The Most Honest Person Of All Time
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His name was Earl Krutchins, and he was the most honest person of all time, due to some very unusual circumstances that will be described herein.
Earl was born to parents who hated each other. They only ever agreed on ONE THING. That one thing was Earl.
For the first few years of his life, Earl had no idea that he would end up becoming the most honest person to ever walk planet earth. He only told four lies in his life. The first lie was told in kindergarten (and it was the first time that Earl realized that he was...different).
Lie #1
The teacher stood in front of her students, holding a corkscrew. "Nobody is to touch this corkscrew, understand?" she asked the students, "I'm going out a few minutes to have a meeting with the school principle and his brothers. I'll be back soon. NOBODY TOUCH THE CORKSCREW!!!" She put the corkscrew on her desk and walked out of the room, unzipping her pants as she went.
Earl looked around at his fellow students, then down at his desk. He wanted to carve his initials in to the desk. SO, he got up, walked up to the teacher's desk, grabbed her corkscrew, brought it back to HIS desk, and carved EC in to it.
"I thought your last name started with a K!" said his best friend Mike.
"Oh, yeah," said Earl, "DRAT!"
Out of frustration, Earl threw the corkscrew across the room, where it broke in to ten thousand pieces.
"You're in trouble now!" said Mike.
The teacher walked back in to the room and saw the remains of her corkscrew on the floor.
"THAT CORKSCREW WAS A FAMILY HEIRLOOM!!" she said tearfully, "Which of you little BOOGERS broke my corkscrew?"
The students unilaterally pointed at Earl.
"Earl?" said the teacher, "Did you smash my corkscrew? You can be honest with me. I won't torture you. Much."
Earl, in a panic, said "No ma'am, of COURSE I didn't break your corkscrew! I didn't even TOUCH it!"
The minute the lie escaped his lips, the teacher began to look pale. Then, she screamed as a pale liquid poured out of her ears on to the desk. It poured out for about a minute, then she fell down on to the classroom floor.
"What the heck just happened?" said Mike.
Earl was still in shock. "I think her brain melted and poured out of her ears," he said, staring at the pail, lifeless body of his teacher.
Lie #2
This incident left Earl very frightened. He thought it unlikely that his lie had triggered the teacher's death. But what if it had? What if being dishonest to her had actually killed her?
Then, as he reached teenage years, he learned the truth about reproduction. That's when he came up with an alternative theory of the teacher's death. He explained the theory to his best friend Mike while they sat in the school cafeteria eating lunch.
"Clearly," Earl said to Mike, "That teacher left the classroom to have sex with the school principle. She must have caught an STD from him! And THAT'S why her brain poured out of her ears! My lie had nothing to do with it! It was just a coincidence!"
"Whatever, dude," said Mike, "I think you're scared to admit that it was your lie that killed her. I'm gonna go buy a sprite."
Mike wandered off, leaving his half-eaten meal at the table with Earl.
Earl eyed Mike's plate. The sandwich that Mike had been eating looked so delicious. It had chocolate syrup in it. Earl was obsessed with chocolate. He was addicted to it. He couldn't resist the allure of the chocolate sandwich...
"I'll just have one bite," he announced, "Only one. Mike will never notice!"
He picked up the sandwich and took a hurried bite out of it. It was delicious. He then dropped it back on Mike's plate just as Mike sat back down.
"Dude," said Mike, watching Earl chewing, "You took a bite of my sandwich."
Earl swallowed and then said, "No I didn't! You're my best friend, why would I steal from you? I didn't touch the sandwich."
Suddenly, Mike grew very pale. Then, his head began to swell. It grew and it grew until it was the size of a boulder. And it kept growing. Mike's eyes, now the size of dinner plates, looked at Earl in horror. Earl stared at his friend, too scared to move or do anything.
Mike's head was now the size of a car. Suddenly, Mike's entire body melted in one instant. The puddle then burst in to flames. Then an asteroid flew through the window and smashed the flaming puddle.
Mike was dead. VERY dead.
Earl ate the rest of Mike's sandwich.
Then he stumbled out of the school, never to return.
The Most Honest Person of All Time
It was then that Earl realized exactly what his problem was. He couldn't lie. If he did, the person he lied to would die in some grotesque way.
"Cool!" he said.
"I've got to tell the truth to everybody, no matter what!" he said.
And so he did.
When he did interviews for college, he truthfully told the admissions officers that he had never read a book in his life.
When he applied for his first job, he truthfully told his future boss that he was only applying to Mcdonald's because it was within walking distance of his apartment.
When he was dating girls, he never concealed anything about himself--instead, he lay his soul out on a dinner table for them to examine and dissect, concealing nothing, hiding nothing, and not attempting to paint himself as anything else other than Earl Krutchins, World's Most Honest Man.
He soon started to make it in to news reports around the world. Headlines blared: "MEET Earl Krutchins: The Most Honest Man of All Time!!!"
He was adored all around the world. He didn't have the heart to tell anybody that he was only being honest because he had to. He wasn't doing it out of the goodness of his heart or the kindness of his soul--he was doing it because he didn't want to murder anybody. Therefore, by Earl's reasoning, there was nothing remarkable about him, just like there's nothing remarkable about a man who chooses not to buy a gun and shoot half his neighborhood. "Choosing not to kill people is a matter of common decency", Earl thought, "So I'm no more unique than anybody on this rock of a planet."
