One day long, long again in ancient Greece, Zeus dropped by to visit his son, Heracles. He took the form of a bear or a wombat or a rock or something. Mythologists aren’t quite certain. It was probably a bird, though, so let’s just go with a goose.
“You do far too much sitting around,” honked the Zeus goose. “You need something to do.”
Heracles, a sassy teen at the time, answered with a sigh.
“I’ve got stuff to do,” he said, thumbing down through his Twitter feed on his phone.
“Not enough, apparently.”
“How would you even know. You’re, like, barely even here.”
That really ruffled Zeus’ feathers. Literally, in this case.
“Now see here,” he said, taking a second to preen his feathers before continuing. “Whether you like it or not, I am your father. And when I speak, you will listen.”
Heracles sighed again and looked up from his phone.
“I have created for you thirteen tasks,” Zeus said. He motioned with his wing, and a series of scrolls, each rolled and sealed with a dab of wax, appeared before Heracles. “Each scroll contains one objective you must complete. When you have done so for all of them, you will have become a man in my eyes and may join me in the pantheon of gods.”
The young man scoffed.
“Really, Dad? Scrolls? Can’t you just DM me the list?”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“You wouldn’t,” Heracles said and returned to his phone.
Mythologists say a lengthy argument continued from here. In the end, this battle of stubborn insistence versus stubborn indifference ended with Heracles reluctantly agreeing to complete the tasks, but only if Zeus promised to delay his curfew to 1 a.m. on weekends and stop randomly checking his Internet browser history.
So, one by one, Heracles tackled the 13 tasks, each more annoying than the last. He had to kill the Nemean Lion, Stymphalian Birds and the hyrda; he had to shovel mountains of dung from Augeas’ nasty stables; and he had to fetch Cerberus back from Uncle Hades, who stole the multi-headed pooch when he and Zeus were heavily embroiled in some kind of disagreement over property.
One after the other, Heracles begrudgingly completed his tasks, only breaking to periodically share his misery with his Instagram followers.
But then he hit No. 13. He unrolled the parchment and read it with disdain.
“Choose an appropriate name for your unborn daughter,” he read. “Ugh.”
Now, Heracles had never even considered having kids, let alone naming one. He first consulted several popular baby-naming sites, but couldn’t find a combination of first and middle names that sounded satisfactory to his ears. For days, he marched around Greece mumbling names to himself. None felt comfortable.
Heracles turned to the gods to aid in his quest, but found their opinions of what constituted a respectable name for a child to be far too varied. All of Apollo’s suggestions seemed pretentious, and Ares’ were all too blunt. Aphrodite’s were a little too … how to put this delicately … risque for Heracles’ liking, and all Hermes offered were ridiculous gag names like Apple Blythe or Pilot Inspector or Blanket. Those who didn’t offer their own awful suggestions turned their noses up at the ones Heracles had been considering. Although he possessed strength to capture the Erymanthian Boar and wits enough to remove the Amazon queen Hippolyta’s girdle, Heracles was incapable of counting the number of times someone answered his suggestions with, “You don’t want to name a child that.”
Heracles was stuck. After whipping through the first twelve tasks like Cetus through a Trireme, it seemed the last would best him. He returned to his father humbled and ashamed.
Zeus, lounging around Mount Olympus in the form of a giraffe, nodded his long neck knowingly.
“I figured that last one might trip you up, son,” he said. “Names can be tough.”
“So what do you suggest?” Heracles asked his father.
Zeus shrugged.
“I don’t,” he said. “I think you just have to go with your heart, regardless of what others think. Besides, in the end, it doesn’t even matter. Regardless of her name, people are going to call the kid whatever the heck they want.”
“Is that why everybody calls me Hercules, Dad?”
Zeus flashed two rows of gigantic teeth and patted his son on the shoulder with his hoof.
“No, son. That’s just ignorance.”
For the first time in forever, father and son laughed together.
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