Melvin's Palmless Sunday

Now the feast of Passover was about to begin, and as Jesus and his disciples neared Jerusalem, they stopped upon the mount of Olives. Then the lazy carpenter, who walked everywhere, suddenly decided his feet were too tired to go on. He sent two of his followers to a nearby village to filch a donkey colt for him to sit on.

Andrew asked him, "Master, are you about to preach to the crowds* again?"

"And if you get caught by the owners," Jesus continued, ignoring him, "give them this loaf of bread that I made, and tell them, 'The Lord kneads it.' That will satisfy them, and by the time they realize it is leavened, and they can not eat it during the feast, we'll be long gone."

The disciples returned with the colt and its mother, saying, "This colt has never been ridden and is very unruly, so we brought the mother as well." They laid their cloaks upon both of them, unsure which Jesus would attempt to sit upon. For a time, he sat on both of them, but straightway discovered this would not work.

Arising from the ground between them, he dusted himself off and said to his followers, "No man can sit on two asses, for he will hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot sit on both Lenore and Sanda." By this, he meant the colt, whose name was Sanda, and its mother, Lenore. (Named, it was supposed, for the sound of her braying.)

Deciding at last that the prophecy of Zechariah would best be fulfilled by him sitting upon the colt, he did so.

For it is written, "Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey."

And as they came down the mountainside, he held on to the mother's mane for balance. Seeing that her mane was quite tangled and full of burrs and bits of straw, he began to remove them, gently combing his fingers through her hair.

And the colt upon which he rode began to trot recklessly down the hill, getting ahead of his mother, and nearly spilling Jesus onto the ground yet again. So the crowd that went ahead of Jesus, and those who followed, began to shout, "Whoa, Sanda! Bested is he who combs in the mane of Lenore! Whoa, Sanda, to the summit native!"

At last, the party came to rest in the valley below. There by the roadside, a wise seller of melons had placed his fruit stand. And he was calling out to any who would listen, "Behold, the sun is hot, but my produce is cool--and so are my prices! Come, buy your fresh melons at Melvin's Melons! Remember, buying local is a mitzvah!"

Jesus dismounted and began to peruse Melvin's merchandise.

And the son of the carpenter cried out in a loud voice, "Eighteen shekels for a honeydew?! Hath not my Father spoken in the Law: Thou shalt not steal? Thou wicked purveyor of second-rate fruit! Who shall save you from the coming wrath?"

Having said this, he shoved his sandaled foot through the side of Melvin's fruit stand and overturned his box of change.

"Second-rate?!" Melvin shrieked, "I suppose you think you could find a better deal inside the temple courts?"

And Jesus answering, saith unto him, "Verily, I say unto thee, if I cannot, I'll wreck the whole place myself!"

With that, he mounted Sanda and goaded the colt up the hill. Melvin was very angry and would have seized him, but he could not, for his time had not yet come. His replacement wouldn't arrive for another two hours.

When they entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up and asked, "Who is this that keeps falling off the donkey's colt?"

And the crowds replied, "This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee."

And Melvin saith unto them -- the next shift workers having finally arrived, half an hour late, and their wages were docked accordingly, "Nazareth? Ha! Nothing good comes from Nazareth!  Not only did he not buy anything from me, but neither did that bunch of fishermen with him! He's more of a NON-profit, if you ask me!"
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*This is probably a reference to this pericope.