Sorry, there's just no good on it.

[It appears the only site that had this available was scuttled in December 2010. I first read a version of this during my BBS days, but as you can tell from DISADVENTURE!, DISADDENDUM!, DISMORALIZED!, DISINSOMNIA!, WHARTON!, GRADING! and DISBELIEF! the form stuck with me. It's an inspiring tale of nerd from a time when nerdiness lacked its current cultural capital. So without further ado I return to the living Internets the glory that is The Tale of Eric and the Dread Gazebo.]

ED: You see a well groomed garden. In the middle, on a small hill, you see a gazebo.

ERIC: A gazebo? What color is it?

ED: (pauses) It's white, Eric.

ERIC: How far away is it?

ED: About 50 yards.

ERIC: How big is it?

ED: (pauses) It's about 30 ft across, 15 ft high, with a pointed top.

ERIC: I use my sword to detect good on it.

ED: It's not good, Eric. It's a gazebo.

ERIC: (pauses) I call out to it.

ED: It won't answer. It's a gazebo.

ERIC: (pauses) I sheathe my sword and draw my bow and arrows. Does it respond in any way?

ED: No, Eric, it's a gazebo.

ERIC: I shoot it with my bow. (rolls for hit) What happened?

ED: There is now a gazebo with an arrow sticking out of it.

ERIC: (pauses) Wasn't it wounded?

ED: OF COURSE NOT. IT'S A GAZEBO.

ERIC: But that was a +3 arrow!

ED: It's a gazebo, Eric, a GAZEBO. If you really want to try to destroy it, you could try to chop it with an axe, I suppose, or you could try to burn it, but I don't know why anybody would even try. It's a FUCKING GAZEBO.

ERIC: I run away.

ED: It's too late. You've awakened the gazebo. It catches you and eats you.

ERIC: (reaching for his die) Maybe I'll roll up a fire-using mage so I can avenge my Paladin.

Comments

[SEK]

FTR: It’s Sunday morning, and someone emailed me saying they’d read about it recently and remembered that I’d posted it to a listserv a few years back. It’s probably apocryphal, but it’s been floating around since before the Internets had colors, so it deserves some sort of recognition. If it's available, I apologize for not Googling, but really, it never hurts to re-encounter a seminal funny.

[Pseudony Mousie]

One of my favorites.

Here's an (Internet Archive) link to the page I used to have bookmarked, which has a little more context too it. Looks to have originated with one Richard Aronson.

http://web.archive.org/web/20040217110923/http://ender.chrysomite.com/Stories/dreadgazebo.html">http://ender.chrysomite.com/Stories/dreadgazebo.html">http://web.archive.org/web/20040217110923/http://ender.chrysomite.com/Stories/dreadgazebo.html

[Peter Erwin]

Also available (with the Richard Aronson attribution) here:
http://www.duke.edu/web/DRAGO/humor/gazebo.html

[SEK]

Thanks for the attribution. I hope it's obvious I was trying to credit the original, not steal Aronson's thunder.