The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 596

Mogey and Smush had planned their most epic heist to a T. Supplies had been gathered, blueprints had been analyzed, and the two pals were now tucked away in Baron Mookalverg's attic, biding their time to steal the Baron's most famous bag of candy bears from his sweets safe.

"Ok, Mogey, let's go over this one more time," Smush said. "You'll creep downstairs to the second floor drawing room, at which point I'll detonate the C4 you plastered around the Baron's sweets safe. Then you swipe the candy bears and I'll cover you with my slingshot as you sneak out through the back yard. We'll rendezvous at the water tower at 0800."

"I don't know, Smush - why don't we just ask Baron Mookalverg for the bag of candy bears?"

"Ask? Are you mad? Why would you suggest such a confounded idea?"

"I'm just not so sure this plan is going to work," Mogey replied. "For one thing, I don't even know what C4 is. Is it some kind of gun? I just plastered glow-in-the-dark play-doh around the sweets safe to help us find it if the lights go out."

"Mogey," Smush said, "you have got to be the worst heist partner in the business. This is the seventh time we've tried to steal Baron Mookalverg's prize candy bears and you've yet to contribute anything to the mission besides play-doh and these bandanas you made us wear."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 595

Mogey was hanging out with his pal Smush one day, kicking a soccer ball around inside a giant's footprint, when an idea came to him.

"Did you ever notice that soccer balls and volleyballs are basically the same thing?" he asked, kicking the ball into the imprint of the giant's pinky toe, where it lodged sturdily. "Those fellows in the sporting goods industry must be dum-dum-dimmy-dumbs."

"Or are they geniuses?" Smush replied. "Just think: By selling a 'different' ball for the two sports, they sell twice as many!"

"I stand by my statement."

"The dum-dum-dimmy dumbs thing?"

"Yes," said Mogey. "I maintain that they would sell three times as much with a unified ball, since that also opens the door to create the hybrid sport of voccerball! Imagine seeing the tallest, slenderest athletes in the world spike voccerballs with their feet... oh yes, it would be a sight to behold."

"So voccerball brings gangliness, some sort of net, and headers to the table?" Smush asked. "What about fake injuries... can you give me fake injuries?"

"That I can."

"I'm in," Smush whispered excitedly. "This voccerball is officially your best idea since cheese cookies."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 594

Mogey and Smush huddled together for warmth as they sat high in the ancient beech tree, watching their traps. They were trying to catch the Chirruping Domp, a creature so rare that only one of them had ever lived, and even that one had but a single leg.

"The key to catching a Chirruping Domp," Smush whispered knowledgeably, "is to attract it using the scent of its mate. That's why I baited my trap with a single goose feather that I rubbed with rose petals every night for a month."

"But the Chirruping Domp hasn't got a mate," Mogey said. "Only one of them has ever lived."

"True, but it doesn't know that. And a goose feather is the closest thing there is to a Chirruping Domp feather."

Despite his confidence, the pals watched Smush's trap for hours without success. Just as they were about to give up, they heard a loud springing sound and the unmistakeable squawk of a trapped Chirruping Domp coming, not from Smush's trap, but from the trap Mogey had established.

"You've done it!" Smush exclaimed. "You've trapped the Chirruping Domp, Mogey! What in the world did you use for bait?"

"A churro dipped in peanut butter," Mogey replied. "But good luck with that feather thing."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 593

"Smush, Smush! I've got to ask you something!" Mogey hollered, running into the barn at such a clip that he scared Giacomo, Smush's favorite llama, into a sneezing fit. And for those who have never seen a llama sneeze, just know that it is not a pretty picture.

"Yes, Mogey? What is it?" said Smush, who was milking the cows. Mogey took so long catching his breath that Smush milked four additional cows while his pal was bent over, wheezing.

"Some gents at the factory told me that I was smoking my pipe all wrong!" Mogey said finally. "They said I didn't put the right stuff in there - what do you pack into the bowl of your pipe?"

"Pipe tobacco."

"Ugh - that's what they were smoking too! How do you do it, Smushster? That tobacco is disgusting."

"Well, what do you smoke out of your pipe?"

"I don't smoke anything!" Mogey exclaimed. "I just cram a fresh-baked chocolate chip cookie into it and inhale the scent."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 592

"30 seconds more," said the official, glancing down at his watch.

"Come on, Mogey, old buddy, you can do it!" Smush whispered. He and the world records official stood over Mogey's bed, watching his pal snooze peacefully.

"20 seconds...."

Smush gritted his teeth and willed his friend to stay asleep.

"10 seconds..." the official counted. "Annnnnnd, time!"

Smush waited a few more moments, just in case, then shook Mogey awake, grabbing him up in a violent bear hug.

"You did it, Mogey! I knew you could!"

"Wha--?" Mogey asked groggily.

"You just set the world record for longest time asleep!" Smush exclaimed. "It'll be in all the papers tomorrow."

"That's interesting," Mogey replied, yawning mightily. "I suppose that's enough for today, isn't it?"

"I suppose..." Smush said.

