What charming, magical bedtime story would you like me to read tonight?

Answer 1

Ooo oooo ooooooo… tell me the story that starts out Once upon a time, Percival Penguin awoke in his cozy cave in Antarctica and wondered why everything was always so white. I mean the ground was white, the hills were white, the clouds were white, the snow was white, the water was white—well at least the solid bits were, and the liquid-y bits could really only be described as the color of COLD. To be fair, there was also some grey. Grey skies, grey fish, grey baby penguins, more grey fish, and occasionally a grey rock or two. But Percival wanted to experience a red or maybe a yellow.

Surely there was some magical land somewhere that included things like red and yellow and maybe even blue and green. (Purple was probably asking too much.) And then Percival remembered a magical place he’d heard of long ago called Chicago. A city which featured, among other things, a thing called “traffic”. Percival became very excited because surely if there was traffic, there were bound to be traffic lights, and everybody knows traffic lights are red, yellow, and green! Percival would go to Chicago! He would experience red, yellow AND green! He would experience traffic! And maybe even purple, if he was lucky!

So Percival hopped into his helicopter (oh my, you didn’t expect poor Percival to SWIM there, did you?) and promised to write to his penguin friends and explain to them exactly what yellow looks like. Percival intended to land at Meigs Field, so you can imagine his surprise when he found that Mayor Daley had sneakily sent in construction crews at 1:30 in the morning to have the small airport bulldozed without even notifying the FAA, much less Percival. So instead he landed his helicopter in the street in front of Mayor Daley’s house. Percival gazed in wonder at the Daleys’ gardens. Yellow daffodils! Red roses! Lilac lilacs! And those petunias…. were they pink… or were they purple? This was even better than traffic! Percival sat down on the garden bench and penned a letter to the mayor.

Dear Mayor Daley,
When they nicknamed Chicago “the Windy City”, it was in anticipation of a bloated egomaniacal windbag of a mayor, such as you.
Sincerely,
Percival Penguin
p.s. Lovely petunias, by the way. Are they pink or purple?

Percival walked quietly to the door and carefully looked both ways for signs of well-dressed burly Italians bearing Uzis before slipping the note into the mail slot. He then returned to his helicopter, only to find 37.5 parking tickets plastered to the window. So Percival promptly commenced the process of not paying them.

He was all tuckered out after having experienced several new colors, and he was already missing the company of fellow penguins. He was also quite sure that since he was now a city penguin, somebody ought to be responsible for feeding him fish. So he headed off to the Shedd Aquarium to make a new life for himself.

And Percival loved life at the Shedd. Sure, the penguin habitat wasn’t very large, but there were lots of hot chicks. (Of course they preferred to be called birds; you know how chicks can be.) After hours, Percival would sneak over to the big round tank and watch all the colorful fish swim about! Some of them were blue, some yellow… some were even blue AND yellow all at the same time. And while they were only for looks and not part of the food supply, the friendly staff at the Shedd fed Percival all the free grey fish he could get his flippers on. Yeah, life was sweet.

But then Percival received two pieces of mail in one day. He was quite excited until he read the first letter:

Percival Penguin
You now owe us $3,785.92 in past-due parking fines.
Signed,
City of Chicago

Surely the other piece of mail must be better, right? It certainly seemed to start off better anyhow:

Percival Penguin,
Thanks for the compliments on the petunias. They’re actually magenta.
Signed,
Mayor Daley
p.s. Beware of well-dressed burly Italians bearing Uzis.
p.p.s. I would appreciate it if you’d pay off your parking tickets before they find you.

All of a sudden, Percival was starting to feel like maybe Chicago was a bit TOO colorful. He couldn’t just hop in the helicopter (seeing as he’d crashed it into Oprah's highrise condo in a failed attempt to impress Priscilla Penguin) so he’d have to come up with another plan. He considered swimming—considered it for about 27 seconds anyhow—but he had long ago decided he preferred flying. No, the only way to fly out of Chicago would be to make use of the local resource known as tourists.

So Percival fluffed his feathers extra nice and snuck into the Gift Shop. There he positioned himself on the middle of a shelf, at eye level and proceeded to look extra cute and wait for an unsuspecting tourist to fall in love with him. His plan worked like a charm and he’s now living happily ever after in Vegas, where we at least have the decency to pretend our well-dressed burly Italians are never bearing Uzis.
The END.

Hey, wait a minute! No fair! You tricked me into telling YOU a story! Wake up, dammit!
*pinches you*

Answer 2

Stephen King

Answer 3

Awwww... ain't that sweet... Reading to all of your multitude of Dalek babies..... Perhaps you could regale them with a Broadway production of the enitre BUKWARS Saga.... or tell them bout how you and I first meet, and the wacky adventures that soon followed.... That always made for a good bedtime story...

Answer 4

I want the "PE5120 Digital Projector Home Entertainment Series User's Manual".

Answer 5

Ooh! Ooh! The one about the Dalek who conquers the hearts and minds of the world with his recipe for pickle taquitos and then blows all his royalty money on trying to seduce an ATM machine with a penchant for assembly robots and used motor oil.... again.

Failing that, how about 'Where's my Cow?".

Answer 6

None!
Bedtime stories excite me and I can't sleep!

Answer 7

Mako the beastly shark who became the king of Zimbabwe.

Answer 8

The one about the magical Dalek operational manual.

You know, the one with the suggestive drawings of your undercarriage.

OhPleaseOhPleaseOhPlease!?!?

Answer 9

The Lord of the Rings - I don't feel like sleeping yet

Answer 10

the one where Prophet saves the world from clowns and aliens and ends up with all the golden snakes and froot loops she could ever want. Let me get my stuffed frog and I'll be all set. I have abandonment issues, please don't keep me waiting long.