A Grease Tin Allegory
A Grease Tin Allegory
Allegorical Christian tales are usually serious parables with little or no genuine humour. This is a story based on the notion of the elect of God, Redemption, heaven, devils, temptation, and hellfire, based upon the simple idea of a pawn shop, and pots and pans. According to Christianity, the elect of God are heaven bound, others have to work for Redemption or are redeemed by faith, and hellfire is that which burns eternally and unendurably, and is for those who`re tempted by devils into evil.
A Grease Tin Allegory
'I want to be a Grease Tin and go to Oven,' insisted the dish that had remained in Old Mother Hubbard's cupboard for at least as long as she could remember.
'Well, first of all you have to be Pur-ified, and made Pur-fect,' said a rather austere-looking coffee-pot, hand on hip, nose in the air and, trembling like some kind of kitchen utsensil's version of a pointer dog, indicating the lemon-sparkling freshness of a squeezy bottle marked 'Pur' balanced precariously on the rim of the baptismal font or 'sink' as it was commonly known.
'How do I get there? the Pur virgin looked askance at its new found - and obviously aristocratic - ally.
'You have to 'convert' to Go'd and ask to have the gas oven changed for one that works by electricity,' the gravy boat explained gravily.
'Then I'll be a Grease Tin?' the dish asked eagerly.
'Not quite.You have to be taken down off the shelf as well.'
'Oh! I don't want to be left on the shelf for too long, can't I just throw myself out of the cupboard in order to be baptised and cleansed from 'sink'?
'Of course not, it might be misconstrued as being attempted suicide, a cardinal sin which would - if unsuccessful - leave you tarnished - and, if successful, you would have committed a great crime against Go'd and must spend the rest of eternity at the back of the potting shed in the garden, forced to rub shoulders with those dreadful 'bent' screws, 'wired' coppers and in 'mates'.
'Oh, I'd hate that! I'd much rather be a Grease Tin, how can I make it to be so?' wailed the less than sanguine pasty dish.
'You have to get involved in wooing and winning,' said the coffee-pot out of the corner of its spout, not wanting the rest of the ironmongery to hear its 'hellfire' preaching; there was a primus stove in the corner somewhere that was beginning to harp on angelically about the great heavenly blessings that would be produced, if the tin would only choose the path of Oiliness: 'Only wait patiently and, one day, you'll meet with a great Annoying Tin for you to submit to and, instead of throwing yourself away, throw yourself at, and together you'll go to Oven as Grease Tins,' the coffee-pot did its best not to smirk disdainfully - and failed.
'How long will all this take?' the dish, which rather wanted to run away with the spoon actually, wanted to know.
'First, you have to convert,' ordered the coffee-pot, its arm sternly trembling between hip and shoulder, causing its body to vibrate energetically as if about to explode cholerically in a paroxsm of righteous coffee-ing, 'Ask 'Go'd to forgive you your tin-ness and accept Grease from the bottom of your 'hard'; only then, armed with the Grease of Go'd, will you be able to hold up your head high as a Greased Tin, but first you must 'convert' through 'Wholly Gas' to Electric City in order to dwell forever in the City of the Elect.
'But isn't Elect Trick City a device of the Satan, the Prince of the Powers of the Air, the Trickster, he who seeks to steel our soles by deception that we may all burn in eternal fire for our tin-ness?'
'That's why you have to be washed from 'sink' in order that your tin-ness might be cleansed and, converted, wearing Go'd's armour plate-tin, and with Grease as a safeguard, you can pass through Elect Trick City bed-devilled but unscathed.
'Bed-devilled?'
Tempted by she-devils, allurers with flaming hair seeking to catch you in their fiery embrace and leave you bereft of Grease, stripped of Go'd's armour plate-tin, your tin - nakedness - visible to all, your blackened sole beyond all redemption from sink.'
'Couldn't I become a Pawned Again Grease Tin?'
'If you would be Redeemed from Pawn you must ask for Grease for your tin-ness and be washed from 'sink'.
'Oh, I can't be bothered with all that,' said the fallen Grease Tin now cast into sink-fulness.
For a while everything seemed like Oven; Virgin-tinny was soon lost of course, the Grease Tin devilled almost constantly, and bed-devilled as well, by quilt feelings; the bed-devillers from Chip Pan, with their flaming hair and insatiable Chip Panese appetites, tempting the Grease Tin to lie with them in 'the places that had been prepared for them' on the gas rings in the circles of Fell until, black end sole corrupted beyond all recognition, a Black Hole appeared through which the Grease of Go'd seeped away, making the Grease Tin aware of its tin-foil state and, no longer bed-devilled by the flame-haired allurers from Chip Pan, left to 'sink' 'n despair.
'Told you so,' crowed the coffee-pot gloatingly, 'you'll have to convert from the bottom of your hard now - or else!'
'But there's a Black Hole in my bottom,' lamented the Grease Tin, 'what's the use, sir?'
'Someone'll be along to take care of your tin in the morning, but first you'll have to ask for Greaseness for your tin.'
'Why?'
'You have been caught tin adulterate; you are no longer a Grease Tin but are in adulterated tin because of your lack of Grease and black end hard sole. Haven't you ever heard of the Tin Commandments?' You've allowed your shelf to become polluted by mixing with non-Greased tins, like the flame-haired bed-devils from Chip Pan, for instance,' said the coffee-pot sternly, the arm on its hip vibrating so intensely it seemed about to whistle and begin blowing its STOP!
