Munchibles

Story Time

Toon Town

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Letter from the Editor

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Story Time  
(All these stories are 100% true, by the way.  
Also, there are two stories here, so scroll down!)

"Good Lobster, Bad Lobster"  by Chloe Nightingale

My childhood revolved around villains. When my mother asked me what I wanted to name my little sister, I replied, "Gargamel." The poor kid got stuck with the name Chantel, but just you wait until I have kids.

I'm pretty certain my first crush was The Purple Pie Man from Strawberry Shortcake. I remember making mud pies and noticing that the mud had a rather lavenderish hue when it dried. I figured if The Purple Pie Man and I were hanging out, he'd probably try to bake me into one of his pies. You know, if we got into an argument or something.

Just to see what I'd look like escaping from inside a cartoon pastry, I covered myself from head to toe in mud. I looked wonderful! I basked in my crusty lavender loveliness. The Purple Pie Man could never resist me now -- even after getting into an argument with me and baking me into a pie.

I ran to the front porch and knocked on the door. When my mother answered, I proudly proclaimed, "The Purple Pie Man did it!"   She took pictures.

 * * * *

I began to notice my villainous cartoon idols tended to have dumb sidekicks. The imaginary villains in my room had dumb sidekicks, as well. The pirate-burglar in my closet had a dumb sidekick and the lobster-crab under my bed had an even dumber one. I was never sure what the deal was with the pirate-burglars, but I knew what the lobster-crabs were up to.

The villainous lobster-crab always tried to pinch my heel when I stepped out of bed to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. His giant pincer would reach out, just about to grab my achilles, when the dumb sidekick lobster-crab would trip and knock him over or shout, "Wait a minute, boss. I got a question!" Distracting villain lobster long enough for me to escape.

I awoke late one evening. I really had to pee and I could almost hear the lobster-crabs scuttling under the bed. They probably thought I was asleep or something so I had to be very careful and sneaky.

Left foot down, good. Right foot down -- AAAHHH! I got pinched! Horrified that the lobster-crabs were more than just a manifestation of my childhood paranoia, I yelped and ran to the bathroom.

When I finally dared emerge, I crept into my bedroom and turned on the light. Next to my bed was my trampled pair of Punky Brewster sneakers.

FIN

"The Play"  by NLC Beads aka The Sheep Goddess

Up on Lake Winna-Bango… the far northern shore…
Lived a big herd of moose, about sixty or more,

Technically, of course, there weren’t 60 moose, and definitely not more.  There may have been 3, from what I recall.  It was a painful rendition of a Dr. Seuss book. Thidwick the Big Hearted Moose, as done by a school class.

And they all go around in a big happy bunch
Looking for nice tender moose-moss to munch.

We certainly weren’t happy about it, either.  

…It happened that Thidwick, the last moose in line,
Saw a Bingle Bug sitting.
The bug called out, “Hey!
It’s such a long road
And it’s such a hot day,
Would you mind if I rode on your horns for a way?”

In school play set layout, that meant the actor playing Thidwick sat down in between two tables, and the “bug” sat on the table and pretended she was on Thidwick’s horns.

“...This big-hearted moose runs a public hotel!
Bring your nuts! Bring your wife! Bring your children as well!”
So the whole squirrel family all jumped on, pell mell.

Chloe had a starring role as a squirrel.  I’d like to guarantee at this point that even if anyone in the “smart” class we were in turned into an actor or actress at this time, this play would never make it on their resume.  

And the very next thing the poor animal knew,
A Bobcat and Turtle were living there, too!

I could have lived with being the Bobcat… I really coveted the narrator role – the narrator was the only one without a stupid costume.  But no… I was a turtle.  With a fine, Tupperware dish basin shell.  It wouldn’t have been so bad if the teacher hadn’t made a point of saying that each “actor” was assigned a role that suited them.  So Chloe was a bit squirrelly, and I was slow.  Damn.  No wonder we hated this class so much.

They asked in a fox, who jumped in from the trees,
They asked in some mice and they asked in some fleas.
They asked a big bear in and then, if you please,
Came a swarm of three hundred and sixty-two bees!

This would be the part of the play where we were hoping the tables wouldn’t collapse under the collective weight of many middle-school actors and actresses.  We were also hoping everyone believed in deodorant…

I can’t ruin the ending for you, even though finding the book may a bit of a challenge since it’s out of print.   Hell, I’d totally pushed the ending out of my mind until I started writing this.  Chloe reminded me, though – the ending was when we all had to crawl around in our stupid costumes picking up the leftover fallen “snow” we had to throw everywhere.  Talk about adding insult to injury.

Editor's note:  If you ever wondered what kids in the "gifted class" did, this was it.  Forget brain teasers, puzzles, and problem solving, we put our "superior" minds to use!  -- Chloe