The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume CCXC

"You know, Mogey, you really should be getting more sun," Smush said one day as the two pals were practicing with their battle axes. "You've got a rather large mole on your back."

"But I always heard moles came from too much sun," Mogey replied.

"Bah!" Smush retorted. "Rubbish! Moles hate the sun. Why else would they use their big ol' claws to dig holes deep underground and only come out at night? You stick to your vampire-like tendencies and this little button-nosed fellow is going to have his whole little button nosed family latched on to your back."

"Good heavens!" Mogey shouted. "I'll be crawling with the little varmints! What can I do?"

"A day at the beach should clear him right out," Smush said. "And you've never seen a sight funnier than a mole hippity hopping across hot sand."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume CCLXXXIX

One day Smush sent Mogey out to fetch a pail of water. Mogey went grudgingly, dragging his feet and grumbling the whole twenty paces to the well. He opened the wooden lid and lowered his bucket down with a splash, then began slowly cranking the winch to lift the full bucket back up.

"Oy!" called a voice from down below. "Close the lid already, will yeh?"

"Who's down there?" Mogey asked in surprise.

"Tis Kevin the Alligator!" the voice called again, slightly angrier this time. "And I'm trying to get some shuteye! The nerve of some people...."

"Sheesh," Mogey said sarcastically. "Sor-ry!"

He heaved the dripping bucket out of the well and closed the lid loudly, then resumed his grumbling as he lugged the water up to the house.

"I saw the whole thing from the kitchen window," Smush said excitedly as Mogey came inside. "And you know, Mogey, sometimes you haven't any manners at all."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume CCLXXXVIII

One dreary day Mogey and Smush were in the town store buying nails, peanut butter, and pipe bubbles for their bubble pipes.

"What's you favorite type of hammer, Smush?" Mogey asked as they surveyed some of the merchandise.

"Oh I'm quite partial to a tack hammer," Smush replied.

"Yes, that's a great one," Mogey agreed. "But personally I'd rather feel the grip of an old-fashioned claw hammer in my hand."

"Ah," Smush said, "another classic. But lest we forget the greatest hammer of them all: Big Bertha, Great Granny Roosevelt's favorite sledgehammer."

"Of course!" Mogey rejoined, a nostalgic look on his chubby face. "How could I forget her most oft-used kitchen utensil? It seems like just yesterday Great Granny Roosevelt demolished our snow fort with one swing of ol' Big Bertha. Nearly took off your head with that swing too as I recall."

"I didn't grow hair on the top of my noggin for two full years after that," Smush said wistfully. "But I sure learned my lesson about taking the last pudding cup."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume CCLXXXVII

"Say Mogey," Smush said one day as the two pals waited in line for some frozen lemonade, "do you still sleep on that corn husk mattress?"

"Naw," Mogey replied. "That was too itchy for me after a while, so I brought some cinder blocks into my room and was sleeping on those for a spell. But then the blocks made my back ache something awful, so I moved out to the silo a while back and started sleeping on the sacks of grain out there. It's powerful comfortable, especially if I get a mixed sack of half barley and half rye. Why, what do you sleep on?"

"Oh," said Smush. "A bed, mostly. You know, with pillows and a blanket and such."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume CCLXXXVI

One evening Mogey and Smush were exploring a haunted house up the way. They could tell it was haunted because it sat abandoned at the tip-top of a rocky crag, it was surrounded by a wrought iron fence, and every other Wednesday a spooky woo-ooo-ooo-ooo sound echoed out past the motheaten drapes of a second floor window.

But being the curious critters that they were, Mogey and Smush just HAD to have a look inside. Smush led the way bearing a magnifying glass and a canteen of Wild Cherry Pepsi. Mogey, who was much more cowardly, lagged behind whispering to fearful nothings.

"Oh I hope we don't get eaten!" he whispered. "Agghh! What was that creaking noise? I bet there's a goblin behind that door! I've never been so frightened. Please don't let us get eaten. I think we're being followed...by a pair of ghosts!"

"Shush up, will you Mogey!" Smush said sharply. "There's no one following us."

"No, actually he's right," said a high, lilting voice behind them. Mogey and Smush spun around to see two pearly white specters hovering inches above the ground. "My name is Gideon Ghostly Gildersleeves," the first ghost said. "And this is my brother Tom. Can we fix you a baked potato or a cup of chocolate milk?"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume CCLXXXV

Smush had finished playing a round of songs on the old upright piano down at the Frosty Ox pub and was just headed to the bar for a well-deserved bowl of cheese soup, when Mogey (his bodyguard for the evening) intercepted an adoring fan.

