The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 639

One afternoon, Mogey returned home to find his best pal Smush shaping a big pile of mud in the front yard.

"Welp," Smush said, with a sigh of satisfaction. "It's finished."

"What's finished?" Mogey inquired.

"This!" Smush cried, pointing violently at the pile of mud. Mogey could tell Smush was devastated by the question, mainly because he began filling his hat with mud in a despondent manner.

"Oh of course," Mogey said, "this... sculpture..." Smush's ears pricked up, "of... me?" Smush nodded expectantly. "And... you? Riding a... hawk?"

"It's actually a falcon," Smush replied smugly. "But I wouldn't expect a novice in both mud art and ornithology like yourself to know the difference."

That day and every Tuesday afterward, Smush came back out to the garden under cover of darkness and gave his mud sculpture a single, prideful pat on the head, the kind of pat a man gives to the best chimichanga he's ever made and then eaten in a single bite.

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 638

"How was your day, Moge-man?" Smush asked as he sat down next to his pal one evening at the local sodey fountain.

"Pretty good," Mogey replied. "I met Count Chocula."

"How did that happen?"

"Well, I was feeling a bit more peckish than usual so I ate twelve bowls of cereal in a row. At about the ninth bowl I began to hallucinate, and by the twelfth, Count Chocula himself paid me a visit. We went rollerblading together through his chocolately palace and he busted a gnarly misty flip off one of the buttresses."

"Ok...."

"What, is there some other way to meet Count Chocula?" Mogey demanded.

"I was thinking you met, like, a guy in a foam costume," Smush said.

"He duped me, didn't he? That Transylvanian trickster! I kept telling him, 'I'm imagining this,' and he would always say, 'Relax, guy, have another pudding pop and some chocolate milk.' Such shenanigans will not stand! I'll get you for this, imaginary Count Chocula!"

"Oh boy..."

"I'll get youuuuuuuu!" Mogey howled into the night.

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 637

"I bet I can do more chin-ups than you," Smush said randomly as the two pals were both filling out their income tax returns with crayons. Smush had chosen a periwinkle-colored crayon. Mogey, of course, was using burnt sienna.

"I bet you can't," Mogey replied.

"Well, I suppose we'll need an impartial judge," Smush announced.

Two days later, Mogey and Smush found themselves in Frau Pferdefleish's barn, warming up their muscles and getting just the right amount of chalk onto their hands.

"Take your places," said Fashionisto Buck, the agreed-upon impartial judge. Despite his commitment to neutrality, Buck had accepted many, many bribes from both Mogey and Smush over the last two days. So many, in fact, that he'd forgotten who was ahead and become impartial once more.

Mogey and Smush crouched below two of Frau Pferdefleish's many chin-up bars.

"Ready? And... go!" shouted Buck.

Mogey and Smush leaped up to grab hold of their respective chin-up bars and strained mightily. To the naked eye - and even the modestly clothed eye - neither of them appeared to gain any altitude whatsoever, but Buck raced back and forth, making precise chalk markings on the barn wall before each of the deflated pals fell to the floor in a heap.

"I definitely beat you!" Mogey yelled breathlessly.

"No chance," Smush disagreed. "I made it at least one sixteenth of an inch!"

The pals looked at Fashionisto Buck expectantly, as he took careful measurements with a slide rule.

"Sorry," Buck said finally, "but the height of both chin-ups is almost undetectable. I'd need a vernier caliper to call this anything other than a draw."

"Well it just so happens," Mogey proclaimed slyly, as he reached into his back pocket, "that I brought a vernier caliper for this very reason."

"That's a charleston chew," Buck said. He looked down at the candy bar in confusion. "Is this supposed to be another bribe?"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 636

One afternoon, Smush was shearing his sheep, Godzilla, when Mogey walked into the sheepfold wearing one sweatband on his head, four on each arm, and two around his ankles.

"Anyone for tennis?" he asked.

"No!" Smush replied. "And I could really use your help shearing Godzilla!" The sheep, who (unbeknownst to Smush) had worn an embarrassingly old set of underpants under his wool coat that day, was wriggling like mad.

"Well, you think pret-ty highly of yourself, don't you?" Mogey asked Smush. "I was talking to Godzilla."

