The Mammoth Wars, the Land Bridge, and the Founding of Skull and Bones

Long ago, before the dawn of what we would call civilization, man was locked in an epic struggle against one of his many nemeses, the wooly mammoth. For years the mammoth had free run of the earth, eating primitive man's crops, destroying his settlements, and stealing his women. All until one of man's most controversial inventions was developed. That inventions was the stick.

Though the stick was of little use in its own right, it led to the development of many of the world's most important inventions, such as the cane, the cattle prod, the television remote control, the wheel, fire, the spear, the pool cue, and the flaming spear. Though some look back on the development of the flaming spear as man's darkest hour, others consider it to be the true beginning of civilization. It is inescapable that the flaming spear changed man, and his place in this world, forever.

Armed with this incredible weapon, man became the earth's ultimate killing machine. He was no longer the world's bitch. His bitch was now the world. He no longer had to fear the mammoth, kowtowing to him, constantly fetching him cold "brewskies" and what not, all the while calling him "sir," or, in the case of the mammoth tsar, "Your Mammothjesty." Though there is no official record of the fall of the first mammoth to a flaming human spear, there is a painting on one of the cave walls at Lascaux in France depicting a similar occurrence.



Though some scientists believe that the speech bubbles were written in by vandals after the original conception of the image, mainstream anthropologists consider such theories "radical" or "fringe thinking" at best.

The potent combination of spear and fire led to another important discovery: Meat is damn tasty. People had seen animals eat each other before, but until the advent of the flaming spear, man found himself becoming exceedingly sick after eating the flesh of other creatures. Scientists believe that humans first began to cook their meat after killing a mammoth with flaming spears and finding that the burning corpse emitted a most delicious odor, burnt mammoth wool! They also found the cooked mammoth flesh to be quite delicious, and far easier to swallow. Eventually, man, like so many killer sharks, developed a taste for mammoth flesh. Until this time, the mammoths had seen their quarrels with humanity as jocular rivalries, petty pranks, and what not. But now that the humans had begun to eat their flesh, IT was officially ON. By "IT" I mean war, and by "ON" I mean on.

The humans called it World War XXIV, while their soldiers called it delicious. The mammoths fought hard, but nothing that they were able to muster could stand up to the incredible power of the flaming spear. Any child who has played "Rock, Paper, Scissors, Flaming Scissors" can understand why the mammoths tusks were of little use against the mighty flaming spears. The human armies hunted the mammoths across Europe and into Asia. The mammoth tsar, seeing that defeat was inevitable, divided his army in two and sent half to the easternmost reaches of the Asian continent. Once there, these mammoths began work on a secret project to save their race, while the other half attempted to hold the ravenously hungry human army at bay in the west.

Despite the fact that the humans were armed with the ultimate weapon of the age, their struggle was by no means easy. Mammoths weighed 6-8 tons. That was a lot of meat. Though casualties were few, and mostly due to messing around with the spears and ruptured stomachs, the human army became increasingly fat as they marched eastward. This was further enervated by a shift in mammoth tactics. Instead of making fruitless attempts at goring, the mammoths had begun baking delicious dinner rolls and leaving them on candle-lit tables for the human armies. After gorging themselves on rolls, the human appetite for meat was found to be much diminished. Though the shift of mammoth tactics confused the human generals greatly, what happened next brought them to new heights of noncomprehension. One day there were suddenly no more mammoths. They had all just vanished, and no one could quite say where they had gone.

The human army marched east across Asia. They marched and marched. Still there were no mammoths. The mammoths had fled all the way to the edge of the land, to the sea, which the humans hated and feared. They had then constructed a huge land bridge spanning the Bering Straight and escaped to what was then known as the "New World." Though their original plan had been to destroy the land bridge after crossing it, they were easily excitable, and upon seeing the wide expanses of their new home, became distracted and frolicked away. This mistake led to their eventual extinction, as one particularly intrepid and hungry group of humans crossed the land bridge and continued to hunt the mammoths for many generations. These people shall forever be incorrectly remembered as the world's first sailors. Though the mammoths' existence on the new continent was relatively short lived, they did several things which ensured that their legacy would live on long after they were gone. Not least among these accomplishments was the establishment of a secret organization known as Skull and Bones.