"Whoa there cowboy!" Mogey said as he caught the young man by his elbow. "Not too close!"

"It's ok, Mogey. Did you like my playing?" Smush asked, turning to the boy.

"Oh yes sir, very much sir!" the kid stammered. "You sure can tickle the ivories, Mr. Smush!"

The entire pub fell silent at that utterance, and Smush narrowed his eyes menacingly.

"You'd best get out of here, buster, for your own good!" Mogey shouted, dragging the boy toward the door as Smush stared them down. "If there's one thing that puts Smush into a murderous rage, it's being accused of tickling."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume CCLXXXIV

On a ghastly and ghoulish evening Mogey and Smush strode through the fog of a woodland path by sputtering lanternlight, which is really the only proper way to travel on a ghastly and ghoulish evening. It wouldn't do to skip merrily along through a field of buttercups with a powerful flashlight on a ghastly and ghoulish evening now, would it? Mogey and Smush didn't think so anyway.

After some amount of time or other they saw a dancing skeleton in the path up ahead and hid behind a tree to watch him boogie. As they observed, Mogey and Smush noticed something very peculiar: the skeleton had almost no moves! So limited were his skills, in fact, that "driving the bus" and "starting the lawnmower" comprised a full three quarters of his repertoire.

Being that they were far, far better dancers than the skeleton, Mogey and Smush now had no qualms about approaching him and so they continued up the path.

"How dare ye?" the skeleton's voice boomed as he noticed them. He began to dance even more vigorously. "Only the dead and may pass this way alive!"

"What?" asked Smush.

"Yeah!" Mogey added. "What?"

"Only the dead may pass this way alive!" the dancing skeleton repeated.

"Hi-Yah!" Smush shouted as he karate chopped the stop button on the skeleton's jambox. The blazin' hip hop and R&B came to a screeching halt. "Try stopping us without dance music!"

"NOOO!" the skeleton cried, falling to his knee bones in anguish. And Mogey and Smush strode past him and back into the ghastly and ghoulish evening.

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume CCLXXXIII

One wintry night Mogey and Smush were eating gummy bears before a roaring fire. Mogey, who believed the head of a gummy bear was a great delicacy, while the feet were merely an adequate hors d'oevre, set about biting off the bottom halves of his gummies first.

"Look what I've created!" Mogey shouted, showing Smush a two headed bear he'd constructed out of two gummy upper halves stuck together.

"Get away, Mogey!" Smush answered, cowering in his armchair as his eyes widened. "You're scaring me!"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume CCLXXXII

One day as they took a cool, mossy shortcut down a cool, mossy alleyway, Mogey and Smush encountered the oddest fellow they ever did meet. The creaking of his knees as he approached gave Mogey and Smush a mighty start, for the sound had been oddly similar to the noise produced when the proprietor of the nearby bakery opened the back door to shoo them away from a sack of day-old croissants.

"Would you gentleman care to see a magic trick?" the odd fellow asked. Mogey and Smush stood up and regarded him for a moment. He wore jean shorts that went down almost to his ankles, a piratical vest but no shirt, and a tiny hat that appeared to be a deodorant cap held to his head with rubber bands. His ears too were large and oddly pointed, like a mouse's ears.

"No," Mogey answered.

"I agree," Smush added. "I have a distinct inkling that you will attempt to steal our croissant sack or tickle our feet, and neither sounds appealing."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume CCLXXXI

One fateful night Mogey and Smush were out for revenge. The manager of a nearby Linens n' Things had refused to accept Mogey and Smush's pillowcase full of nickels as payment for a fondue pot, leaving them no choice but to make him their mortal enemy.

Now Mogey and Smush were camped outside the manager's house in the dead of night, waiting for the perfect opportunity to deploy a weapon of immeasurable cruelty. Even Mogey and Smush thought twice about using such a pernicious device, but they had a reputation to uphold. One day a manager at Linens n' Things wasn't accepting their money, the next it would be neighborhood children stealing sausages from their legendary sausage cellar.

"It's time, Mogey," Smush whispered.

