Once upon a time, there was a young girl named Little Red Riding Hood.  I don't know if that was actually her name.  I suppose it was Emily or Mandy or some such.  But that doesn't matter.  In those days, everyone was called by what they wore on a regular basis anyway.

So, one day Little Red Riding Hood's mother, White Frilly Apron, asked her to take some cookies to her grandmother's house.  It seemed that her grandmother had some rare disease that prevented her from making cookies, because every grandmother I've ever met makes cookies by the tinful.  

Red Riding Hood said “Of course Mother, because it's so incredibly horrible that grandmother cannot make cookies for herself, due to her debilitating condition.”  Red Riding Hood had a very good vocabulary for such a young girl.  She picked up the basket and skipped merrily down the path through the forest to grandmother's house.

Along the way, she came across the Big Bad Wolf.  He was so named because he was rather large, and not nice in any way.  Also, the people of the time had a penchant for stating the blindingly obvious.  The Big Bad Wolf caught a sniff of the wonderful cookie smell emanating from Red Riding Hood's basket.  He stepped in front of her and asked.  “Where are you headed little girl?”

Now, if it were me, and a wolf of both the big and bad variety were to step in front of me unexpected, I would have run home as fast as possible, and most likely changed my pants when I arrived.  However, as is true of many children who excel in reading, writing, and vocabulary; Red Riding Hood was possessed of an overwhelming lack of common sense.  She smiled plainly at the wolf, and answered “I am taking some cookies to my grandmother's house.”

The wolf had been poised to snatch the cookies and abscond with them then and there, but he realized that grandmothers make cookies by the tinful, and decided to reap what he realized would be a much larger bounty.  “Oh.  And where would this grandmother of yours live?”

Red Riding Hood smiled.  While she realized that the wolf was in fact, big; his overwhelming badness had yet to register on her consciousness.  “Why Grandmother Floral Easter Bonnet lives just through these woods.”

The wolf smiled.  “Then you should be on your way, child.  Wouldn't want to keep Grandmother waiting.”

“Of course not.”  She hefted her basket into the crook of her arm and began skipping merrily down the path.

The Big Bad Wolf, noticing that she was gone, jumped into a small shortcut that he knew of through the woods.   Within moments he arrived at a quaint cottage he could only surmise was Floral Easter Bonnet's.  He walked up and softly knocked on the door.

“Come in, child” said the voice on the other side.  This was about the time for Floral Easter Bonnet's cookie delivery from her beloved granddaughter, and she was eagerly awaiting the cookies.  The door opened wide, and she was appalled to find that it was not, in fact, her beloved granddaughter.  Instead, in her doorway stood a rather big, and most likely bad, wolf.

“Hello Grandmother,” the wolf stated.  He stepped across the threshold.  “I have come for all of the full tins of cookies you might have.”

Grandmother sighed.  “I am quite sorry, Mr. Wolf, but I have a debilitating condition that prevents me from making cookies.  I am, however, quite adept at making cough medicine.  Would you like some cough medicine?”

The wolf shivered.  It, like all forms of sentient and semi-sentient life, abhorred cough medicine.  However, the wolf had had to run very fast to ensure that he reached the house before Red Riding Hood, and was now finding himself rather hungry.  “I'll pass on the cough medicine, but I should like to eat you!”  And with one humongous bite, he swallowed Grandmother whole.  Fluttering to the ground through the space she once occupied, was her floral easter bonnet.

Noticing her bonnet, and remembering how slow on the uptake Red Riding Hood seemed to be, the wolf tossed on the bonnet and jumped into Grandmother's bed.  Grandmother had been very stringy, and not at all filling.  The wolf decided he should like some little girl for his main course, and perhaps top it off with a few cookies.  

Within moments, the someone knocked on the door.  In his best impression of an old lady with a debilitating condition that prevented the making of tinfuls of cookies, the wolf answered “Come in, child.”

Red Riding Hood stepped into the cottage and looked at the wolf.  He seemed to resemble a wolf, and she almost believed he was a wolf, up until she noticed the floral easter bonnet upon its head.  She concluded it must be her grandmother, and the condition had indeed worsened.  Grandmother said “Come near the bed child.  My condition has worsened and I'd very much like one of those cookies, which I am incapable of making by the tinful.”  The wolf, in fact, wanted her to move to the side of the bed so he could more easily devour her.

She was about to move to the side of the bed, when she noticed something blindingly obvious about her Grandmother's state, which she felt required to mention.  “Why Grandmother, what big eyes you have.”

Yet the wolf was quick on his feet.  “Ah child, those are my new glasses, that I might better see you.”

This seemed to placate Red Riding Hood, who took a step toward the bed.  Then, she noticed something else.  “And Grandmother, what big ears you have!”

“Ah child, those are my new hearing aids, that I might better hear you.”

Again, Red Riding Hood seemed fulfilled, and took another step toward the bed.  The wolf smiled, as the girl and cookies were almost within reach.  This prompted the girl to comment one more time.  “And Grandmother, what big teeth you have!”

“Ah child, those are my new dentures that I might better eat you.  I mean your cookies!”

But the damage had already been done, and the child realized that this was not her grandmother, but the big wolf she had met in the woods, whom she was entirely certain was most definitely bad as well.  She screamed, dropped her cookies, and took off out the door.  

Outside, she came across a woodsman who lived near her grandmother.  This woodsman, who went by the name of Orange Hunting Jacket, often visited Floral Easter Bonnet for some of her cough syrup.  It grew rather chilly at night in the woods, and the woodsman often needed something to fend off a cold, no matter how much he abhorred it.  

Red Riding Hood ran right up to him.  “Mr. Jacket, my grandmother has been eaten by a big, bad wolf, who just tried to eat me as well, and is most certainly eating the cookies I brought for my grandmother.”  

The woodsman knew of the grandmother's debilitating condition, and did not want to see the sweet old lady eaten, and most definitely did not want to see her without cookies.  He ran into the cottage, and before you could say “Bob's your uncle” had killed the wolf.  Now, I don't have an uncle named Bob, so I can't really say Bob's my uncle, but it is just a saying, and doesn't really matter to the story all that much.

The woodsman got to work on cutting open the stomach of the wolf.  Within, miraculously still intact, if not covered with stomach goo, was Grandmother.  She jumped out of the wolf's belly, happy as a lark, for two reasons.  First, she was not in the wolf's stomach, which was a very smelly place, and second, and more importantly, she had just discovered that Big Bad Wolf stomach goo is rather good at curing debilitating cookie making preventing conditions.  

The grandmother smiled a large smile, because she realized she could make cookies again, which she promptly informed her guests.  Red Riding Hood smiled because her grandmother was free of that bad, big, wolf.  And the woodsman smiled because he was about to get tinfuls of cookies.

So the woodsman set to making a new wolfskin rug, the grandmother set to making tinfuls of cookies, and they all lived happily ever after.

The End