Thanks for proving my point. The reason why humans (and Neanderthals and Denisovans) only have 23 pairs is because one of our chromosomes (chromosome 2, the second largest chromosome) is actually two separate ancestral chromosomes fused together.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosome_2_(human)
The evidence for this includes:
The correspondence of chromosome 2 to two ape chromosomes. The closest human relative, the chimpanzee, has near-identical DNA sequences to human chromosome 2, but they are found in two separate chromosomes. The same is true of the more distant gorilla and orangutan.[6][7]
The presence of a vestigial centromere. Normally a chromosome has just one centromere, but in chromosome 2 there are remnants of a second centromere.[8]
The presence of vestigial telomeres. These are normally found only at the ends of a chromosome, but in chromosome 2 there are additional telomere sequences in the middle.[9]
Chromosome 2 presents very strong evidence in favour of the common descent of humans and other apes. According to researcher J. W. IJdo, "We conclude that the locus cloned in cosmids c8.1 and c29B is the relic of an ancient telomere-telomere fusion and marks the point at which two ancestral ape chromosomes fused to give rise to human chromosome 2." [9]
Sorry, putz, no fairytales needed. Just science.