8 Insane Paul Jennings Stories That Ruined Your Life

The fox with grandfather eyes, the punk ghost, the boy covered in fingernails, the propeller penis... these books all taught us weird life lessons.

1. The one where a kid microwaves some underpants which make him incredibly strong but then they start shrinking and he ends up having to do the cross-country raced naked

Via buzzfeed.com

And then he puts the tiny magic underpants on a mouse and wins a bunch of money in a mouse race, so I guess the moral of the story is... magic underpants are always great?

2. A dentist tells the story about how he always wanted to be a garbage man, but then he discovered a bin full of super-toothpastes that was left outside by an old man who is testing the toothpaste on animals in order to create eternally clean teeth

Via d.gr-assets.com

In the end the old man accidentally uses the bin toothpaste and gets turned into a giant tooth, which the dentist uses to advertise his business, which I suppose makes good business sense.

3. In this one, two kids are trying to find some rubies, because who the hell doesn't like rubies? However the complication is that seagulls won't stop pooping on them.

Via images.tvrage.com

The best stories are the ones that are super relatable. I suppose this one is about overcoming obstacles?

4. There is a story called 'Frozen Stiff' about an old man who keeps dead animals frozen in a giant ice factory and he is somehow the hero of the story?

Via stig.com.au

Don't be mean to animals, but do keep dead ones in elaborate ice museums.

5. In this one, the most important part might seem to be the shower of poop, which Round The Twist included in their adaptation, actually the story was mostly about finding an opal which a goat stole from a man who wears paper all the time.

Via buzzfeed.com

"Like searching for an opal in a shower of goat poop" is a phrase that I have used.

6. According to Wikipedia, the protagonist of this story has three problems: One, he has never seen his mother; two, he is forced to watch his father die; and three, he has nails growing all over him.

Via gemm.com

Don't have parents? It's cool, you might be a mer-man.

7. In Grandad's Gifts, the protagonist finds a dead, taxidermied fox, and then feeds it lemons which slowly bring it back to life, which is heartwarming! But then the last lemons contain his grandfather's eyes, which the fox eats and it is a legion of nooooo

Via i.stack.imgur.com

This one taught me to fear lemons, foxes and granddads in that order.

8. OK, so there's a story called Pubic Hare, which is about a kid who gets pubic hair before every other kid and is embarrassed about it, but consequently learns to move things with his mind.

Via d.gr-assets.com

There is a hare involved, otherwise it wouldn't be a good pun, but I can't remember how, but most importantly, this story taught me what pubic hair was, so this was actually pretty useful. Thanks, Paul Jennings!

9. OH WOW, the story called No is Yes, where a creepy dad teaches his daughter all the wrong words for things, like sugar is salt and up is down, and then it's heavily implied that he burns to death because she can't communicate to the fire fighters properly

Via blogger.com

special thanks to @amelia_lush for reminding me of that one, special bonus ninth story.