Lately I've been reminded of why I love the Three Stooges, and have been kind of overindulging myself in gratuitous slapstick violence. For some weird reason, Moe is my favorite, despite the crankiness and abuse; I think it's because I understand him. We're both kind of grumpy people annoyed with the stupidity of others, but if we're truly honest with ourselves we can be just as dumb as everyone else. And sorry for the overly long monologue, but I wanted to use that to explain why this little bit of introspection is from Moe's point of view.

Enjoy, if this is your sort of thing.

If it's not, then why the heck are you reading this?


Sometimes Moe wondered why he continued hanging around with these idiots.

They caused him no end of trouble, and it seemed like every time he turned around they were making him angry with their unceasing screwiness and incompetence. They never seemed able to keep a steady job, and there were days when he thought if he had to hear one more "nyuk nyuk nyuk" or see that mop of porcupine hair he'd totally lose it.

It was almost enough to make him think about calling it quits with them and striking out on his own.

Except…

Except that it wasn't that simple.


Guys like them, they were basically the loneliest guys in the world.

They had nobody to care about, and nobody who cared about them, because everyone else had their own homes and families to look after, and didn't want to worry about a group of homeless bums like them.

So with nobody else to take care of them, they had to to take care of each other-it only stood to reason, didn't it?

Besides, in a really weird way, the three men needed each other.

Curly certainly needed someone else around; he was a nice enough guy, but never mind the fact that he was Moe's brother, it would be more or less an act of cruelty to expect that big dope to look after himself.

And while Larry, who might as well be their brother, at least had enough sense to make sure neither he nor Curly would outright starve, he was just so...lazy about everything.

He didn't seem to have any drive to get things done, or any ambitions whatsoever.

No desire to make things better than they could be.


Moe had ambition.

He was driven by a burning, constant desire to kick society in the teeth and show it that they weren't just three useless vagrants who would never amount to anything; they were a corporation, and one day the world would see how great they really were. Whether or not he was the smartest one of the bunch, he was unquestionably meant to be their leader.

Together, they made up a fully functioning human being, more or less.

And also, despite how annoyed he got with them or how much they had to put up with from him, Larry and Curly always seemed to trust him to look after them.

When he was in trouble, who did Curly call out for first?

"Hey Moe! Hey Larry!"

Who did they look to for the decisions about what they were going to do now?

Moe.

And at night, who was often in the middle with the other two kind of snuggled against him?

Moe.


It didn't make a lot of sense, considering the amount of chaos and mayhem that occurred wherever they went together.

But Larry and Curly needed him.

And, if he were truly honest with himself...Moe needed them too.

It felt good to be responsible for these jugheads, and to protect them from the cruel, unfeeling world.

It felt good to not be alone.

But if you told them he'd said that, he'd tear your tonsils out and shove them in your eye.


P.S. Kudos to anyone who catches the literary reference I made.