"exposed: the truth about charlotte's webs"

by sandy the sand man

"SOME TERRIFIC RADIANT WONDERFUL PIG" my ass. The true story behind the beloved child's tale of Charlotte's web is much darker. We all know that Wilbur, the pig, was a runt and would have been a burden on his mother who needed all her milk and strength to raise her healthy babies. The farmer in his infinite wisdom decided to kill it, but his bleeding-heart daughter would have nothing of it. "Don't kill it, Daddy! I'll take care of it, I promise! Wilber will grow up to be a prize hog, you'll see!" The farmer, unable to ignore his favorite child's tears, relented.

Of course, as kids are wont to do, she soon forgot her promise and began to neglect the poor, skinny piglet. Finally, at the end of a long day's work, the farmer looked over Wilbur in his pen and announced, "Tomorrow morning I'm going to put that runt out of its misery."

We all know that a dead pig's nose is the absolute best place for a spider to lay its eggs. It just so happens that there was a pregnant spider living in the rafters high above Wilbur's pen.

She was ecstatic with the news that the smelly swine beneath her gorgeous webs would soon supply a rookery for her ample young. Not to be completely inconsiderate of the loss of another animal's life, Charlotte decided to leave a message in honor of the departing hog. Unfortunately she got caught up in the celebration and due to an orgy of binge drinking, the spider did not get as early of a start as she had planned.

When the farmer came at dawn with the axe, the only part of the web that was completed had the words "SOME PIG" woven into it, instead of her intended eulogy of "Some pigs are meant to live, but this one needs to die." Overwhelmed by the miraculous web, the farmer forgot all about killing Wilbur.

In her disgust, Charlotte started to write a new message that night. Learning from her previous mistake, she started this note at the end and worked her way backwards. To encourage the farmer to rid her of the smelly pig once and for all and leave the head for her to raise her children, she began writing, "Wilbur tastes terrific!" Again, she was interrupted by the sunrise before she completed her task and all she had spun was "TERRIFIC!" before the farmer came out to the barn.

In a last ditch effort to rid her life about the four-legged nuisance before she delivered her bursting egg sack, she was going to spin out "Radioactive Pig-Must be killed or will contaminate farm." Unfortunately her spell-checker was on the fritz and she was not as quick as she had hoped, and she was only able to complete the word "RADIANT" before being discovered by the entire farm family. She watched in disgust from high above as they raved over their special pig.

By now, the farmer knew he couldn't slaughter his terrific, radiant pig, and instead chose to enter him in the town fair, which would be the perfect forum for Charlotte's final message, "Wonderful! I've been trying to get rid of this beast and now I'm dying and all of my efforts are wasted. I hope my young crawl up your noses and lay their eggs. Just kill the goddamn pig already." Sadly, she ran out of strength and ass-webbing and died as soon as the first word was completed, leaving the misinterpreted message, "WONDERFUL!"

And that, my dear children, is the true story of Charlotte and her web, as told to me by her oldest living relative, Jasper, who would like to point out that Wilbur has no living relatives since no female pig was fooled by the messages enough that they would mate with the "curly-tailed runt".