Tuesday, December 22, 2009

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume CCLIII

Some nights Mogey and Smush would have a good old hoedown out back in the barn. On these nights - and only on these nights - the two pals would unleash their considerable musical talents for the benefit of those assembled.

"Evening, ladies and gentlemen!" Smush would shout. "M'name's Smush, on lead guitar and vocals." If ever they'd had a crowd, this would've been the occasion for their first cheer of delirious fanaticism, but unfortunately, the only hoedown guests they ever got were an elderly fieldmouse couple. The Sneakersons, as the fieldmice were called, liked to dance, but they LOVED to rock.

"I'd like to introduce the rest of my band here," Smush would continue. "Behind me, on drums, is Mittens Burnsworth!"

"Rock and roll!" the Sneakersons would squeak. "Drum solo! Drum solo!"

Mittens, a tabby cat from a rough neighborhood, would then launch into a bone-jarring drum solo that all but knocked the Sneakersons off their feet.

"And off to my left is Byron "The Belly" Nogenard on upright bass!" Smush would shout.

"We love you, Byron!" the Sneakersons would scream in their tiny voices. "Give us a belly-shaker!"

Then Byron, a Berkshire white pot-bellied pig, would twang the strings of the bass until his belly shook and the air wavered with vibration.

"And last but not least," Smush would call excitedly, "my best friend in the world: Mogey on tuba!"

"Get that guy out of here!" the Sneakersons would chitter as Mogey prepared for a face-melting tuba solo. "He couldn't rock if he sat in rocking chair!"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume CCLII

Mogey "The Massacre" and "Beastly" Smush were two of the most celebrated rasslers in all of County Eclair. On Wednesday nights they could be found without fail, taking on all comers in the ring outside town hall.

One fateful Wednesday, a hooded figure emerged from the record crowd of eleven onlookers plus four babies who were not, by a strict definition, looking on, though they were in attendance. The hooded figure threw off his robe and sprang into the ring, revealing himself to be "Slick Rapscallion", the most feared rassler ever to walk the streets of Oinkington, the next county over.

"Oy!" Slick Rapscallion bellowed. "Are you the yellow-bellied cowards they call Mogey The Massacre and Beastly Smush?"

"I didn't know it was possible to bellow the word 'oy,'" Beastly Smush responded. "Did you know that, Mogey?"

"I can't say as I did," Mogey The Massacre replied. "But I did know it was possible to scream 'Massacre Monkeybars!'"

The crowd went wild as Mogey The Massacre performed his signature move, negotiating a set of invisible monkeybars and belly flopping onto Slick Rapscallion's unsuspecting head, effectively knocking him unconscious.

"WHO'S THE MASTER...ACRE?" Mogey shouted to the audience. He pulled off the belt wrapped around his middle and held it aloft in celebration.

"What're you doing Mogey?" Smush whispered out of the corner of his mouth.

"Showing off my championship belt!" Mogey answered.

"But it's only a grubby bit of rope," Smush whispered. "And your trousers have fallen down!"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume CCLI

One morning Mogey and Smush decided it was high time they traveled to the moon. All day they planned: drawing up diagrams, solving mathematical theorems, and collecting supplies for the journey. Finally, as night fell, they set out.

But most unfortunately indeed, it wasn't twenty minutes before their expedition hit it's first snag.

"Uh, Smush?" Mogey called down. "I think this is as far as it goes."

"Are you sure?" Smush replied. "Reach out a try to touch it, then!"

Mogey clung to the topmost branches of the tallest pine tree in their backyard and stretched his fingers toward the full moon hanging above.

"I can't quite reach it!" Mogey said, as Smush looked on from a few branches below, thoughtfully munching a doughnut. "Maybe this moon travel is more difficult than we thought."
- Show quoted text -

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume CCL

Mogey and Smush charged up to the battlements of Drayblatt Castle with claymores in their hands and malice in their eyes. They roared with the power and fury of recently uncaged Molibian jungle cats. The sight of Drayblatt soldiers filled the eye slits of their iron helmets.

"Say, Smush," Mogey yelled as they leaped onto the castle walls. "We seem to be all alone!" Sure enough, they glanced about to find they were they only soldiers who had charged. Just then, the familiar boing of the army's largest catapult echoed across the battlefield and they turned to see an enormous projectile flying their way.

"Gadzooks!" Smush cried.

"They've launched a rock at us!" Mogey shrieked, pointing up at the incoming missile.

