A week on Nizgidge Ridge
Survived on August 17, 2025.
Indeed it was a confusing night, there on Nizgidge Ridge. My big little redheaded huzzey-muffet and I slunk off into the woods after the Sun had set and did things people do in the woods at night. The Moon rose and started peeing all over the ridge again. By the time we awoke, the Moon had retreated and the Sun was back, blasting the ridge with her withering death rays. But curiously, the road was gone. As was the clearing where my faithful Trabi had been parked. And my Trabi. Not even a single spark plug remained. Everything was gone.
Thousands upon thousands of mosquitoes however were not gone.
Monday morning was shaping up to be just as confusing as the previous night. Becasue and I wandered to and fro for a bit, then tried to find our way off the ridge by walking downward in whatever direction we could (which were all of them). But that to-and-fro-ing somehow led to us being back on the ridge. Maybe Nizgidge Ridge had been turned upside-down or inside-out overnight. It was known to happen. Was the ridge now Nizgitch Ditch? Or even Nazgalley Valley?
Maybe that school of grunions had a hand in its transformation. Maybe we were the last two humans alive. Maybe the other eight billion had all been eaten by grues overnight. Or Langoliers. It was known to happen.
And oh my, my 5½-foot-tall girl–chipmunk was still so redheaded that Monday. Not a touch of blonde had returned. The day wore on. And then those thousands upon thousands of mosquitoes returned.
Tuesday arrived. The mosquitoes had retreated after making off with at least 4ℓ of our blood and left us with thousands of tiny holes in our bodies from head to toe. But things were looking up. Neither grue nor Langolier came to chomp us during the night. Even the wendigos left us alone. The impenetrable swarm of mosquitoes probably saved us.
The day went about as well as can be expected for two doofuses lost in the woods. We wandered to and fro some more, then up and down in the forest. Becasue slapped me for calling her a doofus. Other than the swarms of deer ticks, dog ticks, horseflies, deerflies, mooseflies, and flying moose, we went mostly unmolested by the wildlife. Except the bear who stole our shoes. And the porcupine who could not only throw his quills but was very evidently a U.S. Army sharpshooter in a previous life. Around seven o’clock (but there were no clocks) we found a quiet spot to rest awhile—until the trees started screaming at us. So we then went and found another quiet spot. But that one turned out to be full of spiders. Singing spiders.
The Moon came hurtling back above the horizon, peeing as hard as ever on the Sun as she fled in the other direction. Becasue and I were again busy fending off thousands of mosquitoes—all of which suddenly retreated as darkness fell. We breathed a bloodless sigh of relief. But then the katydids came out.
You, dear reader, may think katydids are harmless little grasshoppery things, but let me tell you: They don’t forget when you abuse one of their brethren—no, not at all! A katydid never forgets. And so Becasue and I spent the rest of Tuesday night fending off an airborne assault by a legion of vengeful katydids. (This was not known to happen, at least not before I fiddled with a katydid back in ’23.)
Then, a miracle happened: All those spiders reemerged from their spider holes, leapt into the air, and—voices raised in song—devoured the katydids one by one. It was a glorious sight to behold. Under the most heavenly arachnidial chorus I had ever heard, we celebrated our victory. I devoured my Becasue that Tuesday night.
I was beginning to regret last week’s thousand-word salad. Especially when we both realized we were all out of thousand-island dressing.
We weren’t out of anything else, though. I, ever the clever surmiser, had surmised there had been a possibility, however slight—however nary!—that we would get lost in the woods on Nizgidge Ridge. So, I had packed 17½ weeks of food for the trip. Unfortunately, I had sealed the lot of it in bear canisters and—being slow, lumbering, and rather ursine myself—I could not for the life of me figure out how to reopen those cans! I tried pawing at them. I tried clawing at them. I tried gnawing at them. But no dice. But all was not lost: My girl–chipmunk is smarter than me and, after much smirking and supercility, she opened them easily with her hands. I wondered if she could open things with her feet, too. She slapped me again for calling her a doofus earlier.
We feasted sumptuously. And knowing bears eat chipmunks, I ate my huzzey-muffet that Wednesday night.
By Thursday, we were both quite sure there were no other humans left anywhere on the ridge, nor on the Earth, nor anywhere else in the Universe. They had all been eaten by grues. Or Langoliers. Or shot by porcupines with sniper training. What to do, what to do? We went back into the woods and schtupped like rabbits.
The mosquitoes returned and made off with another 4ℓ of our blood that night. But it would grow back. Eventually. My brain-monkeys ordered my marrow to work ’round-the-clock if need be. (And need did be.)
“…And the cow jumped over the Moon,” I intoned. “Or maybe the cow jumped the Moon’s bones? One wonders.”
Friday now loomed over those woods. And Friday is a day that calls for questions like that one. My huzzey-muffet looked at me, redheaded as ever, and quirked one fiery eyebrow. I smirked and quirked all three of mine. She started mooing. She liked to moo. When she wasn’t cooking corn. Coal, corn, and cows—that was what her hometown in West Virginia was famous for. “Coal, corn, and cows” was even the motto on the Squirrel Blind town seal. I started mooing. She rattled her cowbell necklace and mooed louder. Pretty soon we were mooing in perfect harmony.
Then I jumped my huzzey-muffet’s bones.
I needed a shower. The Moon was still giving the Sun the ol’ golden shower each night. Becasue needed a shower. My suggestion went over like a leaden balloon and ended with her trying to throttle me.
I wondered why they make self-cleaning ovens and even self-cleaning public toilets but not self-cleaning humans. I had invented self-slicing bread (which also went over like a leaden balloon, albeit a razor-laden one), so I went to work thinking up how I could invent a self-cleaning human. Then I remembered I may be an expert surmiser but I am not an expert inventor—being a big doofus and all. The perpetual motion machine I invented in ’04 which ended up setting my garage on fire attested to that. Then there was that pneumatic nose hair trimmer… I stopped daydreaming and went back to wondering where all those goats suddenly came from.
We wandered to and fro some more. If nothing else, Saturday proved one thing: Ancient horses’ asses are responsible for everything—right up to the U.S. standard rail gauge of 8′4½″.
It was hot and humid. I still didn’t know where all those goats were—the air was thick with their aroma. And horseflies. Those made off with another 2ℓ of our blood. Everything in this forest wanted to kill us—or at least exsanguinate us. We found a pond and dove in. But it was full of leeches which made things interesting. (And bloodier.) At least it wasn’t full of Goa’uld.
Last week’s thousand-word salad indeed I had come to truly regret. “Words mean things,” my Editor often reminds me: All those words I scratched into this blog yesterweek had come to life this week and stranded me and my plump little huzzey-muffet on this godforsaken ridge in this dogforsaken forest. If only I had concocted a tale about being ensconced in one of our myriad bedrooms or murdering a plate of ziti (with lines!) this would not be happening!
No one was coming to rescue us. We weren’t even sure we needed rescuing. With 16½ weeks of food and no deadly predators around (except the copperheads, rattlesnakes, grizzly bears, wendigos, sasquatch, fire ants, killer bees, murder hornets, and genocide wasps), who needed a rescuin’? No one was coming one way or another.
On Sunday, I tried to make a shelter out of branches and twigs yet all I ended up with was obscene phrases spelled out on the floor of the forest with those branches. If any search planes flew over, the sight of that would surely cause them to fly right off again.
Truly this place was a dogforsaken hellhole.
Then the dogs came back from Hell and made more of a nuisance of themselves than any people-eating grues ever could.
Shit.