"Fine - just take him," Smush said with a sigh. "He's being a pain in the neck today, anyway."

"Phew!" exclaimed Godzilla, tugging his partly-sheared coat over his bottom as he trotted off to grab his racket.

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 635

One fine summer evening, Mogey and Smush were walking through the county fairgrounds. Mainly, they were trying to execute a long con that would result in a lifetime supply of funnel cakes for each of them, but in the meantime they were taking in the sights.

"Step right up, heya! Step right up and find out what breed of dog you'd be," shouted the hawker of a carnival game. He wore a top hat and, bizarrely, a pair of women's silk pajama pants. That was all. "Step right up, I say!" he continued, pointing right at Mogey. "You, suh! I'll tell ya what dog most closely resembles your personality, see? Only two bits!"

Mogey never could turn down a hawker who pointed directly at him, so step up he did. The carnie sat him down on a battered wooden stool and looked deeply into his eyes.

"Easy one," he said. "Dachshund."

"A wiener dog?" Mogey exclaimed. "How dare you?"

"Yes indeed - of all the dogs in the animal kingdom, wiener dogs are the most gullible, see? Plus there's the obvious physical resemblance. That'll be two bits!"

"Ooh! I'm next!" shouted Smush. "Do mine!" When he'd collected his two bits from a reluctant Mogey, the carnie sat Smush down on the stool. He looked at Smush for a long time, and his expression grew more and more dismayed.

"I'm sorry," he said, finally. "But your dog equivalent is too grim. I just... can't. No charge."

"What in the world?" Smush replied. "What could possibly be that bad?" But the carnie simply stood and packed up his stall without another word.

"Don't worry about it, Smush," Mogey said, slapping his pal on the back. "I'm sure you were just a demonically possessed scotty dog who's going to bring about the Rapture or something. Now come on, we're well behind schedule on this funnel cake heist."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 634

Mogey and Smush had just returned home from a long day of teaching middle school gym. Mogey flopped onto the couch, raising a cloud of middle school locker room scent, while Smush peered into the icebox in search of a snack.

"You want a yogurt, Mogey?" he asked. "That's what I'm having."

"Is it fruit-on-the-bottom?"

"Yes."

"Ick!" Mogey exclaimed.

"I think I might have a few with the fruit mixed in somewhere..." Smush said, rummaging around some more.

"Bleghh!" Mogey replied, looking even more disgusted.

"Well what are you after then? Fruit on the top?"

"Smush, let me make one thing perfectly clear: If you suggest one more yogurt topping that doesn't start with an 'h' and rhyme with 'got pudge,' I'm going to be sicker than an old racist dolphin watching his granddaughter kiss a sea lion."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 633

Smush was partial to a good rocking chair. Mogey was more of a barcalounger fan himself, but because he was a good friend - and because he hadn't been out of the house in nearly a fortnight - he accompanied Smush down to Rockin' Robin's Chair/House Warehouse.

With very little help from the shop owner, Robin, a sneaky little man who looked more like a leprechaun than at least three leprechauns Mogey and Smush knew personally, the pals finally made it to the rocking chair section.

Smush apprehensively lowered his peach cobbler-enhanced bulk into the first chair, which creaked ominously, though apparently not ominously enough for Smush.

"I like it," he said, rocking thoughtfully back and forth, "but it's just not quite spindly enough for me. I like a rocking chair with elegant, slender woodwork."

They moved on to another chair whose rockers were so slim that they looked as if they would have difficulty holding up an ultramarathoning baby in a helium diaper. Smush sat down with an even louder creak, but once again shook his head.

"Still not spindly enough?" Mogey asked.

"Not quite," said Smush.

Finally they found the least sturdy-looking rocker in the entire chair/house warehouse, a high backed number that may have been made from chickadee bones and balsa wood. Smush sat gingerly, producing the loudest, longest creak they had heard all day. But the chair held. A grin spread across Smush's face.

Suddenly an overhead trap door opened, pouring a dozen jumbo-sized watermelons onto Smush's head and lap and sending him sprawling as the chair splintered into literally billions of pieces.

