Gawd, I love living in the Bronze Age! Know why? Ask me why.
Bronze!
What can’t you do with it? Don’t get me started on all the things you can make out of bronze. Sometimes I think of something that we used to make out of rocks or reeds or whatever, and I ask myself, “Could we make that out of bronze?” Well, why not? Why the hell not?!
Gold is better, you say? I suppose—as long as your main ambition in life is to walk around with shiny things hanging from your neck! Sorry, but I’m aiming a little higher than that.
Maybe you didn’t know that this is the Bronze Age and the Stone Age is officially over. I can understand that—it’s not like anybody announced it—but the real reason is probably that you are not smart. Which, frankly, is what having to do every damn thing with stone will do to a person’s mind. To help bring you up to date, here are a few comparisons between bronze and stone:
- Sound of bronze: Ting! Ting! Ting! Sound of stone: Glik-glik-glik.
- How it feels: Bronze, hot day—hot. Stone, hot day—not as hot. Bronze, cold day—cold. Stone, cold day—colder than bronze (do not lick bronze on a cold day).
- God who lives inside: Bronze—Bronzo. Stone—no god.
- Texture: Bronze—no texture. Stone—hard to describe.
Now, some common misconceptions about bronze. First, that it is inhabited by the souls of dead relatives on your mother’s side. Totally wrong (you’re thinking of mushrooms). Second, that the reason the Great God Bronzo gave us bronze is to make sharper tools so the animals we sacrifice to Him would suffer less. Also not true; Bronzo gets kind of turned on by watching animals suffer (this seems wrong to me, but He is a god). Third, that the sun is made of bronze. Oh, please. Fourth, that you can make stone out of bronze. Actually, that one is true, but a) it’s really hard to do, and b) are you kidding me—bronze is so much better!!
If I had to pinpoint the day when I knew we entered the Bronze Age, it would be when those three strangers came. They brought weird things we had never seen before. They held them up, one by one, and each time, the tall guy would say, “Look—bronze!”
That got boring—what can I say? Plus, the fact that we had never seen these people before meant we should kill them. So we rush at them with our stone hammers and our stone knives, and we’re feeling pretty cocky, but then the tall stranger grabs this long, flat bronze thing with both hands and swings it around and—blump!—one of our guys’ heads falls right off!
That’s when I fell in love with bronze. Fantastic!
The strangers stayed for three months, teaching us about Bronzo, the one true god. They explained that gold was useless compared with bronze, so we should give them all our gold to safely dispose of. Which made sense. Also, they worked miracles.
The first miracle was when they brought out a huge pot and told us to put all our beer in it. Our entire supply only came up about halfway. Not a whole lot of beer.
“Abandon your old gods!” they said. “Bring out the stones you used to offer up to your old god, and drop them into this pot, and you will see Bronzo’s power in action!” So, stone by stone we dropped them in, and right before our eyes—try to picture this—the level of the beer rose little by little, until the pot was full to the brim with beer! The strangers told us that Bronzo could make that happen anytime, so we should let them drink all the beer. Which made sense.
The second miracle was that, when the strangers finally left, all of our wives were pregnant. O Great God Bronzo!
I’ve written a poem about bronze. (Explanation: A poem is a thing you say where the last word before you take a breath sounds like the last word just before you took the last breath, but not like the two before that.) Here it is:
When I look at bronze I’m filled with gratitude,
It never fails to improve my attitude.
Excuse me if I carry on so
About this gift from Great God Bronzo.
I made that up myself. I’ve made up other ones, too, mostly also about bronze, which I really like. But I like poems too. Maybe someday there will be a Poem Age—instead of bronze, we’ll make tools and clothes and other things out of poetry. And I will be the Boss!!!
