The story takes place in and around Whoville, a town that The Grinch periodically hate and terrorizes the Whos on a night known as "Grinch Night", which commences when a "Sour-Sweet Wind" blows and sets off a variety of animal calls that annoys the Grinch into terrorizing the Whos. As the story opens, the Sour-Sweet Wind is just beginning to blow when Euchariah, a polite, bespectacled little Who with a slight astigmatism, goes to use the outhouse (referred to as "the euphemism" in the story), but is swept away to Mt. Crumpit by the wind.