"Ha-ha!" shouted Robin, the diminutive store owner. "Another classic misdirection from Rockin' Robin!" He danced away merrily, clicking his heels and stealing hats from several small children.

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 632

"Have you ever wondered," Mogey murmured as he swept the remnants of his dinner plate into a paper bag beneath the sink (all that remained were two limp string beans that hadn't gotten a proper dose of butter), "what happens to all of our trash?"

"No," Smush replied. "I know exactly what happens to it."

"I've always imaged that there's some sort of fairy... no, more of an ogre - a trash ogre - who comes to pick it up--"

"It just goes into a big pile next to Barnaby Johannson's latrine - you'd know that too if you ever took the trash out."

"--the ogre loves trash far more than new items, you see, and he builds things out of it," Mogey continued dreamily. "Breadcrust boats and yogurt cup castles and wax paper kites. Can't you just see it now? An ogre flying a kite made of crumpled old wax paper?"

"I've got to hand it to you, Mogey, you're always full of ideas," Smush said. "But I once owned a parrot who was full of ideas too...."

"And?"

"Remember that time we had parrot turnovers garnished with parrot beak?"

"Oh my, yes," Mogey said. "Those were delicious! Savory and sweet all at once."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 631

Mogey and Smush's wagon had broken again, so they brought out their cantankerous old team of oxen and hauled it slowly down to Warren Syrup's Tampa Bay Wagoneers, a wheelwright's shop down in the village. It was a trip they always dreaded, because Warren Syrup reminded them that they didn't know diddly about wagons.

"What seems to be the trouble this time?" Warren boomed as he noticed the familiar sight of Mogey and Smush's doleful oxen.

"The front right wheel won't turn," Smush replied.

"And our rear axle is wobbling something awful," Mogey added.

"Let me take a look here," said Warren. He crouched to get a closer look at the wagon, punctuating his inspection with several hmmm's and a few ah-ha's. "I've identified the problem," he announced after a few moments. "The spokes on the front right wheel appear to be made out of uncooked spaghetti, so that'll have to go. As for the rear axle, well, it doesn't exist. The wagon box is just sort of... leaning... on the wheels."

"Thus explaining the wobbliness," Mogey interjected knowledgeably.

"Will it be expensive to fix?" Smush queried.

"Phenomenally."

"And - on a related note - what's the plan for that spaghetti you're removing?" Mogey asked.

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 630

"Oh, look! They have ping pong!" Mogey exclaimed as he and Smush strode into the local YMCA (Young Meddlers' Crouton Abomination) for the first time.

"You're right," Smush replied. "Let's have a game, eh?" He selected a red and black paddle from the rack, but Mogey simply walked to the other end of the table. "Say, aren't you going to get a paddle?" Smush asked.

"No sir - I prefer to play barehanded," said Mogey. "And my new pals here think that's pretty cool."

Sure enough, Mogey seemed to have acquired three min-pins, a talking chinchilla, and an obese fellow wearing a batman cape. All five of them had gathered on Mogey's side of the ping-pong table and were staring at him in awe.

"Suit yourself," Smush said. He bounced the ball a few times, then tapped a serve over the net. Mogey hauled back and smacked the ball with his palm, sending it flying past Smush's head without coming anywhere near the table. He raised his arms in victory and fell backward into the arms of his wildly cheering fans.

"You know, Mogey, the ball has to bounce off the table to score a point..."

But Mogey, the three min-pins, the talking chinchilla, and the obese fellow in the batman cape ignored him and walked out of the room singing, "campeones, campeones, ole ole ole! Campeones, campeones, ole ole ole!"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 629

"Do me a solid, would you, Smush?" Mogey asked, bustling into the smoking room with his arms full of brochures to various roller skating rinks.

"What do you need?"

"Call the clockmaker and tell him we need him here by five this afternoon at the latest."

"Oh - did your clock break?" Smush queried.

