The Everyday Life of Zeus

It is so hard to be me. You would not believe how stressful my life is, with my wife always nagging me and my kids always fighting, I ought to win a trophy and become "Dad Of The Year", but no. I just get more complaints and nagging.

My wife always moans on about how unnoticed and unloved she feels, just because I had kids with a couple thousand other woman doesn't mean she's not my true love, but she always tells me how any man would say that and how I don't really listen to her, but before she can go on I fire up my ipod and shout over the music "What's that, dear? I can't hear you." Hera will usually just slap me and move on.

The kids are always complaining. "Dad, Hermes stole my cows again." "Dad, Apollo is hitting on my hunters again." "Dad, Ares is being an idiot again," And so on and so forth. Hey, I don't mean to complain but seriously, do I look like a supreme god who can do almost anything by waving my hand here? Well, you know what I mean.

Today was a day just like any other. I got up out of bed and went to the kitchen. Hermes and Athena were at the kitchen table fighting over a box of Lucky Charms.

"Come on!" shouted Hermes, pulling on the box. "I didn't get enough hourglass marshmallows!"

"They're just hourglasses!" shouted Athena, "and I haven't gotten nearly enough balloon marshmallows! Do you want me to go through the day without my recommended filling of balloon marshmallows?"

"If it gets me my hourglasses, then yes," said Hermes.

"Kids," I sighed, "sharing is caring, and if you don't start caring about each other, then Gaia help me I will ground you for a century."

"Fine," said Athena, crossing her arms. "I'll be the mature one here. Hermes, you can have your dumb hourglasses."

Hermes smiled and began pouring cereal.

I sighed and ordered one of my invisible servants to grill up some pancakes, and went into the living room. I sat down in my easy chair and pulled out the Olympian Times and read about how good the ratings were for the Percy channel on Hephaestus TV. Great, now my nephew's going to get a big head. My pancakes were delivered just then. As I ate them, I remembered the horrifying news about today: I had a marriage counseling session with Hera. Drat, I hate marriage counseling. Our counselor is a woman who might as well join Artemis's hunters; because she thinks that men are the root of all evil and that I am their leader (although I technically am).

Hera walked into the room. "Hey, honey! Do you know what today is?"

I sighed. "Marriage counseling."

"Exactly!" she said.

Why is she always so perky? I got up and mumbled something about how happy I was we were going through this, which was a lie, of course, and left the room. "We're leaving in two hours!" called Hera after me.

As I left, Hermes threw down an hourglass marshmallow and shouted "Marshmallow Power!"

"You know that you can't really control time with those things, right?" said Athena.

"Aww man!" said Hermes, "false advertising!"

Athena rolled her eyes, "Why is my life cursed with idiots," she muttered as she got up and put some bread in a toaster.

I went into the garden, and since it was summertime Demeter and Persephone were out there gardening. Demeter grew some instant baby's breath while Persephone grew some pomegranates, her favorite fruit.

"Hey, Demeter," I said glumly.

Demeter stood up and studied me. "Someone looks sad today. Marriage counseling?"

I nodded sadly.

"I'm so sorry," said Persephone.

I left the girls to their gardening and found Apollo. "Hey, dad," he said, "I was wondering if I could borrow some money. I need to refill my sun chariot with gas, and the prices these days are going through the roof!"

"Son," I said, "If you want to keep that chariot of yours you're going to have to be able to pay for it."

"But dad!" he whined, "It's not my fault that the mortals are using up all of the fuel. They are so inconsiderate of us Olympians!"

"Well look on the bright side," I said, "maybe in a few millennia they'll evolve into something with worthy intelligence!"

Apollo laughed, "Yeah, sure dad."

I decided to leave before Apollo remembered that he wanted some money and headed back towards the palace. Just before I entered the building, I heard a fluttering noise behind me. I turned to see my son Hermes fluttering in the air with his mailbag. "You've got mail!" he said, and handed me a letter. It was addressed from the hunters, so I guessed it was from.

I went into the palace and sat down on my bed. When I opened the letter, I was surprised not to see Artemis's handwriting. The letter said:

Dear Dad,

Hi! How's it going up on Olympus? I am fine. I just got promoted to head of the hunters because I was able to kill a beast that none of the other hunters could (except Lady Artemis could have killed it easily). Anyway, I was hoping that you could give me a little help. Since you are the king of gods and most powerful, I was hoping that you would grant the hunters and I some luck, because we are after this really fast, strong, and big monster that always seems to be able to be able to slip away. Maybe you could help me to defeat it. Please help, the hunters and I are desperately looking for a way to teach this monster a thing or two.

From Your Daughter,

Thalia

I smiled and put the letter on to a bedside table. I decided that later I would answer the prayer, but not today. I turned around to face the clock on the wall and realized that I would have to leave in a few minutes for marriage counseling. Olympian time flies much too fast.

Right on cue, Hera walked into he room. She was so happy that today was yet another day to make me miserable. I glumly walked out of the palace with her and loaded myself into the chariot. Hera got in the drivers seat and turned the key.

"Really, honey," she said as the engine started, "This is for our own good."

"Uh huh," I said, not believing her.

As we reached the mortal world, the chariot turned into a golden Lamborghini. I was feeling so down that it started to rain. The chariot parked in front of a dull-looking business office.

We got out of the car and went into the front door. The lady at the front desk looked bored out of her wits. Hera walked right past her and loaded herself into the elevator. I got in and sadly pushed the button with the 7 on it. After a minute of hearing freeform jazz elevator music, we were at floor seven and in the room that belonged to Dr. Beth.

As I walked in, Dr. Beth smiled at Hera and gave me the evil eye. "How have things been?" asked Dr. Beth when we sat down.

That was all that Hera needed to get her started. She began ranting about how I had done so many wrong things. I wanted to shout out "I'M JUST A PERSON", but I knew that Dr. Beth would get all over my case about how I shouldn't interrupt my wife while she's talking.

After a few more minutes of Hera ranting, me protesting, and Dr. Beth agreeing with everything that Hera said, I was sent out of the room so that Hera and Dr. Beth Could talk alone. They talked for an hour, and then Hera came out and said, "We're leaving now."

"Don't I get a chance to talk?" I asked.

Hera said grimly, "She disagreed with something I said."

"Huh?" I asked. I walked and looked into the office, despite Hera's protests, and saw, instead of Dr. Beth, a peacock standing in the center of the room.

I turned to Hera with a raised eyebrow. Then I smiled at her and said, "You're right, we should get back home."

As we drove away in the chariot, I smiled to myself. Today had been a very successful day.

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I hope you liked it! I'm going to be doing a lot of the gods, but put in your reviews the gods/goddesses that you want to see in the next few chapters. Thanks for reading!