Stairway to Heaven
Picture, if you will, God.
He lives and lies in a wonderful place called heaven. He walks among the clouds in the sky and has beautiful angel minions that love him and he loves you with all his heart. Either that or he's good at pretending he does. Anyway, the way to heaven is a long and tough journey, as it involves going against the force of gravity and winning. Astronauts have tried a number of times, but they always miss the entrance. Only a few people know where to go, and two of those people are well-known skiffle musicians Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. They found out in the 1960s and began building a giant stairway to the entrance from the ground. It started in 1970 and continues to this very day.
As of June 2013, it is the largest and most expensive construction project in the history of mankind.
Beginnings[edit | edit source]
Being a big fan of music, God naturally found out about the band Led Zeppelin. And man, did he like them. They got so insane onstage, with Robert Plant exposing his man-bosom for all to see and those other guys behind him playing complex music that still didn't sound like anything other than cock rock. So God naturally liked these guys. He got their first couple albums, and eventually decided that they were so goddamn good that he might as well just give them the key to paradise while still alive. It's a bit like the stupid Jimi Hendrix YouTube comments that proudly say in the way only a diehard fanboy could, "Jimi's gone because God needed guitar lessons." That is very unintelligent crap, of course, because God had Jimi die so that he would always be remembered as a symbol of youth, energy and large penis size. God did something similar for Jim Morrison, of course. In the case of Led Zeppelin, God figured that giving them the directions to heaven would make them the godliest of all men, and would give them the respect of everyone on Earth (well, at least all of those who believed in Him). Unfortunately, God's favorite humans let him down. (Adam and Eve flashback).
God bestowed a piece of parchment upon Page and Plant (the other two were left out because they did not have enough songs to their credit). The musicians were bewildered, of course. They had just found the directions to heaven in their morning tea, old chap! But don't worry, they figured it out. Jimmy Page's fnurdle almost ripped the paper in half. He glued it back with his manly spit, and he and Plant read the parchment with minds a-racin'. In only a few hours, they came up with the idea of a stairway that went all the way up to heaven. If this could be done, thought Page and Plant, we would be heroes and everyone would be able to see heaven before dying!! It could even be commercialized, with Page and Plant as the sole owners (at this point each of the two were already plotting plausible little "accidents" for the other to be involved in). But how to build such a thing? These two guys were filthy rich, with money down their trousers and in the pool, yet even with their best selling albums and royalties they could not comprehend how they could afford something like that. So, the plan was simple; write a song that would tell of this spiritual experience in the most cryptic way possible, also with eggnog.
Deciding they couldn't really tell anyone (which was NOT what God had had in mind), the two decided to steal the guitar part from one of the band Spirit's songs and make a cool song about their experience. Robert Plant secretly enjoyed dressing in drag, so he of course was the lady who's sure all that blah blah blah... he didn't really have very good lyrics. Even God thought it was one of their worst songs ever. The song was so popular that by the time the smoke had cleared, the two lucky guys had extra money to spend on fresh chlorine for the pools out back. Then, they got to work on the staircase.
And that is the story, little kids. Did you pay attention?
Design[edit | edit source]
To build a staircase of this magnitude, any construction firm must take into consideration the safety of its deli snacksworkers support beams. They are these long, hard things that stick up from the ground and into the bottom
of the staircase. For the stairway to heaven to work, the construction companies hired many skilled metal welfare workers to bring unemployed metal beams up from poverty and into the workforce. Since the staircase was initially planned to be a compact spiral staircase, the first plans featured less beams than the final plan. The staircase underway rite now (named GodGroper 2) is a twisting series of concrete steps and landings with railings and landings. So far the number of landings is about 700,000 [1]. If you think that's hot shit, consider that the amount of concrete being used could build over 200,000 soup kitchens. The design overall is quite minimalist. Robert Plant reminded the world that we do not wish to seem arrogant to the great Lord once we reach His doorstep. So, the staircase is just plain old concrete. It is about four highway lanes wide in order to accommodate many fat Americans. Oh, and on that topic...
Handicapped Accomodations[edit | edit source]
The stairway is completely wheelchair-friendly. There is a small ramp going up alongside the steps, on which handicapped people can go single file. The family members who aren't lazy are capable can walk beside them and talk. "They'll talk about life," said chief designer Pidd Booy. "They'll converse about what they could have done better in life and what they will say to The Lord when they finally see him. And if wheelchairs cannot be brought into heaven? "We shall construct a large dumping area!" proclaimed Booy, "where the handicapped will cast aside their constricting wheelchairs at the top of the staircase and let them fall back to Earth onto a big trampoline, or a cornfield!"
The Escalator to Heaven[edit | edit source]
“Walking is for the commonfolk.”
From the moment the first brick was laid, higher class people began wondering if there was a more stylish and luxurious way for them to climb the staircase, so that they would not have to mingle with the ordinary people who walked up on foot. Immediately, a think tank was formed to tackle this question. The meetings were held at Robert Plant's country estate in Burmanshire, where hula girls entertained the members (which included such luminaries as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Yoko Ono, Geraldo Rivera, and more). Soon, Warren Buffett got bored with the hula girls and brought in some Italian strippers. Nevertheless, the meetings were very productive, and it was soon decided that a red velvet escalator should be constructed in the hollow space beneath the steps, on which the wealthy and the deserving could ride. Some members of the think tank worried that this would belittle those on the escalator by making them feel "below" the plebeians up above, but this was solved by adding a feature that would allow those on the escalator to push up and trip some of the walkers whenever they felt like it. The escalator would also feature large bay windows, air conditioning and heating, and would have a golden roadway running alongside it with chauffeures at the ready to drive the wealthy people's expensive cars up to the gates with them. Robert Plant issued a brochure to all households across the world with incomes higher than $10 million a year, explaining the escalator and its features. He assured them that God would approve of everything included with it.
In order to fund the construction of the escalator, those who wish to ride it must buy tickets well in advance and should be prepared for disappointment if anything goes wrong with the project.[2]
Altitude Problems[edit | edit source]
One of the major problems in building the stairway currently is continuing the construction at heights of over 12,000 feet above sea level. Booy, the head designer, took on this challenge early into construction and drew up plans for an enclosed section of the stairway. This would come into play at around 12,000 feet above sea level, and there would have to be a pressurized enclosing around the staircase in order to keep people alive. Booy also added that the transition from open-air to enclosed cabin would be a wonderful chance to build a larger landing and have vendors avaliable to serve water, soda pop, or other luxuries to the travelers.
Safety Features[edit | edit source]
For those on the stairway and not below, keeping safe while far above the earth's surface is a must. Safety engineer "Stinky Loo" Edwards assured reporters last year that the safety features of the GodGroper 2 were top-notch. He said that railings along the side of the steps would have numerous railings and heights for different sized people, all the way from "midget" to "Bigfoot". There would also be mesh fencing behind the railings to increase security that much more without compromising the great view.
The concern of people falling back down the steps from fatigue was answered by the reassuring fact that the distance from landing to landing was carefully worked out so that those who did slip and fall to the next landing would only receive a maximum of seven broken limbs. The concrete is also a special bland of polyphotoncarbon plastic and conventional concrete that makes cleaning blood spills so much easier.
Footnotes[edit | edit source]
- ↑ "It's getting tall," Jimmy Page famously said in 2008
- ↑ Warren Buffett in particular pushed Plant and Page to create a "satisfaction guaranteed" section to the escalator brochure, but they refused because this form of marketing had already been used by The Beatles with their Trafical Hissturry Bore.