CHAPTER 10
The Scam of Religious Holidays for Greegs
A Greeg calendar is an interesting collectible to come across in your space travels. Just the fact that Greegs have invented a calendar is mystifying, but matters are made more baffling when you discover there is no semblance of logic or pattern in any of the 473 pages, all of which are constantly being rearranged and rewritten due to squabbles about which holidays should be celebrated and which should never be spoken of again. Random holidays (some enthralling, some downright shameful) are perpetually coming and going, but the celebration of one in particular has always been agreed upon.
It is marked on the calendar by every 4.3 rotations of the small moon Dromos, and it is a day in which all respectable Greegs must pay reverence to their deity, known by the name ‘Whatever It Is That Created Everything For the Sole Entertainment of the Greeg.’ On the day of reverence a Greeg says thank you to Whatever It Is That Created Everything For the Sole Entertainment of the Greeg, and prays the supply of schmold be plentiful for at least the next thousand revolutions round the sun.
The centrepiece of the event is the great tradition known as The Offering of Schmold. Each Greeg family is expected (nay, commanded by law) to place a worthy offering in front of a stone altar, where slaves of the congregation collect the offerings and take them to a secret volcano that is the living heart of Whatever It Is That Created Everything For the Sole Entertainment of the Greeg. This was once a pure act of sacrifice, but over time the Offering of Schmold became nothing more than an egotistical competition to see who could offer the most intricately expensive display.
Much of a Greeg's time between days of reverence is spent planning out and constructing their next offering. Commendable offerings in recent years have included: a 2-dozen set of schmold candles (a truly rare item considering the near impossibility of solidifying schmold short of owning a bottle of Ice-Nine), a flat-screen schmold television (with all the channels of course), a schmold-multiplier (a remarkable machine that can increase your schmold supply at a rate of .03% per rotation of Dromos, assuming you’re able to afford the astronomically bankrupting task of plugging it in), and the ever popular schmold-cake (acceptable only when baked to a crispy charcoal texture and stomped on a little bit).
Long ago it was made public to the Greeg community that the congregation had not been taking the offerings of schmold to any secret volcano that is the living heart of Whatever It Is That Created Everything For the Sole Entertainment of the Greeg. They were merely putting the schmold in their own houses. The entire celebration of the Greegian deity is a scam perpetrated by an elite group of maniacal Greegs, who for some unknown reason must own more schmold than anyone else. Was the public upset? Not really. Their desire to compete over who has the most expensive schmold offering quickly trumped the anger of being ripped off.
Greegs love showing off how much schmold they have, even if it results in no longer having the schmold.
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