You see, there was this girl. Parents both Catholic. Really devout Christians. Made sure to raise their daughter with good Christian morals. Church sermons, Sunday school, the whole deal. In fact, her parents wanted her to be so morally upright that they named her Jolly Goodenough. They even wanted her to graduate from the local parish seminary and live a modest and simple life in the nunnery.

But, as fate would have it, Jolly Goodenough got bored of this simple village life really quickly. You see, she was a daring girl. Very adventurous. Wanted to explore the world. She didn't want to live a life of celibacy, she wanted to marry the Prince Charming of her dreams. But her parents did not allow that, no siree.

"There's lots of evil out there in the world," her mom would tell her.

"Bad, wicked people who are out to steal your money," her dad would tell her.

"Agents of Satan who want to take away your faith," her grandpa would tell her.

"Liberals who will tell you that religion is outdated," her grandma would tell her.

"Atheists who want you to deny God's existence," her uncle would tell her.

But Jolly Goodenough wasn't fazed at all. She was brimming with overconfidence. 'I'll show them!' she thought. So one bright, sunny day, as the local pastor was going around the village reminding the people to be thankful for God's bountiful provisions, she snuck away into a delivery truck, only bringing with her some money and her passport.

---------------------------- Fast forward 2 years ----------------------------

Jolly Goodenough had traveled over 3 continents and met many weird and bizarre people on her travels. Right now, her travels brought her to the cold, harsh lands of Russia. She fell in love with the country instantly. Up to this point, she had ticked off all the items in her bucket list. All but one.

Marry the Prince Charming of my dreams

But she scribbled out 'Prince Charming' and replaced it with something else.

Marry the Prince Charming of my dreams a bad boy

You see, she no longer had this innocent dream of marrying Prince Charming. No siree! Not her. She was bored almost to death by her strict, moral upbringing, that she wanted to let loose a bit. She was in her rebellious stage, you see. She thought Russia was the perfect place for her.

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So she went into town. St. Petersburg. The dream of every Russian to visit at least once in their life. She thought to herself 'no better place to find my dream bad boy', she thought.

After some days, she ended up in front of the mafia. You see, she had messed up. Big time. She picked a fight with a low-ranking mafia member in a bar the other day, over being forced to cough up money to pay for the man's booze. She adamantly stuck up for herself and refused to back down. Which now brought her right to the mafia den.

But she knew an opportunity when she saw one. Right here was the biggest, baddest boy in all of St. Petersburg, heck, probably in all of Russia. She thought she simply had to bag him for herself. So, she walked up right to the boss and told him "You. I like you. Be my man."

Everyone in the den froze. They couldn't believe their ears. Total pin-drop silence. 'That's it. She's done for. RIP random country bumpkin, tonight will be her funeral.' That's what they all thought, but none dared to make a move nor utter a single sound.

"HAHAHAHAHHAHAAAAA 🤣", the mafia boss laughed until his sides started aching. "I like the spunk, lady, that I will tell you. You almost have yourself a deal. But, you see, I have standards. High standards. Tremendously lofty standards. I will wed you, if and only if, you manage to best one of my men in a game of your choosing."

"Deal," she said, smirking.

Just then, the doorbell rang. "Honey, can you go get that?!", the old woman shouted.

"In a sec, be right there."

"Grandma, continue the story, please", little Anastasia pleaded.

"Yes granny, please. What happened next? Did you manage to marry the bad boy of your dreams?" Nikita asked.

"Why yes, my dear ones. He's right here, going to see who's at the door.", Jolly told her grandkids.

"Really? Grandpa was a mafia boss when he was young?" Anastasia asked.

"That's so cool, I wanna be a gangster too!", Nikita exclaimed.

"Now now, don't get ahead of yourself, little boy. Now where were we? Ah yes, the mafia game. Obviously I won. I picked Frisbee, a game that everyone in my local parish played, and I was a natural at it, I was a natural-born genius!", Jolly boasted.

"But grandma, how did you know that grandpa was the bad boy of your dreams the moment you saw him?" asked Nikita, a bit confused.

Grandma winked at the children, who were too young to understand the double meaning, "I saw it right in his eyes. Right at that moment, I knew it was gonna be him or no one else. Ah yes, and when I heard his name, I knew he was bad enough for me."

"But grandpa has a boring generic old-man name, Pavel Vasiliev. What's so special about that name?" asked Anastasia.

"I am going to tell you a secret about grandpa. When he quit being a mafia boss, he changed his name and ID so people don't recognize him anymore. But if he were to tell people his real name, they'd gasp in awe, since he's the most famous mafia boss in the history of Russian mafia."

"So what was his name?" both children ask eagerly.

"Grandma here fell in love at first sight, couldn't take her eyes off me, and when she heard my name, a spark flew off inside her" he said teasingly.

The children turned around to see their grandpa beaming at them, which Jolly took as an opportunity to hide her blushing face. Yep, she still blushed at that age.

"My name, little ones, was Volkov Badenoff."

The End