Oh, the serendipity!
Squelched through on May 30, 2010.
The Fendippitous Eggmen had once again come for me. And I was sure that if I didn’t send them back to the Brundlesphere where they belonged—again—they would come for you too… and eat your head (and liver).
Apparently my booting them all to the head had proven to be merely a temporary (or, as my grandpooty used to say, temporary) solution. Apparently, stronger measures were called for. And apparently, I’ve apparently used the word “apparently” a lot in this paragraph.
Before the Eggmen could accrete into the doorway and block my escape, I bolted from my chair, slid across the floor, rolled, bounced off the wall, fell, hit my head on the side of the desk, stumbled, fell again, and then clambered madly into a kneeling position before finally scrambling out of the room on all fours, shrieking and babbling like a twelve-year-old boy who just lost his mama in a freak shark attack in the middle of a desert.
I’m glad to say that I made it out of there unscathed.
I dashed down the hallway toward the room where I kept my prized fighting skeezle-wumpus. (Having lost my prized fighting stuffleupagus a few weeks ago, employing the dread skeezle-wumpus seemed like the only solution.) But upon entering my bestiary, I encountered a new horror: The ghoulish creatures that had followed the Eggmen through the Brundletunnel, those globulent gugs and ghasts of yore, had somehow outpaced me to my destination and were now gorging themselves most tentacularly upon my collection of exotic flora and fauna. Gluefish skeletons were strewn about the floor, adhering to the carpet. Two ghasts were fighting over the last remaining spaghetti tree, and the wall-climbing kudzu, that most rare of plants, was simply missing. My flock of garefowl were decimated, and my pair of ducks had been reduced to a pair of beaks floating in the rubber bucket that they had formerly called their tiny, tiny home.
And the skeezle-wumpus? Gone without a trace. Not even its psychedelic glacis plate or one of its seventeen adamantium-armored legs remained.
I regained my composure and backed away slowly, lest the hungry, hungry creatures feasting upon my plants and animals suddenly decide that I was as tasty as I looked. I started back down the hallway, and—
Oh, right, Eggmen.
I stopped in my tracks, my eyes starting from my head… and not stopping until they hit the ceiling with a sickening squish! not unlike John Updike being hit over the head with an inflatable hotdog. “Eggmen, Eggmen, Eggmen!” I began chattering frabjously, my larynx having disconnected itself from my brain and gone on a shrieking and babbling spree all on its own. “Eggmen, Eggmen, Eggmen, Eggmen, Eggmen, Eggmen, Eggmen, Eggmen!!”
One Eggman stepped forward, fendippitous as ever. I whimpered like a twelve-year-old boy who had gotten his toes caught in a cat-canning machine. The Eggman stood. I wet myself. He continued to stand. I continued to wet myself. This standoff went on until my bladder had completely emptied itself, whereupon a new course of action suddenly became necessary. So—I ran like bloody hell.
I bounded down the stairs faster than a bat out of northern California, but alas, the ability to remain upright and in rapid motion had never been a particularly well-honed skill of mine, so again I tripped, stumbled, shrieked, fell, babbled, and went tumbling and bumbling down the stairs like a hotdog that had suddenly been ejected from the end of its roll at the top of a staircase. My fleshy, forty-year-old corpse hit the floor at the bottom of the stairs like a garbage bag full of raw hamburger.
Clearly, corn had gone wrong once again.
I started to pull myself to my feet once again, when all of a sudden (a poorer writer than I might say, “suddenly and without warning”) my front door burst open. I was fully prepared to wet myself again in brain-addling horror at whatever new terror had unleashed itself upon me from outside my home this time, but the sight that greeted me instead had the near opposite effect on my Pnårpy self.
“Loquisha!”
It was Loquisha! Little brown Loquisha! My sandal-footed little missy wore sandals made of kudzu. There was kudzu entwining her toes, tentacles of kudzu tying her toes in knots, kudzu creeping between her toes and around her ankles! There was kudzu everywhere! My wall-climbing kudzu was alive and well! Little brown Loquisha must have taken it before those horrific ghasts and gugs had made their way into my bestiary!
“O my little Loquisha, my sandal-footed savioress!”
Oh, the serendipity to have Loquisha here now! Suddenly it all made sense: Loquisha was here to destroy the Fendippitous Eggmen—hopefully once and for all.
Oh, ho, ho!
A sudden clattering on the stairs behind me broke me from my foot-staring trance. I spun around, pulling myself to my own feet (although my eyes rarely left Loquisha’s luscious little brown ones). The Fendippitous Eggmen were on the march, languorously plodding down the stairs—moving toward us in total silence but for the bone-crunching sounds of their hobnailed eggboots on the wooden stairs. So, not total silence, but… you know.
They came to a stop a mere 23½ inches in front of us. (I measured it.) I looked the first Eggman square in the eye, my jaw set, my nose grim. Loquisha, sandal-footed as ever, stood beside me. “How long, Catiline, will you abuse our patience?” she implored the Eggman.
No answer but a blank, eggy, and ominous stare from behind those lenseless pince-nez glasses. The kudzu entwining itself around Loquisha’s ankles quivered slightly, ready to attack.
The head Eggman lunged. I squealed like a twelve-year-old girl who got her pigtails stuck in a paper shredder. The kudzu bolted from Loquisha’s sandals and enveloped the Eggman before he could react, squeezing the life from his eggy body. Crack! He went down, spilling his yolk and glaire at Loquisha’s delicate feet. The kudzu leapt from the gooey mess and pounced on the next Eggman, scrambling him with the same efficiency. Crack! went his shell, too.
The remaining Eggmen backed up a step. “Ha! We have them now! Kudzu, kudzu, crush them all! Strangle them! Squeeze the yolks from their eggy bodies! Squish them! Squoosh them! Squelch them! Squoink them to death!! Aaah-ha-haa-haaa!!” I shrieked and babbled, not in fear this time, but in Pnårpgasmic glee. Oh, the fendippity!—but for the Fendippitous Eggmen this time!
Aaah-ha-haa-haaa!! Oh, the fendippity!!