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."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 624

Mogey and Smush strode into the train station feeling as relaxed and confident as a duck taking a bubble bath while wearing a life jacket; they were bound for East Boingburgh, where the streets are paved with pavement. Really fancy pavement.

"You're sure you remembered the tickets?" Smush asked.

"Of course I remembered the tickets," Mogey replied.

"Good. It's nice to be travelling in style for once instead of jumping boxcars like some--"

"Quick!" Mogey exclaimed. "The train's moving! Now's our chance to make a run for it!" He seized Smush's hand and together the pals raced alongside the caboose, grabbed the lowest rungs of a ladder, and with great effort, hauled themselves up onto the roof.

"I thought..." Smush panted, "you said... we had tickets!"

"We do! Oh, you thought I meant inside-the-car tickets? Don't be silly, Smush - we're not made of money."

"If we're just riding on top of the train, who in the world did you buy tickets from?"

"Crazy Tot Tater," Mogey replied, gesturing to a hobo riding the roof of a car down the train a ways. Crazy Tot Tater waved back cheerily. "He gave us a great deal. Plus, unlike the rich people down below, we get a free pan of corn pone and a helping of weasel bacon!"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 623

One morning, Smush looked up from his bowl of wheat nut bunches to see Mogey entering the room, attired in one of his strangest outfits of all time.

"What in heaven's name have you got on?" Smush queried.

"Armor," Mogey replied.

"Armor? Mogey, you're wearing a Hawaiian shirt, platform shoes, and a fur diaper."

"That's right - it's girl-proof armor. I have a lot to get done today and I can't have ladies hanging all over me the way they normally do."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 622

On the night of what was to be the "Storm of the Century," Mogey and Smush were hunkered down, hoping against hope that the wind wouldn't blow the roof off their chicken coop... again. Every time the roof had flown off before, eight or nine chickens had gone with it, and being that these were soft-boiled egg laying chickens, they weren't easily replaced. So far, however, the Storm of the Century had brought no rain and scarcely a breath of wind.

"Who did you hear about this storm from, again?" Smush asked Mogey in their makeshift storm shelter (a quilt hung between two folding chairs).

"Brambles Bergeron," Mogey replied. "He sent out warnings to all the neighbors."

Just then, there was a knock at the door. Mogey and Smush answered it to find none other than Brambles Bergeron himself on their doorstep.

"Hiya fellahs," Brambles said, "aren't you coming on down to my 'Storm of the Century' party? The whole neighborhood is there."

"For goodness sakes, Mogey," Smush exclaimed. "It was a party invitation? He thought you had sent out a warning to prepare for an actual storm," he told Brambles.

"But didn't you notice that it said to bring beef jerky and delicious beverages?" Brambles asked.

"I thought those were emergency supplies and that we were all supposed to gather on the high ground at your barn," Mogey said.

"In that case, why didn't we go to Brambles' place anyway?" Smush asked.

"Listen, I didn't wait on line for the most choice cuts of beef jerky in town just to share it with a bunch of slow pokes. If I weather out this storm, I'm going to do it in my blanket fort while munching my beef jerky."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 621

"What are you doing, Mogey?" Smush asked as Mogey showed up with his face covered in flour.

"I'm not Mogeyyyyyy," Mogey replied in an eerie voice. "I'm Senor Spooooooky Mannnnn." 

"Ok. So why do you have..."

"Spooooooooky!"

"...flour all over your..."

"Spoooooooooooooooooooooooooky!"

"Goodness gracious," Smush exclaimed after his pal had interrupted him for the second time. "I know some people get into the Halloween spirit, but Senor Spooky Man is a bit much."

"What? Halloween?" Mogey demanded, snapping completely out of character. "I had no idea it was Halloween! Senor Spooky Man was just a hilarious, hilarious prank I was pulling on you. I need to get going! Some of the best trick-or-treating houses will already be out of candy." 

"No, Mogey, Halloween isn't until next week," Smush tried to say, but it was too late. Mogey was long gone, leaving only a smokey cloud of all purpose flour in his wake.  

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 620

On a cool spring day, Mogey and Smush stood in front of the newly completed Jim "Jiminy-Jim-Jim" Jaroo Memorial Geodesic Dome, munching on corn dogs as they admired the craftsmanship.

"Say, what's the difference between concrete and cement, anyway?" Mogey asked.

"Cement is an ingredient in concrete," Smush replied knowledgeably. "So you would say that dome is made from concrete, not cement."

"Sort of like how all rectangles are circles, but not all circles are squares?"

"Not even slightly."

"Ah," Mogey said. "Good corn dogs though, eh?"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 619

"What are you doing? You're going to be freezing," Smush groaned as Mogey met him out front to attend the ice-carving festival wearing only his shirt sleeves. "Put on a coat, will you?"

"Alriiiiiiight," Mogey replied, stomping back inside the gypsy caravan where he lived with six turtles and an owl named Blumbus.