"Good," Mogey answered. "Because I could sure use a nap."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 591

After Mogey and Smush were caught, tried, and convicted for grand hot dog larceny, they were forced to join a work crew as part of the stern sentence handed out by the Honorable Francis Ball-Park (an heir to a hot dog fortune, though he claimed it did not affect his ruling). The work crew set to digging ditches behind the mayor's house that would carry the mayor's spittoon juice far away from the city center.

After nary an hour of shoveling, Mogey's hands were raw and sore. He could barely hold his shovel any longer, leg alone dig it into the the earth, but the overseer was relentless, cracking a whip and shouting obscenities in Mogey's general direction.

"I don't think I can go on!" Mogey whispered to his pal. "My hands feel like balls of fire with fat little fingers sticking out of them."

"Your hands just need to toughen up," Smush replied. "You've never shoveled a day in your life. You need calluses, like me!"

"But how did you get those? You've never shoveled a day in your life either."

"They're detachable. I got Uncle Ernesto to smuggle me a set of stick-on calluses."

"Oy! Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-stupid!" the overseer shouted with another crack of his whip. "Get a move on! These spittoon juice ditches aren't going to dig themselves."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 590

Smush was reading the funny pages of the So Totally Super Serious Financial Economic Times one morning when Mogey appeared, wearing a leather vest, a red cape, and scuba diving goggles.

"Today is the day," Mogey announced.

"Yes?"

"Today is the day I ride Mister Lumpernoodle's waterwheel... all the way around."

"All the way?" Smush gasped. "But that's impossible! The physics alone...."

"I can do it," Mogey promised. "But I need your help."

Half an hour later Mogey and Smush were hanging out sketchily near Mister Lumpernoodle's grist mill. When it seemed that no one was watching, Mogey ran to the waterwheel and hopped into one of the buckets while Smush hurried over to the sluice gate.

"Now!" Mogey shouted, donning his goggles and looking supremely dorky. Smush opened the sluice full tilt, sending a sizable wave rushing toward the waterwheel. The wheel spun at tremendous speed, carrying Mogey up and around then dunking him down into the stream and finally flinging him high into the air.

"What are you boys doing out here?" Mister Lumpernoodle hollered as Mogey landed with a thud not five feet in front of him. Mister Lumpernoodle cocked his shotgun. "You got that darn wheel moving so fast that it ground all my corn into a powder so fine that it'll only be fit for sprinkling under my arms. I'll smell like corn from now til eternity! Corney, they'll call me, Corney the Corn-pone Corndog."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 589

"Mogey, I think it's time we got a new clock," Smush said one morning as the two pals sat in the shadows of their behemoth old grandfather clock.

"Why would we do that?" Mogey asked.

"For starters, because this clock only goes to 11. But also because it hasn't ticked a tock in years."

"I don't see the problem."

"Don't you ever get sick of being late to things all the time?" Smush said.

"Not at all," Mogey replied, "and if we get rid of this clock I'll lose the perfect excuse. Everyone will be all 'why are you three hours late to the funeral?' and instead of saying I have a wonderful old clock at home that I can't bring myself to replace, I'll have to just admit I'm lazy. No one will save me a plate of potato salad if I say that! And there is nothing tastier than funeral potato salad. Nothing."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 588

Mogey and Smush were journeying along the rocky coastline of Brabashadur when they came upon a building the likes of which they'd never seen before.

"Say, Smush," Mogey began, "what do you suppose they built that for? It's too tall and skinny to be much of a house, but there's no cropland around here, so it can't be a silo either."

"Not to mention the fact that it's windowless all the way up until those enormous windows at the top. Someone's shining a light up there so bright that you must be able to see it for miles. I haven't the foggiest idea what it could be."

"Let's ask this marmoset," Mogey suggested, gesturing to a passerby. "They're usually the knowledgeable sort. Excuse me, goodly marmoset? What is the purpose of yonder building?"

"I'm actually just a very hairy man," the passerby replied. "And that there's what we call a lighthouse."

"Pardon me, marmoset," Smush interrupted angrily, "but I believe my friend asked you what the purpose of that house is, not how much it weighs."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 587

One sunny afternoon, Mogey and Smush strode out to the watermelon patch, only to find a chubby puppy staring wonderingly at their watermelons.

"Ahoy there," Smush said. "Can we help you with something?"

"Gee whiz, mister," the puppy said. "But that watermelon there, the second one on the left, is the biggest, bestest watermelon I ever laid eyes on."

"The biggest and bestest ever?" Mogey asked, his voice all atremble. "But where do you come from?"

"Cat Tuft Bluff," the puppy replied.

"Cat Tuft Bluff?" Mogey exclaimed. "Cat Tuft Bluff? They have the greatest watermelons in the world in Cat Tuft Bluff! Smush, do you realize what this means? We're a shoe in to win the watermelon contest at the County Fair this year."

"Well, I wouldn't go that far," the puppy interjected.

"Why is that?" Smush asked.

"I'm a puppy. My eyes only opened, like, forty-five minutes ago and I came straight here. Supposedly you guys have some really slow, really delicious chickens hanging around somewhere?"