Captain’s Log, Stardate, oh, wait, that’s pajama boy stuff.
Quark’s Place was lively. He had a new floor show going on that was attracting a lot of attention. Three old crones gathered around a large cauldron, a fire blazing underneath it, which was causing Odo and Cisco to have fits, but didn’t seem to be causing any damage to the floor thanks to some good engineering by Scotty. The crones were chanting away with occasional puffs of smoke rising from the cauldron as they finished a stage of the spell they were casting.
When Quark brought me my first round of Guinness with a Tribble Sweat chaser, I had to ask, “What gives?”
He arched an eyebrow quizzically like a Vulcan science officer, and said, “Well, it’s like this. They wanted a place to cast anti-tax spells against the Federation; seems that Emperor Obama wants to raise their taxes on them as well as on me. And they claim that there are tremendous magical force lines that run right through the center of my bar and they wanted to use them to help power up their spells. I figured it might draw in some more business with their chanting away and such; plus, if they succeed, I may won’t have to raise my prices or lay off staff to cover the new taxes.”
“Always the practical businessman, eh, Quark?”
“That’s right. And even if their spells don’t work, I’m making a bundle with the additional business,” Quark said with a grin.
Unfortunately for me, the three old crones spotted me and took immediate interest. One picked up a copper bowl and the three quickly came over to me.
“Ah, a Klingon. Just what we need. We need the spit of a Klingon Warrior to blend with the hair of a tiger and the eye of Newt to complete this spell. You’ll have to do.” One held out the copper bowl expectantly.
Thanks a lot, I thought. I looked into the bowl and spotted a lock a kinky black hair and a human eye ball.
“I thought you said you needed to mix it with tiger hair, and that doesn’t look like tiger hair to me,” I said.
One old crone looked at the other two and said, “Of course it’s Tiger’s hair. I made him a bet for a lock of his hair that I was more cougar than he could handle, and I won.” All three of the old crones cackled with great amusement.
“And the eye of newt?” I asked.
The second old crone replied, “Newt Gingrich, of course. He hates taxes as well, and we gave him a potion that will grow him a new eye back.” The three old crones cackled some more.
Somehow, these revelations made some sort of sense. The old crone with the copper bowl held it closer to me. “Come on, a nice big loogie for our spell is all we’re asking of you.”
What the heck, I thought, then hocked up a big one and spat it into the copper bowl. The three crones cackled with great delight as they returned to their cauldron, and stirred the mess in the copper bowl, then added it to the contents of the mighty cauldron with a huge poof of red, white, and blue smoke.
One old crone perked up suddenly, then cried out, “By the prickling of my thumb, something wicked this way comes”. The three old crones cackled again.
We all looked at the main door to Quark’s in time to see Darth Pelosi stroll in. She looked a bit put out after losing her job as Speaker of the House thanks to the Jedi Tea Patriots. Quark grumbled “her again,” and wandered over to where she perched herself at the bar to take her order.
When Quark had finished with Darth Pelosi, he sidled back to where I sat at the bar just in time for one of the old crones to come up to him with a fresh copper bowl. She looked at Quark with a critical eye and said, “We need a glob of ear wax from a Capitalist. It looks to me like we should be able to get a pound out of those over-sized ears of yours. Start digging.”
Quark shrugged his shoulders, took out a Ferengi ear scoop; within seconds he produced a large glob of ear wax that he deposited into the copper bowl the old crone was holding. She cackled with delight.
Before she had a chance to return to the cauldron, I asked her, “Do your spells really work?”
“Of course they do. Every time. Just ask Hillary.” With that she let out yet another cackle and rejoined her coven at the cauldron.
I looked at Quark with all due seriousness. “Do you really think it will work?”
“It’ll take a miracle,” he said.
Kahuna out.
(Note – this was inspired by the recent article about Romanian witches casting spells and curses protesting taxes in their country. – Kahuna)