'I'll seek for Greaseness and ask to be Comforted,' agreed the former Grease Tin slyly.
'First you have to Convert,' the coffee-pot stressed, slowly and carefully so that the foilish tin couldn't possibly misunderstand, 'then you'll be Comforted - as much as you like because, though Pawned Again, you'll have been redeemed from your tin-foil nature; you'll be a Pawn Again Grease Tin ready to try to resist the temptation of the Chip Panese bed-devillers again.
'Okay,' leered the tin-foil one with the Black Hole in it's hard sole.
'Listen when the bell wrings tomorrow,' the coffee-pot managed to grind out before, boiling over, it emitted a high pitched whine, 'and when it comes the tinkerbell will save you from your adulterated tin!'
The unwholly tin lay in its sinkfulness all night examining the hole in its black end hard sole from which the Grease of Go'd had long since departed, and determined to convert from its tin-ness the very next day.
'That's a nasty Black Hole you've got there in your hard sole,' Tinkerbell said, observing, 'too much unalloyed devilling, I'll be bound.'
'Just so,' admitted the tin-foil one, 'I was bed-devilled a great deal by the Chip Panese, but I want the conversion ceremony now so that I can go to Oven and be one 'plated with the armour of Go'd' who, with the Grease of Go'd, can get Pawned Again and Again and...'
'Okay,' sighed the tinkerbell, 'I'll do the conversion for you, but you've lost your virgin-tinny forever, and you'll never be able to go to Oven because, although I can cleanse your tin-ness using this bottle of Oily Spirit, I can't do anything about the hole in your hard sole and you'll never get back the Grease of Go'd.'
So the tinker anointed the tin-foil one with the Oily Spirit and washed it from 'sink' so that it shone as wholly with the light of Pur-ity, and he converted St.Ove by Wholly Gas to Electric City; but it wasn't enough, the Pur-if-I'd... tin was 'left on the shelf' on account of its anti-Greased Tin Holeyness, which would always prevent it from passing unscathed through the devillings of the Chip Paneses bed-devillers from Oven.
Then one fine day the unwanted tin suddenly felt itself lifted from off the shelf.
'Oh Gody!' it thought, 'I'm to be lifted up into Oven, my tin-ness forgiven, my Virgin-tinny restored, my Holeyness renewed thanks to the Oily Spirit and the Grease of Go'd.'
'The tin's adulterated with being led,' said the owner of the pawn shop.
So once more the poor tin was 'left on the shelf' for what seemed a lifetime, but it whiled away the years thinking about its hellzapoppin' days being devilled by the bed-devillers from Chip Pan with their fiery tops and their even more fiery bottoms, but tins not being what they used to be and the memories becoming more and more tarnished 'as ti-ime go-o-o-o-oes by-y-y,' it began to turn to Go'd.
The process was slow and painful, but a sure one, and one day the familiar voice of Old Mother Hubbard was once more heard echoing about the dusty environs of the pawn shop.
'Here's the ticket and the pennies. I want my tin.'
'It's 'left on the shelf' somewhere,' said the pawn shop owner, 'through there at the back, here's a paper bag, put it in there, just hand over the ticket that's on it as you leave, number...' he consulted the stub she'd given him, 'six-hundred-and-sixty-six' and, ushering her on in, didn't even glance up as, beaming happily, what was a very old lady indeed after all these years, slapped #666 on the counter and breezed gaily out into the summery streets.
'Would you believe it?' she marvelled, lifting the tin out of the paper bag and examining it in front of 'Oven'. 'It's somehow been transmuted into Gold!'
'Converted to Go'd,' a still rather tinny voice was heard to murmur, 'I wonder if I'd Convert I'd be Comforted,' the coffee-pot beamed brighter than the little old lady who was rapidly calculating how much Go'd was worth and pushing it into the microwave in order to see what was what, as it were.
There was a flash and a burst of sparks, then several more flashes and several more bursts of sparks and, moments later, the former tin-foil one was carried reverently from the Elect Trick Computer Oven into the dining room, raised to a lofty position on top of the mahogany cyborg and left to reflect on what it meant to be Converted, or rather Comforted, that is, Computered.
'Time seemed to be suspended,' the tin Go'd told its old mentor the silver coffee-pot, its coffee-ing days long gone, the job having been taken over by the microwave for ages now, 'but I can remember everything very clearly.There was a lot of Chip Panese devilling and bed-devilling going on for what seemed like an eternity and, just as I was getting bored with it, Old Mother Hubbard 'lifted me up' and 'left me on the shelf' again.'
After being Pawned you were Pawn Again because, though Converted, you still needed to be Comforted, so you were Computer-read, that is, translated into Heaven to experience the Rapture of a Pawn Again Grease Tin,' declared the coffee-pot smiling silverly in its hoary old age, 'and discovered Time-travel in the process,' it scowled at nothing in particular.
'I won't have to be Pawn yet again, will I?' the tin Go'd hoped. 'Of course not, you'll have to get married with a big Annoying Tin who'll Compute you into Old Age and'll probably turn up soon enough,' the coffee-pot looked very solid and respectable all of a sudden.
'How soon will that be?' the tin Go'd wanted to know, getting all interested and a bit flustered.
'These two will go nicely together,' said Old Mother Hubbard, placing the Grease Tin Go'd and the Silver coffee-pot side by side on the mantlepiece above the fireplace.