“I don’t know, Hermes,” Hephaestus said. “Maybe I just shouldn’t go.”


I expected he would say it sooner or later. He'd been trying to subtly back out since we first got in the car. But I wasn't about to turn around now, when the puffy white clouds that held Olympus up were in sight (much nicer than the interstate scenery in the Underworld, which was pretty much just lava and people getting eaten by Cerberus). We were basically there already.


“C’mon!” I exclaimed in response. “You can’t tell me you’re not excited about this. Dionysus is gonna be there.”


“All things considered, I’m really not in the mood for him right now. Or for any of them, really.”


“But it’s not just them Zeus is inviting. There’s gonna be all the gods from all the religions. How long have I been saying we need to hang out more with Jesus?”


“Can’t stand him.”


“Are you kidding!? Jesus is like the sweetest guy ever. All that flowery 'love thy neighbor' stuff, and he’s always got wine on him. Dionysus loves him.”


“That’s because Dionysus has a serious alcohol problem.”


“It’s not a problem if it makes you awesome. How about Ra? I hang out with him all the time. He'd love you."


"Come on, just let me get out and hitch a way home. I’m not up for this right now.”


“We’re almost there, Hephaestus. You need to come out of your shell.”


“Aphrodite’s gonna be there. I don’t want to see her. Or Ares."


“Look, the reason this breakup is so hard is because you aren’t getting angry. Why not? She cheated on you.”


“It wasn’t anyone’s fault.”


“Oh, screw that! It was entirely her fault!”


“We didn’t have a choice in getting married. Zeus made her do it.”


“And you were awesome. All you ever did was be nice to her.”


“Then why’d this happen?”


“Because she’s shallow. What other reason could she have? None of the Olympians are as cool as you. She never realized it because she only cares about what’s on the outside.”


“And outside, I really don’t have much to offer.”


“That doesn’t matter. Would you stop eating Doritos just because the bag looked ugly?”


“So, in this scenario, I’m an ugly Doritos bag?”


“You know what I mean. Go to Athena if you want a cooler analogy.”


“I guess it would be kinda nice to hang out with Athena.”


“That’s the spirit! You could get in touch with Vulcan too. Maybe even the other Roman gods.”


He looked at me in confusion, and then we both chuckled.


“The Roman gods are just the generic versions of us,” he said. “If I were a box of Goldfish at a store, Vulcan would be the plain white box next to me that said 'cheese-flavored fish crackers.'"


We started laughing.


“I’ve got an idea!" I said. "We could pull a prank on Vulcan and Mercury.”


He smiled at me, interested. “Wanna do the rug thing? Where we make a hole to the Underworld and cover it with a fancy rug?”


“I was thinking something along the lines of what you did to get back at Hera.”


“Ha! She was so pissed. I knew she would want to sit on the throne, and I had plenty of that industrial strength crazy glue. Took her days to get out. Zeus couldn’t even zap her off.”


“Didn’t Jesus send you that glue as a Christmas present? See? He’s not so bad.”


“Eh. Fair enough. He’s still a great big hippy.”


“If you’re up for it, we could prank Aphrodite or Ares. Athena might even help us out with that.”


“Maybe next time. If you’re feeling particularly stupid, we could do something to Zeus.”


“Definitely not. He’d see it coming. He could care less if I steal a goat again, but last time I did the Underworld rug prank on him, he didn’t take it well. Maybe we could get someone else’s input? Eris is coming to this one.”


“I’d rather not pull a prank that results in another ‘biggest war in human history’. That whole Trojan War thing got a little out of hand. Speaking of which, why did you help out the Greeks when it happened?"


“Odysseus was a distant relative. To help out the Trojans, I would’ve had to go through a lot of red tape.”


“And to think, the whole ordeal could have been avoided if Zeus had just sent Eris an invitation to that party. Regardless, sometimes I wish I'd made some magical armor for Hector instead of Achilles."


"Why did he need armor anyway? It's not like they could have killed him if he didn’t have it."


"Wasn’t my call. I owed Zeus a favor after the throne debacle. In the end, it didn’t do anyone much good. Achilles or Patroclus. Are they coming to the party? So far I've avoided any awkward encounters with them."


"Stop worrying about who you don't want to see. Think about all the awesome gods and heroes who'll be there. I'm gonna try to hit on Helen."


"Seriously? We're gods. Mortal girls are beneath us. Even I think that and my self esteem is as valuable as a screen door on a submarine."


"Okay, mister standards, who do you have in mind?"


"I don't know. How about someone out of our mythology? Like Kali from the Hindu religion."


"Oh, believe me, I've tried. She is definitely not interested. Let's find someone for you too."


"What? Like who?"


"Last time I got together with Ra and watched Family Guy, he told me Isis was into you. She's cute."


"You're making that up."


"No I'm not. Why is that so hard to believe?"


"Other that the obvious reasons, Egyptian gods only ever go out with Egyptian gods."


"She's in the mood for something new. She thinks you're a nice guy."


He sighed.


"Come on," I said. "Don't let Aphrodite get to you. Stop sulking around and let yourself be happy. I'll be your wingman. And if you wanna leave, we'll leave."


"Even if Siff from the Norse religion shows up? I know you've wanted to seal the deal with her for a while."


"Ah, screw it. There'll be other chances."


He smiled at me. "Alright. I'll go. But only if we start a fight while we're there."


I laughed. "You thinking Hercules versus Thor finally?"


"Seriously? That's not a fight. That's Hercules running scared and pissing his pants."


"Clearly you've never seen Hercules kill something. If you think Hera gave us a hard time, you wouldn’t believe what she put him through. She hated that kid. His whole adolescence was fighting monsters that she sent after him."


"Thor has that hammer that no one else can lift. All he'd have to do is set it down on Hercules and he'd be completely helpless."


"I saw the Tooth Fairy kick his *ss once. Contrary to popular belief, he's really tough."


"Don’t be ridiculous. Everyone knows the Tooth Fairy doesn’t exist. Idiot."