Our Triumphant Escape from the Sea

Since the dawn of life on this planet, all manner of creatures have been struggling to get as far away from the ocean as possible. All life started in the ocean, and in the beginning, it wasn't such a bad place. Back then there wasn't nearly as much disgustingness in the water as there is today. There was also a good amount of space, seeing as how organisms were much smaller at the time. Whenever you or your neighbor defecated, or copulated, or died, you'd simply swim away to a less disgusting area.

Because some animals were greedy, they began to evolve into larger, more complex creatures. They began to develop eyes and whatnot. They wanted to see. They wanted to feel. Until their eyes had developed, none of the Earth's creature really had any idea of just how disgusting the sea had become, or what exactly a giant toilet looked like.

After they realized just what they were swimming in, the Earth's creatures began to feel a bit edgy, and sick, perhaps restless and sick (rick). Then one day some sea creature of one variety or another began to wonder whether the salty toilet of death was all that there really was to the world. This creature (let's call her "Betsy," and make her a her, since women are so under-represented in evolutionary history) postulated that perhaps there was something more.

For eons fish continued their miserable existence in the sea, dreaming of the day when they would swim up above the waters surface. The water became increasingly disgusting and toiletesque. Every once in a while a fish would "lose it" and leap out of the water onto the land. The fish would die in an ecstatic cleanliness unknown up until this point in its life.

Life continued in this fashion for a every long time until one day a fish with both a dream and a plan began his triumphant march into history. This fish, an ancestor of Jack La Lanne (A.K.A. "The Jack"), dreamt of living on the land like so many of his suicidal brothers. All of the other fish thought that he was crazy, and he was, crazy like a small shark (This is the underwater equivalent of a fox.).

This fish, Lil' Jacko, knew that he was not strong enough to survive on land. But he also knew that he could be, if he was committed enough. Lil' Jacko started training, then and there, to be all that he could be. He cut all refined sugar out of his diet. Every day for breakfast, Lil' Jacko would have an omelet with 6 egg whites and one yolk, and chocolate protein shake mix inside. This may sound gross, but keep in mind that everything in the ocean is covered in fish waste anyways, so nothing really tastes "good." Lil' Jacko would eat yoghurt with fruit as a mourning snack (whenever one of his friends died, which happened every morning between breakfast and lunch) and 6 gallons of fruit juice for lunch. For dinner Lil' Jacko would eat a salmon filet and a salad with 23/18ths of a glass of red wine. (Red wine does not go so well with fish, but keep in mind that steak was a rarity at this time.) He also took well over 837 vitamin supplement pills per day. To augment this, Lil' Jacko also lifted weights for twelve to fourteen hours a day and began to practice breathing air.

After years of training, Lil' Jacko developed a huge growth. The doctor had never seen anything like it before, and after he stopped screaming like a frightened child (this was one of the most unprofessional things that a that a physician could ever do, even then) he told Lil' Jacko that his life was likely at an end. Lil' Jacko was greatly disheatened by this disheartening news and decided to end his life, like so many others had done, on the land. So after saying goodbye to his wife, Betsy (not the one from before), and his son, Lil' Jacko Jr., Lil' Jacko set off on his final adventure.

Lil' Jacko swam to the shore and fought the current to crawl upon the land. For most fish the effort consumed much energy. But since Lil' Jacko was so damn ripped, he found it to be quite easy. Lil' Jacko then sat on the beach waiting for the end to come.

The end, however, did not come, not then at least. For Lil' Jacko's growth, as you have probably guessed, was a lung. Yes, Lil' Jacko had triumphed where so many others had failed! Lil' Jacko had grown a lung. Unfortunately, the land, while almost entirely crap and carcass free, was a desolate place. Lil' Jacko had found a sparkling paradise, where the rivers flowed with abundant fruit juice and the sky rained vitamin supplement pills (The cessation of these phenomena are what would eventually kill the dinosaurs). But is a paradise really a paradise when you are alone? Yes! Especially when compared to a giant crap-bucket. Lil' Jacko eventually died alone, but very clean and very happy.

While Lil' Jacko was unable to continue his line on land, he served as an example to later fish of just what could be accomplished with a dream and massive quantities of supplements. Eventually, due to the incredible amount of filth in the ocean, mutant freak fish were born with lungs not unlike Lil' Jacko's. Needless to say, they fled the sea immediately and propagated the animal species to the land.