"No, but can't that guy do anything except fix clocks?" Mogey demanded. "I'm trying to set up an ungodly number of dominoes on the staircase tonight, and I'll need an assistant with a hunch back and a steady hand."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 628

No one had ever come so close to completing the El Dorado Pizzeria Impobstacle Course before. Smush had stunned onlookers with his ability to swim leisurely across the pit of molten lava. He had amazed them when he literally hoisted the main gladiator, Brutalator, on his own petard. He had even inspired tearful surprise at an obstacle called the Poetry Guillotine when he recited a moving soliloquy from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

"Ok, Smush!" Mogey called from the sidelines. "Only one obstacle left, and it's the easiest of them all! You just have to hop onto that six-inch-high platform and hit the red button. C'mon, buddy, win us that medium pepperoni pizza!"

"What do you mean, 'hop?'" Smush asked, examining the platform.

"Just jump up there, two-footed. Like a bunny! Or a kangaroo! Or Pepe Le Pew!"

"I don't know how to do that...."

"Come on, Smush, stop fooling around!" Mogey cried desperately. "Time is running out!"

Smush tried several of the most uncoordinated hops in Impobstacle Course history before finally falling flat on his face as the clock expired.

"Nooooooo!" Mogey howled, falling to his knees. "Our pizza!"

"I knew he didn't have it in him," muttered Brutalator from the top of his petard.

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 627

"Ahoy, Mogey!" Smush said as he came inside and stamped the snow off his boots. "What did you get up to this fine day?"

"Not too much," Mogey replied, rolling out of his hammock with a thunk. After more than a dozen attempts at exiting the hammock gracefully, he'd resorted months earlier to padding the landing with a bed of stolen ketchup packets and using a barrel roll technique to escape.

"Didn't you do anything productive?" Smush asked disdainfully.

"Of course I did," Mogey replied with a frown of resentment. "I made the most realistic looking plate of play-doh spaghetti you ever saw. It looked so good that I offered Ferdie a bite to see what would happen; he ate the whole thing before I could stop him!"

"Ferdie... our prize hertfordshire pig?"

"Yes. On a related note, I hope you're in the mood to have blue-tinged porkchops for dinner."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 626

One day - an otherwise peaceful, random day - Smush heaved an exasperated sigh, threw down his pitchfork, and stormed out of the donkey barn. Mogey followed quickly, partially to see what was the matter with his pal, but also because Smush had left the door ajar, and Lord knows what kind of mischief those clever, clever donkeys could get up to if they escaped.

"I've had it!" Smush exclaimed when Mogey found him. "All this business of mucking donkey stalls - I can't do it any longer!"

"Well we could muck the cow stalls for a while if you like...."

"That's not what I mean. I want something bigger, better... I want to be a scientist!"

"What sort of scientist?" Mogey queried.

"You know, one of those scientists who spends all day witnessing and authenticating the execution of contracts, preparing documents, taking affidavits, and using a heck of a lot of rubber stamps," Smush said. Mogey stared at him blankly. "Is that not what a scientist does?"

"No...."

"What's that person called, then?" Smush asked.

"A notary?" Mogey replied. "I think?"

"That's the one," Smush murmured dreamily, "and one of these days, I will be a notary!" 

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 625

"Friends, neighbors, archnemeses," Mogey addressed the assembly, "I come before you today, not as a Mogey, but as someone even more awesome. A 'Super-Mogey,' if you will. And as a Super-Mogey, I feel there is a matter upon which I must impart some wisdom. Consider the poppyseed bagel: Why is it so adorned with the seeds of the poppy? One might say decoration is their purpose, but in truth they make the bagel appear to have a rampant case of tiny, gray measles. Taste, then? Nay, the poppyseeds have no taste, unless of course it is the bitter taste of shame upon extracting a seed from one's teeth several hours after bagel consumption. The seeds cannot be for gripping purposes either, as they fly off the bagel with an almost explosive vigor as soon as it is--"

Here Mogey's speech came to a grinding halt as a chorus of boos and jeers rained down upon him.

"Booo!" shouted one particularly incensed young man. "BOOO! This 'Super-Mogey' has been talking so long, and so pointlessly, that my hot shrimp got cold and my cold shrimp became room temperature. Get him off the stage! And someone bring me some more shrimp!"

"I told you," Smush muttered as he pulled his bewildered pal away from the crowd, "that it was not necessary, nor even slightly appropriate, for you to make a speech at this wedding just because they hired us to wash the dishes."