The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2026 Edition - Episode 13

"How the heck are ya, Moge-man?" Smush hailed, sweeping off his raincoat and kicking his wellies so high that they left muddy prints on the ceiling.

"Hmm," Mogey responded. "I'm certainly feeling something... but I can't quite think of the word for it."

"Amusement?" Smush ventured.

"Definitely not."

"Sorrow?"

"Not that either."

"Excitement?"

"No."

"Dismay?"

"No."

"Gratitude?"

"No."

"Envy? Outrage? Enthusiasm?"

"No, no, and no," Mogey replied. "It's not any of those." 

"Well what is it then?" said Smush, looking more fed up than the owner of an ice cream parlor-adjacent bookshop on "No Napkin Wednesdays." 

"It's on the tip of my tongue," Mogey said pensively. Then: "I've got it! Frazzlement. Frazzlement is what I'm feeling."

"You feel like a slice of gum?" Smush exclaimed.

"Precisely," Mogey replied.

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2026 Edition - Episode 12

One afternoon, Mogey headed down to a local pub called The Ploughman to meet his best pal Smush. After a brief pause at the doorway to take in the pub's sign, which featured a centaur-like creature with the upper body of a man and the lower body of a plough, Mogey entered the cozy environs.

"Watcha eating?" he asked Smush, sliding into a richly-upholstered booth. 

"Welsh rarebit," Smush replied. 

"Wot?" Mogey demanded, looking more disgusted than a Nebraska field mouse sitting down to the same dinner for the 100th night in a row ("corn again??")

"Welsh rarebit," Smush repeated with a chuckle. "Don't worry, there's no rabbit in it. It's a sort of British fondue."

"It wasn't the 'rarebit' part that concerned me!" Mogey exclaimed. "I'm shocked and dismayed that you'd let those grape juice-making dorks anywhere near your cheese!"

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2026 Edition - Episode 11

"Wait a moment, Smush," Mogey said, pausing in the middle of the dusty track to pick up a stone.

"What've you got there, Mogey?" Smush inquired.

"Rock," Mogey replied, giving it a few experimental tosses between his hands.

"Annnnnd watcha gonna do with it?"

"This!" Mogey said as he heaved the stone as hard as he could. Though there were no buildings, vehicles, or people in sight - nothing, in fact, but dust and tall grass - the unmistakable sound of a broken window issued forth when the rock finally landed.

"Was that what I think it was?" Smush asked.

"Hey you miscreants!" shouted a farmer who was cresting the hill at such a pace that the buckles of his overalls burned red with the friction of all his jostling. "You're going to pay for that glass grass you've damaged! And my glass grass runs a pretty penny, so get your wallets ready. GLASS GRASSSSSS!"

"So," said Smush breathlessly as the pals took off running, "not exactly what I thought it was...." 

The Abbreviated Adventures of Mogey & Smush: 2026 Edition - Episode 10

"Don't you think it's high time we hired some help around this place?" Mogey inquired. 

"What, like a live-in plumber?" Smush suggested. 

"I was thinking about something more like this," Mogey said, holding up a glossy brochure titled Cuisine Machine 4.0. 

"The lunch-cooking robot?" Smush scoffed. "No way... trust me. I've looked at all of 'em: Cuisine Machine 4.0, the Automatoton, even the Flandroid 5000. I crunched the numbers, and it'll never work." 

"Now I know it's a big investment, but I think the Cuisine Machine 4.0 will pay for itself in a mere twenty to thirty years."

"No, no, no, I'm not talking about the dollars and cents," Smush clarified. "I mean I crunched the numbers on whether the Cuisine Machine can actually keep up!" He snatched the brochure from Mogey's hands and pointed to the fine print. "See here: the Cuisine Machine 4.0 requires refueling every 50 ham sandwiches, and a full oil change every 200 ducks a l'orange. We'll be so busy managing his fluids every day that we'll end up eating even less than we do now!"

"I suppose you're right," Mogey admitted, looking sadly at the Cuisine Machine's half dozen fully-articulating arms and shiny ceramic chef's hat. "Perhaps by Cuisine Machine 5.0 he'll be able to l'orange those ducks at a rate that makes sense for our lifestyle."