Don't Give Me Any Static

Hermes lounged on his cloud-throne in Olympus, twirling his caduceus like a baton and sporting the mischievous grin that had made him the god of tricksters. Recently, Zeus had been particularly pompous—even by Zeus standards—boasting about his lightning bolts at every divine dinner party.

"My lightning never misses," he'd proclaim, zapping random clouds for emphasis while the other gods politely applauded.

"Time to knock the old thunderer down a peg," Hermes muttered, hatching what he considered his masterpiece of pranks.

The plan was simple: replace Zeus's precious lightning bolts with rubber replicas that squeaked when thrown. He'd enlisted the help of Hephaestus, who'd crafted perfect rubber duplicates in exchange for Hermes' promise to stop replacing his hammer with increasingly ridiculous objects (last week it had been a rubber chicken, the week before that, a banana that played "Dancing Queen" when swung).

Before executing his master plan, Hermes had done what he considered thorough research—which mainly consisted of watching mortal YouTube videos about rubber and electricity while eating ambrosia popcorn.

"Rubber doesn't conduct electricity," he'd mumbled around a mouthful of divine snacks.

"What could possibly go wrong?"

The execution seemed flawless. While Zeus took his afternoon nap—drooling slightly and muttering about swan costumes—Hermes snuck into the lightning vault. He'd disabled the security system (a very grumpy three-headed dog who was easily distracted by celestial bacon treats) and swapped the bolts. Cerberus, the aforementioned guard dog, was now sprawled on his back, all three heads snoring in different octaves, surrounded by empty bacon wrappers.

What Hermes hadn't counted on was that rubber, being an excellent insulator, would cause the divine electricity to build up rather than discharge. He also hadn't anticipated that Zeus would choose that exact day to host an impromptu demonstration for some visiting Norse gods—a delegation that had arrived specifically because Thor had been trash-talking Greek lightning on Godstagram.

The great hall of Olympus was packed with immortals. Thor was there, polishing his hammer and looking unimpressed, occasionally posting updates like "Zeus still preparing. Probably performance anxiety. #ThunderGodProblems."

Odin was making small talk with Athena about the pros and cons of trading one eye for wisdom, while Loki sat in the corner taking notes on everyone's weaknesses and occasionally transforming other gods' drinks into snakes just for fun.

Hera had insisted on making it a formal event, complete with ambrosia hors d'oeuvres and nectar cocktails. Dionysus was running the open bar, mixing drinks with names like "Thunderstruck" and "Zeus's Revenge"—the latter of which would prove ironically prophetic.

Zeus stood up, clearing his throat dramatically.

"Behold, my fellow deities, the unmatched power of Greek lightning!"

He reached for his bolt, wound up like a baseball pitcher, and hurled it at a designated target cloud.

The rubber bolt flew through the air with all the majesty of a squeaky toy, emitting a high-pitched "meep" as it went. Zeus froze, his face turning the color of ambrosia gone bad. But that wasn't the worst part.

All the stored-up lightning, with nowhere else to go, decided to take the path of least resistance—straight up Zeus's toga. His hair stood on end, his beard frizzed out like a dandelion, and small sparks began shooting from his ears.

"Son of a Titan!" Zeus yelped, doing what could only be described as an interpretive dance of electrical discharge.

His toga began smoking, and small lightning bolts shot from his fingers, causing random outbursts of divine chaos. Aphrodite's perfect hair turned into a static-electricity nightmare. Apollo's sun chariot short-circuited, temporarily giving the mortal world disco lighting. Dionysus's wine turned to champagne, which honestly wasn't the worst outcome.

The Norse gods were beside themselves. Thor's thunderous laughter shook the columns of Olympus. Loki had produced a phone from somewhere and was livestreaming the whole thing to GodTube. Odin stroked his beard thoughtfully and muttered something about chaos being good for character development.

Athena, ever practical, was already drafting a proposal for lightning bolt safety regulations. Ares, meanwhile, had started taking bets on how long it would take Zeus to figure out who was responsible. The odds were not in Hermes' favor.

Hermes, watching from behind a column, realized he had perhaps slightly miscalculated. He was about to make a strategic retreat when he felt a tingling sensation. Looking down, he noticed he was starting to glow with stored electricity.

"Father," he called out nervously, "I may have made a tiny mistake—"

The resulting explosion of divine electricity created a light show that mortals would talk about for centuries, though most chalked it up to an unusually enthusiastic aurora borealis. When the smoke cleared, every god in the hall looked like they'd stuck their finger in a cosmic socket.

Zeus, his dignity somewhat singed, fixed his son with a glare that could have boiled the Mediterranean.

"Hermes," he said with dangerous calm, "would you care to explain?"

"Would you believe me if I said it was a team-building exercise?" Hermes offered weakly.

The punishment was creative, even by divine standards. For the next century, Hermes was assigned to be Zeus's personal hairstylist, responsible for maintaining the king of gods' now perpetually static-prone hair. And every time he touched Zeus's head, he got a small shock—just enough to make him yelp and remember that sometimes the best pranks are the ones you don't pull.

But the story didn't end there. The incident had unexpected ripple effects throughout Olympus. The rubber lightning bolts found a new home in Olympus's gift shop, where they became bestsellers among minor deities with a sense of humor. Thor bought a dozen, declaring them "absolutely perfect" for pranking Odin.

Hephaestus, inspired by the chaos, started a side business creating novelty divine weapons. His "Poseidon's Pool Noodle" and "Hades' Squeaky Pitchfork" became instant classics at godly gag gifts exchanges.

As for Zeus, he eventually saw the humor in the situation—about three centuries later. He even started ending his lightning demonstrations with one rubber bolt, though he never admitted it was intentional.

The static in his beard, however, never quite went away, and on quiet nights, you can still hear Hermes yelping as he attempts to tame the divine frizz, learning the hard way that some pranks have very, very long-lasting consequences.

The incident even made it into the official Olympian Chronicles, filed under "Reasons Why We Now Have a No-Rubber-Products-Near-Divine-Weapons Policy" and "Why Hermes Is No Longer Allowed to Watch YouTube Unsupervised."