"No Mogey," Smush replied. "That's no rock. It's something far, far worse. The stuff of legends. Our army has saved the gizzard from every Christmas goose in the country and bound them together into a ball so frightening there can be only one word for it."

"It can't be!" Mogey yelled.

"That's right, Mogey. It's a gizzard bomb. And it's headed right for us."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume CCXLIX

One day when the sun was a deep, mysterious blue and the sea was shining golden as a new penny, Mogey and Smush were ambling along the beach. As they ambled (and they were expert amblers) they came upon an old corked bottle that had washed up on the sand.

"Let's open it!" Smush exclaimed. "There might be a message inside!"

"I don't know," Mogey replied hesitantly. "I don't like those messages in a bottle. They can sometimes be cursed...."

"Cursed Shmursed," Smush answered.

"...by Davey Jones..." Mogey continued.

"Davey Jones, Shavey Gnomes," Smush retorted once more. "I'm opening it." He uncorked the bottle and sure enough, a crinkled old piece of parchment was curled inside. Smush shook it out and put on his spectacles.

"All it says is 'Yowch!'" he explained. "I wonder what that-- Yowch!" Smush yelled as a hermit crab the size of an extremely large hermit crab scuttled out of the bottle and nipped his thumb. "Wait... there's a post script," Smush noticed, nursing his thumb as the crab assassin scuttled away. "'Yours Truly, Davey Jones.'"

"What'd I tell you?" Mogey repeated. "Cursed...by Davey Jones."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume CCXLVIII

One day Mogey and Smush were out in the forest playing "Woodland Critters" with their friends from around the countryside.

"Hi-Didely-Ai, boys!" called PJ Jamese, the leader of their gang. "Circle up and look sharp!" The rabblerousers - Mogey and Smush included - immediately stopped rousing rabble and formed a rough semicircle about him.

"First order of business!" PJ went on. "The last few rounds of Woodland Critters have been much too disorganized. Folks are changing species left and right out there. From now on, you have to choose a name that will tell everyone what kind of critter you are, and stick with it 'til the end! My name will be Eagle-eye Johnny."

"I'll be Roman van Wolf!" cried Benson Bock, another rambunctious youngster.

"And I want to be called Gorilla Jones!" called one of their friends named Kevin Vincent O'Malley.

"And you, Mogey and Smush?" PJ Jamese asked. "What will your Woodland Critters nicknames be?"

"Bitsy Hoggins," said Mogey.

"And Sloth Worthington, at your service," Smush added.

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume CCXLVII

One day Mogey and Smush were playing with building blocks when Teacher came around to see what they had constructed.

"What is this you've built, Smush?" Teacher asked.

"The Cathedral of Notre Dame," studious Smush replied proudly as he presented the flying buttresses and elegant spires he'd made out of crude wooden blocks.

"Why, how lovely," Teacher exclaimed, beaming at him. "And you, Mogey? What is this construction you've created? The Leaning Tower of Pisa? The Arc de Triomphe?"

"Nope," Mogey said. "That there's a scale model of a loaf o' salami."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume CCXLVI

One stupendous spring afternoon, Mogey and Smush were catapulting meatballs off the top of the village bell tower, or as they liked to call it, Le Minaret de Mischief. Mogey had just lobbed a particularly saucy meatball onto a crowd of schoolchildren when he turned to Smush with a look of dismay.

"Smush?" he asked. "Isn't there more to life than this?"

Smush gazed down on the chaos that had erupted below: it wasn't the meatballs that were wreaking havoc so much as the flock of seagulls that had come to feast on the remnants. In fact, two seagulls were lifting a rather plump boy named Fergus Glomp - who refused to let go of the meatball he'd been struck by - into the air above the churchyard.

"You may be right, Mogey," Smush replied. "Go ahead and get those stuffed peppers out of the cooler."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume CCXLV

One day Mogey and Smush were heading down to the docks when they stopped into a little shop for a couple of fish sandwiches. They peeled open the newspaper wrapping as they walked along the foggy riverbank. Mogey had gotten a golden piece of fried scrod in a fresh-baked bun, but Smush opened his sandwich to reveal what appeared to be a whole mackerel on rye.

"What in the blue blazes?" Smush asked his sandwich, who didn't respond. "This is not what I ordered!" So he turned on his heel and marched back to the shop all afluster.

"Be nice, Smush!" Mogey called, scurrying after him.

"What does this look like?" Smush demanded, slamming his sandwich onto the counter.

