Note. The term Found Goddess was created by Morgan Grey and Julia Penelope for their wonderful book, Found Goddesses: Asphalta to Viscera (New Victoria Publishers, 1980). I started Finding goddesses—Nerdix, Compuquia, Hostilia, and Whizziwig—when I was working on a Y2K project for a major corporation. I Found the other goddesses described here when I was writing a book on the subject, Finding New Goddesses (ECW Press, 2003). The newest goddesses are Fubar-Ma and Linker Bell, who have just now appeared. Well, maybe they’ve been standing around and/or hovering; I just got them down on paper.
Blandonia
(bland-ON-ya)
Goddess of Political Correctness
Blandonia is the only Goddess I know Who can take advantage of the Beings With Disabilities Act. First, Her vision is profoundly skewed. She can see only in black and white. She sees no shades of gray, no colors at all, and probably has tunnel vision. Second, although Her heart is often in the right place, it is sometimes a bleeding heart. And, third, Her funny bone (humerus) is broken. There is nothing humorous about Her. Her sense of humor totally atrophied. This is a Highly Serious Goddess.
We cannot fault Her for trying, however. She’s got the right idea, that we should not insult or defame other people. She just doesn’t know what to call anyone, and so She hyphenates everybody: African-American, Chinese-American, English-American, German-American, Native-American. . . .[1] And although men are forever boys, women are never girls. Short people are vertically-challenged, thin people are calorically-challenged, fat people are sveltely-challenged. People who can’t dance are Astairily-challenged, people who think they can’t drum are Richly-challenged, people who don’t like to read are bookwormily-challenged, people who don’t like vegetables are broccoli-challenged. Blandonia even corrects our job titles. Bus drivers are Large-Transportation-Multi-Passenger-Vehicle Motorpeople. Fairy Goodmothers are Ethereal-Material-Wish-Fulfillment-Manifestory Agents. Writers are Conceptual-Semantical-Syntactical-Manipulatative Scribalists.
How did poor Blandonia become so vilely afflicted? One story has it that when She was young and innocent She was attacked by a liberal parasite. If true, this might account for Her occasional knee-jerk and the bleeding heart.
I believe, however, that She suffered a schoolyard injury. After a hard day’s study of the Saga of Dick and Jane, She and Her little friends were preparing to walk home when they were stopped at the gate by a militant Political Theological Animosity (PTA) Ogre. This villainous Being laid a serious curse on poor Blandonia, the result of which was that ever since She has refused to eat anything but Spam sandwiches on white bread with mayonnaise, canned string beans, and generic vanilla ice cream. Receiving no nourishment, Her humorous atrophied. The dishumor soon spread throughout Her body, and She was never seen to have any fun again.
To this day, in fact, She has never tasted parody or irony. She tried nibbling at a pun once, but spat it out immediately, and the only limerick She ever tried made Her sick to her stomach. The one time She was persuaded to suck upon a fresh, sweet double-entendre, the taste left Her dyspeptic for forty days and forty nights. Poor Blandonia has never been able to digest any kind of Comic Relief.
I am, alas, unable to provide an invocation to Blandonia. She just wouldn’t get it.
Barbara Ardinger, Ph.D. (www.barbaraardinger.com), is the author of Pagan Every Day: Finding the Extraordinary in Our Ordinary Lives (RedWheel/Weiser, 2006), a unique daybook of daily meditations, stories, and activities. Her earlier books are Finding New Goddesses, Quicksilver Moon, Goddess Meditations, and Practicing the Presence of the Goddess. Her day job is freelance editing for people who don't want to embarrass themselves in print. Barbara lives in southern California. To purchase a signed copy of Finding New Goddesses, just send Barbara an email at bawriting@earthlink.net.