Here there be monsters
Posted on April 19th, 2010 by headspook
And they be yucky.
Comments Off on Here there be monsters
And they be yucky.
It’s April 13 and I’m already behind schedule.
A pyramid of paper skulls, having accumulated like dust bunnies, grins like … um, like you would expect. This peanut gallery watches everything that goes on in the Spook Shop, and it’s especially interested in this advanced prototype Grumblesque critter.
When he ships out next month, he will represent a complete Grumble re-design, which is important, since your old pal Spook’s old pal Grumble was officially decommissioned last November. It was a solemn moment, and I admit that it took a while to get up the nerve to put a cloth over his face and saw off his head. Grumbles and Phoenixes have a lot in common, mainly a fondness for setting fires, so he’ll be back, and better than he was before; better, stronger, faster.
Experimental gargoyles occupy the number two slot on the 2010 project list, followed by “Gutter Bats”, and a slew of new tombstones. Spooky Hollow has experienced a haunted housing shortage and needs to expand. Especially with the upcoming horde of new creatures.
We’re trying out all sorts of new ideas this season, and I’m looking forward to seeing what will happen. Mrs. Spookyblue is looking forward to that Capsela-looking thing relocating back to the garage and out of the big chair in the living room.
…I get a headache.
Whilst padding to the kitchen this morning to set the coffee maker to sputtering, I passed the front picture window and performed a perfect three-point double-take. Staring angrily back at me through the glass was what appeared, at first, to be a huge metallic bulldog. Now, when I say huge, I mean to say that its open maw and flashing eyes completely filled the window in a way that was most uncustomary.
Naturally, I hit the floor, but not before leaving a skull-shaped dent in the ceiling. Several subsequent minutes spent hiding under the piano revealed no new developments, so I guessed it was safe enough to dare a second look. There it stood, still staring through my window, motionless. Morning sunlight shafted down through the skylight, making it difficult to see details through the haze of ceiling Spackle that still sifted through the air, so I inched forward for a better view.
Details began to coalesce, and I perceived a symmetrical pattern of lines, like a tattoo, that converged to draw my eye to a wide plate with letters stamped upon it.
It read “F R E I G H T L I N E R“.
Snug harbor, being a “peculiar fold in space-time”, is sort of like the Bermuda Triangle in reverse. Things don’t necessarily disappear around here as show up. Mostly in the form of a dog, coyote, or goldfish-pilfering pterodactyl. We have grown accustomed to such appearances, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised, one day, to see a visiting Bigfoot having a go at the back porch swing. We keep a camera with fresh batteries next to the door for that sort of thing.
What I had never expected, but what has nevertheless resolved to occupy the flower bed beyond our picture window, was a 1974 silver and blue Freightliner semi. They’re like the Spanish Inquisition in that way.
There are only two reasonable explanations for this phenomenon, and the most compelling points squarely at Europe where the CERN folks have been playing with their fully armed and operational Large Hadron Collider. We’ve suspected for some time that the quest for the so-called God Particle would ultimately trigger an earth shattering kaboom, a black hole, or possibly open the gates to some unsavory universe filled with unsavory things. Like cats.
And if the LHC manages an end run around the other things that traditionally end worlds, specifically, heads of state and their idiocracies, then I expect it all to culminate in a single, distinct Fritz Feld-like “Pop!”
In any case, and until then, I have renamed the truck “Frightliner”, and have acquainted myself with its 13-speed transmission. It is now parked in the driveway with 11 speeds still intact. It seemed prudent to clear what appears to be a localized vortex or inter-dimensional drop zone for whatever next piece of flotsam should fall through to visit our flower bed. This explains all the Cornetto wrappers that have lately been seen blowing across the lawn.
We rely upon a vastly complex network of machinery to supply us with things, and in particular, the production of food.
Anyone who believes the Green Giant commercial showing men in white caps and overalls carefully placing the most succulent ears of freshly-shucked corn into baskets stacked in the beds of their Ford pickup trucks will probably believe anything. It’s not that I’m (very) cynical, but the sheer scale of the job of harvesting and processing means that mechanization is really the only practical solution.
The trade-off is that we have learned to accept the occasional rogue dragonfly wing sticking out of our granola bar, but we generally trust companies to employ certain quality-assurance measures to minimize those sick moments after a bite is taken of something that should not taste the way it tastes.
Ever get a “bad” peanut in an m&m? Barf.
Even with the strictest measures in place, all it takes is for one nasty mutant Easter m&m out of 10,000 to put one’s appetite back on the shelf. That thing looks like either its head asplode, or it was assembled from its constituent parts by the Incredible Hulk. Whoever built the food-printing-machine, however, should be happy to see that the little bunny face looks great.
Gallery of other m&m horrors … (and you thought I was exaggerating)