"Mackerel on rye," the toothless, moustachioed sandwich maker replied.

"Am I crazy, sir? Is this not Pugleport Village?" Smush lectured. "Never did I think I'd see the day when a Pugleport mackerel on rye was not served with sun-dried tomato aioli!"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume CCXLIV

One morning after the spring's first rain, Mogey and Smush were strolling out of the house when the door fell off it's hinges. That's right, it crashed right out of the door frame and onto the front stoop.

"Holy cow!" Smush shouted. "Mogey, get me a screwdriver from my toolbox! And hurry!"

"But you haven't even got a toolbox, Smush," Mogey answered hesitantly. "Let alone a screwdriver."

"Well of course I don't!" Smush retorted. "It was obvious that I meant 'get me a ginger snap from the cookie jar!' Land sakes, Mogey, do I have to spell everything out for you?"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume CCXLIII

One day Mogey and Smush were skipping along through the Hottoes Desert when they came across a lamp. As anyone in their places would have, they rubbed the lamp, and sure enough a genie emerged.

He didn't bear the appearance of your traditional genie, however. He was rather scrawny and wore a thin, muley moustache.

"Hullo I suppose," the genie said lacksadaisically as Mogey and Smush boogied down with joy. "I'm here to, you know, grant you each a wish."

"Hooray!" Mogey yelled. "I wish for a million gold doubloons!"

"Can't do that," the genie muttered. "Do I look like I could lift even a HUNDRED gold doubloons?"

"Alright," Mogey replied "How about a stack of bank notes worth a million Deutsche Marks?"

"Where would I find Deutsche Marks in a desert?" the genie asked. "I don't fly or anything, you know."

"I lifetime supply of chocolates?" Mogey suggested.

"Can't do it," the genie replied.

"The love of a beautiful lady?"

"Nope."

"A machine to do my every bidding?"

"Uh-uh."

"Ok then, how about some parachute pants?" Mogey demanded in exasperation.

"That I can do!" the genie replied, happily tearing away his own baggy trousers to reveal a second pair beneath. "Congratulations, you've been genied!"

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume CCXLII

One morning Mogey opened his eyes and had no idea where he was. The whole world had gone topsy turvy: up was down, east was west, the land was above the sky. The sun was setting below the horizon, dogs walked on their tails, and cherries were on the bottom of ice cream sundaes.

"Smush!" Mogey cried in a blind panic. "Where am I???"

"You're in bed with the covers over your face, Mogey," Smush replied. "And your blanket is upside down."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume CCXLI

One day Mogey and Smush were ambling down the path into town when they saw Old Man Guttleberry making his way up into the foothills. On his right foot he had an old roller skate and his left leg was a wooden peg with a wagon wheel at the end. A team of oxen pulled him along and he held the reins tight in his gnarled, crinkly hands.

"You know what I heard about Old Man Guttleberry?" Smush whispered, casting a sidelong glance at the man on wheels. "I heard ain't got no teeth, but he bought a pair of wooden ones from a man down in Muskratport."

"Wooden teeth?" Mogey asked.

"Aye," Smush said, cringing a bit.

"Can you imagine such a thing?" Mogey asked as Smush shook his head. "Why it would be...glorious! You could sharpen them to points and look like a badger - or paint them blue and be the hit of every party...."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume CCXL

"C'mon Smush, you won't do it! You're too chicken!" yelled Brawny Bullykins, the toughest guy in the schoolyard.

"Don't do, it Smush," Mogey cautioned. "Your tongue will never be the same!"

"It's only a pump handle," Smush replied confidently. "And Smush never refuses a dare."

The crowd of boys erupted into cheers as Smush strode across the icy, windswept schoolyard toward the cruel-looking iron water pump. They fell deathly silent as Smush bent toward the pump handle. Mogey cringed in horror, and even Brawny Bullykins looked frightened, as Smush extended his tongue toward the cold black metal.

For several moments there was utter confusion as the audience struggled to comprehend what they had just witnessed. And then the crowd went bonkers.

"You did it, Smush my boy, you did it!" Mogey cried, slapping him on the back as Brawny Bullykins walked back to the schoolhouse hanging his head. The other boys rushed in, lifting Smush, their hero, high into the air. Not only had he NOT left a chunk of his tongue on the pump handle, Smush had used his awesomeness to melt the pump into a twisted pile of molten metal.

For once, Smush had used his powers for good instead mischief.