But he didn't tell any reporters about WHY he was so honest.
Until the Oprah interview.
Oprah asked him, flat-out, "Why are you so honest? I lie all the time. It's fun. Why give up lying? What motivated you?"
Earl had no choice but to tell the truth. After all, if he lied, he'd not only kill Oprah, he'd kill everyone watching the interview on TV. So he told the truth. "I am honest because, if I lie to somebody, they die. In first grade, I told a lie to my teacher, and her brain melted. In high school, I lied to my best friend, and his whole body melted after his head grew to the size of a car. I'm honest because I have to be honest."
"I'm sorry, sir," said Oprah, "This story is far too interesting for my show. I'm gonna interview a middle-class housewife who lost thirty pounds now. Get out of my studio."
Earl, feeling slightly confused, but nonetheless relieved that Oprah didn't make him tell any more unpleasant truths, walked out of the TV studio.
It was that night that he was approached by the military for the very first time.
He was about to go to bed when someone knocked on his door. He opened it, and before him stood a tall soldier with graying hair and prominent sideburns. The military man swept in to the room without a word and sat on Earl's couch.
Earl sat down beside the man and said, "Can I help you?"
"Yes, you can," said the man, "But more importantly, you can help America. And more importantly than that, you can help my paycheck. Allow me to introduce myself. I'm General Sideburns."
"Pleased to meet you. So, what is it you want me to do?"
"I watched your Oprah interview. I was fascinated by the fact that you can kill people simply by lying to them."
"It's actually a bit of an emotional burden. I'm always worried that I might accidentally lie to somebody."
"We at the U.S. Military are very interested in using your little...uh...quirk....as a weapon."
"What?"
"We want to use you. We want to use your lies. We want you to work for us." The general took out a cigarrete and ate it.
"Did you just eat a cigarrette?" asked Earl in disgust.
"It gets the niccotine in to my bloodstream faster," said the General, crunching on a second cigarrette. "But we're not talking about me. We're talking about YOU. All I want to do is bring you to a known group of terrorists, so you can lie to them. That way, all the terrorists will die, and the world will be safer. And the government will pay me more, because I'll have helped win the war on terror."
"Who are these terrorists you want me to kill?"
"It doesn't matter! Terrorists are terrorists!"
"I don't know if I'm comfortable with this..."
"Not comfortable with killing evil, satanic, ARABIC terrorists? These people want to eat babies, destroy freedom, and burn America!"
"Okay, okay, I'll do it. Where are the terrorists?"
"I'll take you to them!"
The general led Earl in to a giant truck. The general was excited about killing terrorists, and Earl was preparing to tell the third lie of his life.
Lie #3
They drove for five minutes, then parked outside a Burger King, where a group of fifty vegetarians were protesting Burger King's "Duckling Salad."
"THESE are the terrorists?" asked Earl.
"Hell yeah!" said the general, "Look at them with their colorful t-shirts and their long hair, and their hateful signs. Burger King is a perfectly peaceful business, and these evil, God-hating, freedom-crushing people want to put it out of business."
"They're just vegetarian protestors. I thought you wanted me to kill ACTUAL terrorists! As in, crazy guys who kill innocent people."
"Yeah, well these people are basically terrorists. Just kill them. If you tell a lie to them, the United States Military will buy you a mansion the size of a small country."
Earl felt his resolve weaken. "A mansion?"
"A mansion. And we'll never make you lie again. Kill fifty measly terrorists, and you can retire in peace. We'll never ask you to do work for us again."
Earl felt his resolve weaken some more. "Never again?"
"Never. Also, we'll buy you a lifetime supply of chocolate."
That did it. Earl grabbed a megaphone, opened the door, and bellowed to the vegetarians, "Hey! Guys! The sky is GREEN!"
The vegetarians all coughed up their own lungs, then exploded.
"Well done, Earl," said the general, "Your mission is complete. I'll get you the house and the chocolate first thing tomorrow morning."
Lie #4
Two years later, Earl was living in a house so large that it took five weeks to walk from one side to the other. The military had kept its promise. He had a massive mansion AND a lifetime supply of chocolate. He had an infinite supply of servants who served him barrels of wine and plates of steak, twenty four hours a day. But the wine made him think of the corkscrew he broke, and the brains of his teacher pouring over a desk. And the chocolate made him think of the sandwich he stole, and Mike's head inflating like a balloon. And the meat made him think of the vegetarians exploding like fireworks in the Burger King parking lot.
He looked at himself in the mirror and thought of the things he had done, the lies he had told, and the damage he had inflicted. "But I have everything I ever wanted!" he said to his reflection. His reflection didn't look convinced. "It's true!" he told his doubtful reflection, "I might have made some mistakes along the way, but I got what I wanted in the end. I have a nice, huge mansion, I have servants, I have lots of chocolate...I might have lied a few times, I might have done a few bad things, but it's okay because now I'm happy. Yes, I am a very happy person." He died on the spot.
The military ceremonially removed his body, and buried it behind the outhouse in his backyard. Since he had never had children, his house was given to the CEO of Burger King.
So ended the life of Earl Krutchins, the most honest person of all time.