view from pyramids on a clear day
Today, Cairo was besieged by a dust storm, its air becoming the color of cinnamon. As a result, the sunlight that warmed my apartment was the color of a slightly dehydrated person’s urine. As I napped in the urine light, I dreamed of jumping into a pool with my clothes on. I don’t think it was a coincidence.
Unfortunately, the effect on both air quality (including taste), and visibility was not so pleasant. But perhaps the biggest shame of all is that this entire dustastrophe is likely caused by a stupid mummy from Niagara Falls.
Mummies are known worldwide to be needy, wrathful, and prone to outbursts of childish rage. Anything can send them over the edge and make them call down all kinds of ridiculous curses on Cairo*: hordes of seedy politicians, shark bites, annoying fashion trends, etc.
Though all mummies are moody, there is a group of particularly infamous mummies at the Egyptian Museum in Niagra Falls, Canada. Colonel Sydney Barnett purchased these mummies and transferred them to Canada from Egypt in 1850, back when Egypt was legally selling national heritage for a quick buck because there was a lot of it and it was just lying around anyways. A few decades later, Theodore Roosevelt called these mummies, “a group of genuinely awful creatures.”
There are nine mummies in the Niagara Falls Egyptian collection, but only four have coffins. The ones without coffins are named Slappy, Silly, Sally, Socky, and Stumpy, and the ones with coffins are named Sammy, Sudsy, Stubbles, and Trent. According to museum curators, these mummies have been nothing but a nuisance and a bother since they arrived in Niagara Falls. Slappy and Trent never stop complaining about the cold, and the endless grumbling really pisses off Socky and Stumpy. Sudsy and Stubbles both resent tourists’ “sausage fingers.” Sally has a crush on one of the museum curators and never shuts up about it. Sammy and Silly squabble endlessly over coffin rights, while Sudsy continually asserts that he was the Colonel’s favorite when everyone knows it was actually Socky, and all of them constantly try to annoy one another by poking each other or throwing stuff at each other’s cases. It’s a nightmare.
Between the nine of them, they’ve called down 203 curses on Cairo since moving to Niagara falls, one of which indirectly caused the Arab spring. Their life in the comfort of Canada has made them unbearable, petulant, self-important beings that forget they are essentially raisins wrapped in toilet paper. This current dust storm is probably just another effect of their brattiness. If I had to guess, I would say that Stumpy probably made Trent mad again by saying Trent wouldn’t be so cold if his wives had ever actually loved him, which is a low blow and doesn’t really make any sense.
On some level, though, I guess I can understand how that makes Cairo deserve a dust storm.
*Curses can only be called upon Cairo, not any other city.
Snotting black 
Hi, I’m Sam “Hang Ten” Laydbak, president of the Association of California Raisins’ offshoot, the Raison d’être Raisin Appreciating Society. We have exclusive, copyrighted, use of the phrase “raisins wrapped in toilet paper” and request that you refrain from using that phrase again, unless you send a request, in triplicate, on urine-coloured (or urine-soaked) paper, with an SASE and a check for the equivalent of $1M to repeat the phrase while mentioning California raisins in warm, glowing comments about how delicious they are and fun to eat with your friends to spruce up boring parties of potato skin chips and sour cream mixed with untasty nonraisin fruit. Otherwise, we will work with our team of raisin mummies to subject you to years of prune-faced misery while digging camel fleas out from between the folds with poison-tipped toothpicks full of splinters. Sincerely yours, Sam.
Dear Mr. Laydbak,
Thank you for reading my blog and taking the time to send me a note. Unfortunately, I think you’ll find that I actually have a copyright certificate predating yours. I know that because I’m in your business’s building right now—which is filthy, by the way—and I’m looking through your company “filing cabinet.”
In my right hand I have matches and in my left hand I have a gallon of gasoline. I’m suggesting we drop the issue.
Thanks again for reading!
Best,
Emily
[…] A nod to humour everywhere, including Cairo. […]
Blasted Cairo. I heard there was a lack of dust in the world, and now I know why. It’s all in Cairo.
Well I’ll be sure to bring some back with me…my suitcase is currently coated with it and I’m not even trying!
You truly are a giver.
I think it’d get tiring, as a mummy, constantly trying to come up with new curses all the time. Especially good, ironic curses. And then you’d curse someone, and they’d be disappointed and say, “That’s it? You’re a mummy and that’s the best, most karmically apt curse you could come up with?” And you’d be mad, because it’s your 9th curse that day…
It’s tough out there for a mummy.
They get such a bad rap but it’s not like they’re trying their best, you know. They’re doing everything they can and leaving it all on the field because they have a reputation to keep up. I’m with you here….people need to have a little understanding about what being a mummy is actually like.
That’s one interesting info.
It’s incredible what you learn when you search “Egyptian Museum” on google.
Who knew?
Until I researched heavily for this article, I was in the dark too. I consider myself mostly as an educator.
I took notes. Will there be a test?
Education is its own reward. But yes there will be a test, so don’t wait till the last minute to review.
All those ‘s’sssssssss
Stumpy is in Niagara Falls? NIAGARA FALLS?!?
I gotta go find him. Bastard owes me $20…
Yeah well Stumpy’s just a bad guy in general. You need to stop enabling him….
“they are essentially raisins wrapped in toilet paper.”
HAH!
Everyone was thinking it.
I love this entry my friend great work 🙂
Thanks for stopping by!
Welcome, Join us in Sunday post edrevets
more power to your blog .
You must have good ears. I live just down the road from Niagara Falls, and even with the new hearing aids I picked up today, I can’t hear any of this whining and cursing. I’ll have to take the wife for a drive down there soon, and have a talk with the boys (and old girl).
Maybe you can talk some sense into them….or monetize their quibbles. The choice is yours. At the very least you’ll enjoy the museum.
Doesn’t everyone want an apartment colored like a slightly dehydrated person’s urine?
That’s why apartments with urine colored walls are so expensive.
Trent is awesome, I was in the Army with Trent Henry. I later nicknamed him Osirus because of his knowledge in the black arts! (honestly a true story) But ironically it finds humor here. 🙂
Trent is a good dude. He always has your back and gives you a bite of his candy bar and really messes your enemies up if they’re bothering you. What more could you want?
🙂
I don’t blame Sudsy and Stubbles one bit for resenting the sausage fingers. Do you know where those have been? I do fear Sally’s love shall remain forever unrequited because of her personal mildew issues. It might not be fair but such is life…er…oh my…awkward.
History sure is fun!
Poor Sally….pining away without any way to indicate her passion. And even if she did, even if she could say everything, would it be enough?
This is real egyptology: learning about the trials of the mummies day to day lives.