out of danger.

Until one day a wise officer figured out what was happening. The next time this woman was on the run he beat her to Ray’s house. He marched right in and cut off his muttonchops and when the woman arrived and started in with her

Ray Punzel!

Ray Punzel!

Let down your muttonchops

That I may climb up and escape the cops!

the muttonchops appeared on cue, except when the woman was dragged up into Ray’s room the wily officer was standing there in his place. He dropped the muttonchops and picked up his handcuffs.

The woman was unceremoniously escorted out of Ray’s house and into the back of a squad car.

If you don’t know the meaning of the word unceremoniously your parents might want to consider investing in a dictionary.

When word got back that Ray had not only been aiding and abetting a criminal, but had lost his prized muttonchops in the process his business started to dry up.

A few months later Punzel Auto Body Shop went under.

The moral? Never ever let a woman come between you and your muttonchops.