Morey the Mutt's column makes no sense, meaning it's soon to become a major motion picture. Enjoy our latest installment, and to immerse yourself in Morey, please check out our archives at: 22/10/2006, 24/09/2006, 25/06/2006, 04/06/2006, 14/05/2006, 16/04/2006, and 12/02/2006. (Photo by Beth Javens)
26 Comments:
My kind of woman!
"My dear Clawdia," said Socrates in a quavering voice, yet holding his own, "if you will not let me rise out of this reeking pothole, I vow and swear that you can tear me to pieces, and I won't tell you a thing. Besides, if you do shred my innards, you will never find out where the Magical Golden Foot is," he pointed out with indisputable logic.
"I've had enough of your games, you tree rat! If I let you go, you'll flee; but I can't just stand here, keeping you a prisoner, because any minute those two hired guns of ours -- well, four, if we're counting heads -- will be out here, and we'll be back to mashing buttons and not much else."
"Well, there you are," he said. "We're just like Israel and Iran, Ohio State and Michigan, Larry King and the Modern World...currently at a standoff. Although you're doing better than I am, because I am in a mud puddle."
I glanced down and took in the soaked tweed blazer, the muddy corduroys, the soggy (if authentic) turtleneck sweater. "You've been using the Magical Golden Foot to make a pile of meow-meows for yourself, haven't you?" I guessed.
"What's wrong with that?" he wailed. "If OJ Simpson can make money writing about how he 'imagines' his wife may have died, what's the harm in me playing footsie with the Greater Forces in order to squirrel away a few nuts?"
"Not a thing," I replied sweetly, "but you'll need to get your paws on that magical talisman again soon, sweetie, because I'm going to save you a dry-cleaning bill by ripping these new togs of yours to pieces."
Socrates reacted the way I'd hoped he would. "No!" he expostulated. "First you try to destroy my book on the history of voles -- now this. No! No! No!"
"Where's the Foot, hazelnut breath?"
"P-Pandora's got it!"
My marrow froze along with my tail hairs. "WHAT?"
I released my grasp and he scrambled out of the puddle.
"You heard me. I gave the Foot to Pandora, and she put it in her box."
I stared at him, my eyes glowing slits. "I am going to carve you into cutlets, vermin," I told him, but my dive for his throat was one second too late.
Socrates HAD been working out, and made it up a tree faster than Harry Reid recently charged up the steps of the Senate. I decided to leave him for later, and high-tailed it for Pandora's odoriferous lair before he could make it across the tree tops and electrical lines to the same destination.
Pandora lives, as all the world must know by now, not far from the Lincoln Park dump, on a barren piece of land otherwise occupied only by scorpions, poisonous lizards and snakes. Coyotes howl in the distance, the bones of the unwary glisten in the moonlight. There is a door set against a pile of rocks, and behind it lurks Pandora....
And the unspeakable horror of Pandora's litter box.
Story continued next week.
Isn't there a band named Pandora's Litter Box?
Got to be old grunge from the 90s.
Like me.
Did you use to play in a grunge band, Javens?
Lily is a total scream!
No, Kabby. Did you?
I barked along with the best of them, Javens.
I was one of the singing chipmunks.
You were not!
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Lily's latest is wonderful. She has so much talent.
Comment Deleted? I didn't post anything!
I did.
Mystery solved.
I have been reading about aggressive squirrels and aggressive seals around the country. Could weather changes be making these animals go crazy?
Too much fast food from "well-intentioned" people would be my guess. The sugar count in the junk food humans toss to wild animals is extraordinarily high. The animals can't properly digest it.
I haven't posted in a long time. My dog is elfin, a mix, with one green eye and one brown eye. i saw the pix of gracie! Like the pix and tales. That's all^^^^^^^^^^^
So what color r your eyes?
Red.
My sister has two brown eyes, but 1 is lighter then the other. It looks green in ccertain lights. Dogs with green eyes must be rare.
As rare as aardvark eggs in Kansas, I'd say.
"Come in, dearie," called out a voice that sounded as creaky as the door itself.
"How'd you know I was here? I grumbled into the darkness, as I slipped through a crack about the size of one of the Great Lakes.
Not that Pandora has to worry about getting robbed. Even the scorpions and lizards tend to keep well away from her digs.
"I have my ways, I have my ways." A faint light flickered on, and all at once I caught a whiff of the litter box. Then I saw it -- a literal elephant in the living room, or what passed for one in Pandora's nasty lair.
"Great Bast! Open a window!"
"Deep breaths, Clawdia," purred Pandora, who stepped out of the shadows and plopped her scrawny ass down directly in front of me. "Consider this, dearie, your vomit will only add to the stench."
I took a gulp of fetid air and struggled to keep down my last mouse.
Pandora looked exactly as I remembered her: a mangy cat the color of smog, with runny red eyes, a missing ear, and a tale as crooked as most televangelists.
"You're here for the Foot," she said, and it was not a question.
"You're amazing," I gasped, "and I have to paw it to that wormy little rodent for giving it to you for safekeeping -- but it's mine by right, Pandora. Socrates stole it from me."
She blinked one oozing eye. "Way I heard it, the Foot belongs to the Sade, and that sly old squirrel stole it from HER."
"What do you want for it?" I asked her, shaking my head and rubbing my nose. The stench was worse than Mary-Kate Olsen's taste in clothes.
Before she could reply, there was a loud scratching at the door. "Pandora! Pandora! Are you in there? It's I -- Socrates!"
"The gang's all here," she said, as he managed to wriggle his way through the crack.
Socrates saw me and hastily climbed a wall. But odors, like heat, have a tendency to rise. He jumped down and put as much distance between himself and the litter box as possible, while keeping a close eye on me.