Smush waited for his pal by a rickety pickety fence, idly imagining the magnificent ice sculptures they would see that night: ice bears, ice flower gardens, ice castles, and perhaps, if they were lucky, an ice Jon Bon Jovi. 

"How's this?" Mogey asked, emerging from the caravan dripping with what appeared to be white paint.

"Not good, Mogey, not good..." Smush said, pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking his head slowly.

"Why? I put on a fresh coat, just like you asked."

"I wanted you to put on an article of clothing, not a coat of paint! How would that even keep you warm?"

"Next time you'll just have to be more specific," Mogey replied. "And I'll have you know that I'm quite cozy inside this layer of Eggshell No. 4."

"Now that we've got that settled, go put on a jacket," Smush insisted. "And I swear to the god of meatball sangwiches that if you come out here wearing a book jacket or something, I'll throw you into Gorgeous George's Gorge of Gore."

"Don't be silly, Smush," Mogey said. "I don't own any books."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 618

"Why the long face, Mogey?" Smush asked as Mogey stomped into his study, dragging his feet and flopping his arms about like a Portuguese noodle maker.

"You're typewriter is broken," Mogey replied.

"What? That's terrible! What's wrong with it?"

"Every time I try to use it, the dang thing slaps a bunch of letters on the page." 

"I see," Smush said, relaxing. "And what were you expecting it to do?"

"Umm, well," Mogey began contemptuously, "as the name implies, I expected it to tie, pry, or tear, not make it look like I'm trying to write some kind of... words." 

"Why do you want to tie, pry, or tear a sheet of paper anyway?"

"I wanted to tear a piece of paper in half in order to make Nellie Peterson a birthday card. Fat chance of that happening now - the paper I bought is all covered in letters and what-not like I'm some kind of an algebraticionary scholar of language over here."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 617

"Oy! What are you two doing over there?" Mogey shouted, bursting out of the house and traversing the front yard at a speed so fast it could nearly be deemed a waddle.

A pair of lovely young ladies had knelt down by Mogey and Smush's duck pond were petting their pet mallard, Bonkis.

"We just stopped to admire your duck," one of the girls replied. "I hope that's alright."

"No miss, I'm afraid it isn't," Mogey said, readjusting his bathrobe. "There's been a ducknapper in the area, and I'd prefer it if you lassies would move along."

"What are you doing, Mogey?" Smush exclaimed. He had arrived on the scene just as the ladies were departing. "They were beautiful! We should have offered them a cup of tea or a slice of liver pie."

"Do you understand what a ducknapper is, Smush? Do you?" Mogey demanded. "It's someone who kidnaps ducks. Well that's not happening on my watch. Not to Bonkis, nor his wife Pleidies, nor his ducklings Knuckle, Chuckle, and Vlad. No sir."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 616

"I'm just so nervous," Smush muttered, pacing back and forth in front of the drugstore. "I can't take it!"

"Deep breaths, Smush," Mogey said. "Deep breaths."

"But what if she says no? Ursula Enchilada is the prettiest gal in town! How can a guy like me approach such a rotund beauty?"

"Smush, let me tell you a dirty little secret about talking to girls that you won't hear in the movies: Talking to them is easy; the only hard part is convincing yourself to take a risk."

"Hmm," Smush replied pensively. "You heard that line in a movie, didn't you?"

"Mmyes," Mogey admitted, bowing his head in shame. "But that doesn't make it any less valid. It's just one of the many valuable lessons one might learn from Killerman Killington IV: Stank Pizza."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 615

"Lines, lines, lines, LINES!" Smush exclaimed. "I'm fed up with their tyranny!"

"What's that, Smush?" Mogey queried.

"I'm trying to complete the income tax return for our farm, and I loathe all these lined pages. Why can't I write where I please? A letter here, a letter there, curlycues and whirlaroos, up, down, and all around." 

"Well I suppose you could, but then nobody would be able to read it."

"Who cares?" Smush replied. "It's all nonsense anyway. I just make it up as I go along."

"I see," Mogey said. "You say it's our tax return you're working on?"

"Yup."

"We're going to jail, aren't we?"

"We sure are."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 614

One morning, Mogey and Smush were scaling the vines of ivy that adorned the outer walls of Lumper's Lumber Mill, feeling carefree and happy as two Norwegians at a well-air-conditioned square dance. The ivy was so easy to climb that the two pals didn't realize just how high they'd gotten until Smush looked down.

"Holy moly, Mogey," he announced. "We should get out of here!"

"We'll be ok," Mogey insisted. "The ivy will keep us safe."

"What in the world are you talking about?" Smush exclaimed.

"He's right, Smush," a large ivy leaf suddenly replied, in a voice as deep and rich as a velvet cup full of egg nog. "I won't let you fall."

The sight of a talking ivy leaf surprised Smush so greatly that he lost his footing and plummeted earthward, narrowly avoiding his doom by landing a rain barrel. He erupted out of the water, unhurt but yelling hither and yon about scheming vines.

"Nice one, ivy," Mogey said, chuckling as he gave the talking plant some dap.

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 613

Mogey and Smush were ambling across the Goofperth Canyon Bridge one afternoon when they encountered a porcupine going the other direction.

