The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 649

"Do you think we can go to the coal car now?" Mogey asked for maybe the fiftieth time.

Smush sighed and put down his copy of Beef and Other Meat Wellingtons Weekly. "I suppose so," he said, "but you're not going to like it. Where you got this idea that you want to ride in a coal car is beyond me. Are you sure you're not thinking of the caboose? Or better yet, the dining car?" 

"Yeah! "Yeah! Yeah!" Mogey exclaimed. "The coal car: Second from the front, full of coal, a pleasure to ride in for man or mole."

"You say that like it's a well known verse, but I'm proof positive you invented it yourself," muttered Smush as the two pals made their way through the Bennington & Northern train. After passing through half a dozen cars, they finally emerged into the open air. Before them was a filthy, unadorned box of a train car, loaded about halfway to the top with sooty coal. 

"See, Mogey," Smush said. "There's nothing glamorous abou-- Mogey?" Smush spun around in a panic, only to see that Mogey had already hopped across the gap and was burrowing into the coal in a way that could only be described as "snuggling."

"Coal car," Mogey sighed, yawning deeply. "Coal caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar." 

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 648

Perhaps it was a coincidence, but anytime Mogey and Smush ate barbecue ribs, the subject of mortality seemed to come up.

"So," Mogey said around a mouthful of sweet, sweet St. Louis style, "if it had to end, how would you want to go?"

Smush peered around the epic pile of bones in the center of the table that would later be used for a game known as "pork jenga."

"'Tis an unpleasant subject, but I've always thought 'Killed by a Crocodile' would read nicely on a tombstone," he replied. "That's why I challenge Hambone the Croc - a notoriously sore loser - to a weekly arm rasslin' match. When the day comes that I finally pin him, it will be time. And yourself?"

"There's only one way Mogey's shuffling off this earthly coil. A fair maiden is captured by a dastardly kidnapper and taken the the tippy top of the water tower in Cliffburgh--"

"That thing must be 500 feet high!" Smush exclaimed.

"You're darn right," Mogey said. "Anyhow, I pursue the kidnapper to the tippy top, where I become locked in combat with his dastardly self. Only, I realize that there's no way I can win - he's just too strong for me. After assuring that the fair maiden is safe, I manage to latch on to the dastardly villain and send both of us tumbling over the edge. Now what the kidnapper (dastardly though he is) doesn't know is that I'm wearing a parachute."

"Wait a second, I thought this was supposed to be the way it all ended."

"Let me finish! I pull the ripcord, but it malfunctions, you see. Turns out, instead of packing the parachute, I've filled the bag with two full racks of these fine St. Louis style ribs. I finish all of them before impact. The end."