I managed a passably evil grin while I struggled to breathe, and bits and pieces of Mr. Mouse kept rising in my gullet.
"Excuse me," said Pandora, "but I have to get my Blackberry."
"You have a living shrub growing inside a hellhole like this one?" asked Socrates, whose social skills are about on a par with Michael Richards'.
She reached behind the hideous shroud-covered litter box with her tail, knocking over a couple of skulls in the process, and came up with a Blackberry SmartPhone. "Ah, let's see what this latest text message says."
Socrates blinked. "You're interrupting our incredibly important conversation to take a phone call?"
"I'm in the process of auctioning off the Magical Golden Foot," she explained amiably. She poked at the phone with her fangs, seemed satisfied with the results, then tossed it back behind the box.
"WHAT?" Socrates and I both demanded at once.
Her eyes gleamed. "You'd be amazed at the offers I've had and the presents I've received," she said.
"Stuff like that?" I asked, nodding toward a pile of apparent junk heaped next to the dreaded box.
She smiled. "Yes, dearie, lovely things: the missing wallet of one of the Bush twins, OJ's initial agreement with his publisher, Lassie's link to a drug cartel. What have you two got for me?"
I looked at Socrates and he looked at me. We stuttered, felt foolish.
There was a flash of light, and when I once again opened my eyes, I found myself lying next to Socrates in...in...Oh, Bast! OH, No! If there is a CAT ABOVE -- NO.
Story continued next week....
I don't know where I've been, but something has happened to me. I am lying here in front of the fireplace, a well-chewed catnip toy between my paws; while my unwelcome roomie, Golden Warrior, lies atop his favorite chair, listening to jazz on his favorite radio station, his eyes as glazed from catnip as Danny Devito's from chugging limoncello, while a silly smile like a broken rubber band plays its way across his pudgy face.
How long have I been here, and why can't I remember anything?
But wait! There are flashes. Two monsters. A showdown more calamitous than the Northfield, Minnesota, raid was for the James boys. And Pandora. That mangy old cat who lives out by the dump. Something about Pandora.
WHAT about Pandora?
The witch is making Christmas cookies. I didn't know witches believed in Christmas. I believe in dark and ancient mysteries. I believe in...I can't remember what I believe in. My mind is a blank. It's wiped cleaner than a fanatic's sins the moment he's officially declared a saint.
What am I doing here with this stupid catnip toy?
"Had a bad night, baby?" old Tabby Ass asks me, momentarily surfacing from the depths of his music and washing ashore.. "You look, you know, like you've had a bad night."
I turn my back on him, don't want to be bothered. But he was there for a while, wasn't he? Not that Golden Warrior would remember anything that didn't ripple out of a saxophone for more than five minutes. But he was there...wherever there was.
I look into the fireplace, watch the flames dancing and consuming. "I was looking for magic," I say aloud.
"We all are, baby," mutters Golden Warrior. "We all are."
LuLu the beagle enters the room, one of the witch's cookies clenched tightly between her jaws. Her eyes light up when she sees me, and she pretends to point. Yeah, yeah. Just like I'm terrified prey. A bunny rabbit or a squirrel. I ignore her. She shrugs, eats, and goes back into the kitchen to try for another cookie.
A squirrel.
Socrates?
What would I want with Socrates? Months ago I ate his lover and buried his bones in the backyard. I imagine the old rodent might be holding a grudge. Then again, there are plenty of squirrels in the trees. Why should one make a major difference?
Socrates. Magic. Monsters.
Why can't I connect the dots? It's like a door slams in my brain. I'm chasing a mouse, and the mouse vanishes into thin air.
Story continued below...
Story continued...
Dog smell as LuLu pads back into the room. "You look like crap," she tells me. "If you were a rabbit, I wouldn't bother to hunt you. Maybe you ought to see a vet."
I tell her to do something vile to a part of her anatomy she spends hours licking.
"I was only trying to be helpful," she lies, and spits out mushy cookie dough on the rug in front of the fireplace, flops down and eats the gross blend of sugar and saliva, licking her chops for emphasis.
"How long have I been here?" I ask her. LuLu might be a dog, and we can barely tolerate one another, but at least she's not off somewhere in Jazz Land Heaven with Charlie Parker and John Coltrane. At least she's coherent.
But she can't just decide to help me. She has to go through a bitchy little routine. She cocks her head and gives me a look reserved for very young puppies and idiots. "Here? You mean recently, dear?"
"No! I mean since the Great Flood, when your ancestors went steerage," I growl. "Oh, just forget I asked you about anything."
"You've been here all day and all night," she tells me before getting up, taking my toy, and going back into the kitchen to gorge some more. She leaves behind her dog smell.
Dog? Imp.
"I used to be the Missing Dauphin's pet," he said, "but we left the lake when Morey and his friend fell in. You did that, didn't you? You made them fall into the water."
"No!"
"Yes, you did, Clawdia, and life up here is no fun. I want to go back into the lake and be with the Sade. The lake has been my home for centuries, and you are a very bad cat."
"I want the Foot. It's mine by right."
"If you want me to rescue you, you'll forget about the Foot. In fact, you'll forget about everything that's happened since Morey and his friend fell into the water. You'll go home and go back to being a nice nonentity of a pussycat."
"But I'm not a nice nonentity of a pussycat. I am Clawdia."
"Well, I guess you can just stay in Pandora's litter box then."
"NO!"
The witch kneels down next to me and strokes my back. "Poor little thing," she says. "I've got an idea you've picked up worms. Let's get a pill into you and you'll feel better by the morning."
No.
But I have to take the bloody pill.
"Good, good girl," she tells me afterward. "Now, here's a new toy for you."
And she drops a little plastic foot between my paws. It squeaks when I bite down on it.
I think I may go mad.
Story continues next week...
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home