"Say," Mogey said to Smush, "will you have a look at that porcupine? He's got gummy bears stuck all over his quills."

"What?" the porcupine exclaimed, for he had been eavesdropping, which is not very polite, but come on, what else is there to do when you're crossing Goofperth Canyon Bridge?

The porcupine began craning his neck around in an effort to see his own spines. "Phew!" he sighed, when he'd finally caught sight of the candies impaled on his back. "You nearly gave me the fright of my life."

"Why's that?" Smush asked.

"Gummy bears went out of fashion like 4 years ago," the porcupine replied, turning up his nose at our heroes. "These are all gummy lobsters. Read Distinguished Spiney Gentleman sometime - you might learn something."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 612

“Sure are a lot of mice out in the barn this year,” Mogey said, coming in from the cold and stamping the snow off his boots. “I was thinking… maybe we should get a cat.”

“No, no way,” Smush replied. “I’ll never get a cat. I’m already the second-smartest person in this house – I don’t want to be third.”

“Aw shucks, that’s nice of you, Smush, but I don’t think I’m any smarter than you.”

“I was actually referring to Pietro as the number one smartest, not you.”

“Pietro… the pig?” Mogey queried.

“Pietro the Pig,” Smush confirmed, nodding solemnly.

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 611

One evening, Mogey's nurse was performing his nightly ear inspection (gnats had a tendency to nest in Mogey's ears) while Smush sat nearby keeping the two of them company.

"Don't forget, Smush," the nurse said, raising her eyes from Mogey's ears sternly, "you've got to take your pill tonight."

"Right-o," Smush replied. "Thanks for reminding me." He unwrapped a small cod-and-butter sandwich from a paper bag on the table and began to eat it.

"You call your nightly sandwich a 'pill?'" Mogey asked skeptically.

"Maybe I do and maybe I don't," Smush retorted. "But at least I don't still have a nurse at the ripe old age of 42."

"Whatever! I'd only be, like, seven in dog years."

"Not at all how dog years work, Mogey. Not even a little."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 610

"Well, Mogey," Smush announced as he strode into the chicken coop with a book of weighlifting exercises and a jug of muscle milk, "I've purchased us two gym memberships."

"Gym memberships?" Mogey demanded, disgustedly throwing down two eggs he had recently retrieved. "I always thought we were the type of guys who got strong by lifting logs and stones out in the forest."

"Have you ever lifted a log or a stone in your life?"

"Of course not," Mogey replied. "That's what we have Lumberjack Pierre and Bertram the Rockbuster for."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 609

On a day so cold that penguins shivered and icicles grew icicles, Mogey strode into the house wearing a tank top and stomped the snow off his boots.

"Land alive!" Smush cried. "Aren't you freezing, dressed like that on a day like this?"

"Nah," Mogey replied. "I was quite comfortable."

Smush crept forward to inspect his pal. Sure enough there was nary a goosebump nor a moosebump nor even a papoosebump to be found. In fact...

"I say, are you actually sweating?" Smush demanded.

"Yeah," Mogey admitted around a mouthful of doughnut. "But that's because I ate a dozen doughnuts down at Waffle King. I always get sweaty when I'm eating doughnuts."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 608

Smush was doing something very foolish. He had climbed way out to the perilously slender end of a branch midway up their apple tree, and he was reaching out for the plumpest, juiciest apple in the whole orchard. He was only a few tempting inches away, so he inched a bit further and stretched his hand out as far as it would go.

Suddenly Smush felt himself losing his balance, and before he knew it he had tumbled through the air to land flat on his back atop several hard ground apples.

"Smush! Smush!" Mogey cried, running over in a panic. "What have you done? You've squashed half a dozen of our finest cider apples!"

"I'm alright, thanks," Smush said sarcastically as he lifted himself tenderly to his feet.

"Do you know what's not alright? These cider apples," Smush replied, picking one off the ground and biting it dramatically, only to spit it out in disgust. "Don't come crying to ol' Mogey when you can only have one gallon of mulled cider per night this winter, instead of your customary 1.2 gallons."

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush Volume 607

Smush happened upon Mogey on the third floor of Buxelton Manor, the country house where they were visiting their uncle, Baron Bertram Buxelton I, for the summer. Mogey appeared to be attempting to fiddle the doorknob open with his foot.

"What the world is going on here?" Smush asked, putting down his tray of ring dings and zebra cakes.

"It's these darn doorknobs," said Mogey. "I can't figure out how to get them open."

"Why, they work exactly the same as the doorknobs at our house."

"But that's just the thing," Mogey muttered, his eyes darting furtively about, "I don't know how to use those doorknobs either. I just kick in the door to my bedroom every night."

"You never learned how to open a doorknob?" Smush exclaimed, bursting into merry laughter.

"Is it funny?" Mogey demanded. He grabbed Smush by his admittedly stylish lapels and shoved him against the wall. "Is it funny to be a doorknob fool? Stop laughing and help me for goodness sakes!"