"I-I don't think I can do it," Mogey answered, wincing as an owl hooted softly overhead.

"You yellow-bellied wimp," Smush said, shaking his head. "Give it to me."

Mogey handed him the weapon. Smush took aim and threw the roll of toilet paper high into the tree overhanging the manager's front porch.

"Run, Mogey!" Smush shouted as the roll plopped to the ground. "Run for the hills!"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume CCLXXX

"It's an outrage, I say! A travesty!" Mogey yelled as he stomped angrily about the house. "What mockery of a society allows an establishment like McGinty's Chicken and Pickles to give me only two packets of ranch dressing along with my 20-piece chicken nuggets? Two! What kind of world are we living in? Two packets isn't enough in which to dip a single, solitary nugget, let alone 20! It's preposterous, I say! It's, it's...."

"I'm going to stop you right there, Mogey," Smush interjected. "Your face is literally covered in ice cream. I mean ear to ear. Did you go swimming in cookies n' cream? Or what?"

"I got some soft serve in a baseball helmet and forgot my spoon," Mogey said. "But that's really beside the point."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume CCLXXIX

Mogey and Smush strode toward town with great excitement, for it was Tuesday, the Thirty-Fourth of October, or as it was known in their township, The Running of the Woodchucks. Mogey and Smush practically skipped with excitement, but they knew they mustn't actually skip, for skipping was forbidden during the Festival of the Running of the Woodchucks.

Once they got to town, Mogey and Smush claimed an area in the most dangerous section of the alley where the woodchucks would be running. On any normal day the spot was known as Mr. Sanders' Butter Buffet, but during the Running of the Woodchucks it was called Dead Man's Corner.

A far off bell announced that the woodchucks had been released from their holding pen atop Grapenut Hill (as if they needed a downhill start!) and then the nerves began. Every runner in the alleyway - Mogey and Smush included - felt the thrill of mortal danger at their fingertips. And then it happened.

"Here they come!" shrieked the voice of a young boy watching from a rooftop.

Some of the first woodchucks came into few, moving at a such a frightening pace that they covered a good ten feet with each minute that passed. The admittedly chubby animals were visibly winded, but their breathlessness only made them appear more fearsome as they bared their savage teeth.

"Heaven help us," Mogey muttered, as the runners in the alleyway turned and ran screaming from the pursuing animals, hoping against hope that they wouldn't be gored.

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume CCLXXVIII

Mogey and Smush loved to muse about the great issues of the day over breakfast. So monumental were their musings that, had breakfast lasted all day, the world would be rid of many of its problems, as well as a great deal of its bacon, tea, and toast.

"Mogey," Smush intoned on one such occasion of musination. "What, in your opinion, is the very best thing to dunk a doughnut into?"

"Well put, Smush," Mogey replied. "There are many delights into which I might choose to dunk a doughnut: coffee, hot cocoa, even tea. But the very best thing to dunk a doughnut into is a bowl of marshmallow fluff."

"An astute observation indeed, Mogey," Smush responded. "But more mistaken you could not be. The very best think to dunk a doughnut into is a jar full of more doughnuts! If you shape your doughnut into a makeshift fishhook you can produce what leading doughnut scientists call a 'barrel of monkeys effect.' Sometimes you can pull out five more doughnuts in a single dunk!"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume CCLXXVII

One day an elderly gentleman strolling past Mogey and Smush's abode noticed a sign staked out front. 10 Butterflies for 10 Dollars the sign read, and so the elderly gentleman - thinking instantly of his two lovely granddaughters - turned up the path that ran around back.

"Hello, hello," Smush said, greeting the man as he came around the corner. "Come for some butterflies, have you?"

"Why yes," the gentleman replied.

"Excellent," said Smush, relieving the man of ten dollars as well as his coat, hat, and walking stick. "Now you just have a seat here," Smush gestured to a moth eaten armchair facing the back garden, "and we'll get started. Mogey! Let 'em rip!"

Mogey emerged from the barn wearing a wrestling singlet with the words World's Strongest Butterflier scrawled on the back and a holding a slender dumbbell in each hand. He then found a flat spot in the grass and proceeded to execute a set of flawless butterfly curls.

"I think there's been a misunderstanding," the elderly gentleman began to say, but was interrupted by a loud CLANK.

"Give him back $6, Smush," an exhausted looking Mogey grunted as he nursed his sore arms. "I could only do four."