OSCAR, THE LIKABLE OGRE

 

Oscar was a likable ogre, but he still ate children, because that’s what ogres do. He was great at work, fun at parties and active in the church. Everybody liked him. He remembered birthdays and anniversaries with cards and gifts. His cave was always the first decorated at Christmas time and he could always be counted on when the PTA held a fundraiser. He lent out his gardening tools; helped folks clean out their garage and was always the first to welcome new neighbors with a friendly smile and a hot casserole of neighbor kid au gratin.

 

The little town put up with Oscar because they had a lot of unlikable children around and never wasted a morsel. The parents would get a neatly wrapped parcel of undigestables like buttons and loose change with a thoughtful note attached. At first they would be, then they'd read the note and realize they never really liked little Billy or Susie very much and they still had six more likable children left. After a while they’d come around and realize Oscar saved them the expense of raising an Internet porn star, chiropractor or political consultant and send Oscar a thank you note in return. After all, Oscar was a likable ogre.

 

Even the kids liked Oscar--up to the point where he bit off their head. He always gave away the best candy on Halloween and took his scout troop camping or to a ball game every month. The local scouting council was upset when he'd return minus a boy or two. He ate kids, but he wasn’t homosexual or an atheist or anything against the rules.so their hands were tied.

Besides there were always new recruits clamoring to join his troop, so they decided the casualties were acceptable as long as he never ate Eagle Scouts or other promising sorts.

Oscar had the uncanny knack for finding the least welcome new comer at the table of life. He would befriend them, raise their self-esteem, and then eat them. The locals got pretty astute at reading the signs; if a new kid with a bad attitude suddenly started feeling better about himself, he was headed for an Ogre pot roast. As a result the kids of the little town were well behaved and tried to live up to their potential.

But these things are relative and Oscar was sharp; there was always a kid who was least likable in any group, no matter how hard they tried. Oscar never went hungry.

 

This went on for years and Oscar got older and older, he was eating the grandchildren of people whose brother or sister he’d eaten years before. It should have been a golden time for Oscar, but it seemed like the kids were getting faster. Truth be told, he had lost a step or two in his golden years and Oscar started losing weight and looking poorly. This concerned the people in the little town who took steps to level the playing field.

 

Occasionally a few of the families would break a kid’s legs and leave him or her on Oscar’s door step or let the kids in wood shop and auto repair class know that they were going away for the weekend and leaving their liquor cabinet unlocked. Any number of good for nothing Juvenile Delinquents drew their last conscious breath after awakening from a drunken stupor on the floor of Oscar’s lovely finished basement. Yet despite their best efforts, nothing seemed to work, Oscar continued to decline. The little town despaired.

 

One day a child who didn't like broccoli and refused reasonable adult requests to settle down, awoke from a laudanum induced haze in Oscar's humble cave. He found Oscar slumped over his workbench where he’d been knitting Afghans as Christmas gifts for his neighbors. Oscar was cold and stiff, his green skin an unhealthy pink color. Oscar was a dead ogre.

 

The little town mourned. Oscar had arranged for them to get free cable TV including major pay channels, but the local Cable Company was going digital and with Oscar gone they didn't know what to do. The local kids heard about his demise almost immediately and right away began to question adult authority and act like wild Indians.

 

Christmas was bleak that year in the little town. No one put up decorations or visited much, the bake sale didn't raise enough money to buy new PCs for the computer lab at school. The Church couldn’t raise enough money for a new roof and lawns started looking scruffy and unkempt. The kids were downloading porn and violent games from the Internet, and nothing anyone did or said could control them. Finally the city council took out an ad that said, “Small town looking for Ogre”. It ran in newspapers back east next to the ads for military schools.

 

Only one ogre answered the ad: Larry, but he was never as likable as Oscar.