DAILY MONSTER 97 (of 100)
Good morning. Three more monsters left to go! I just filmed #100 tonight. I think you’ll have some more fun left this week. I know I will. All I have to do is read your excellent stories:
Monster 97 is hopping mad. Well, it’s hopping, at any rate. But it seems happy doing it. It appears to be another scientist. Do you think it works for United Pogoworks? Did it start out with one leg? Will it, in fact, end up with one? What do you think is going on here?
I will repeat again my public service announcement about what’s coming up next: As you know, there will be a book about this whole series and you can’t get into the book if you don’t post a story. So if you haven’t joined in the fun, this is your chance.
Due to the nature of old school print media, it’ll take a few months to get the book produced right. But I would love to keep you informed about the project in the meantime. I’ll post news here at the site, of course, but if you like, please send me a message at monsterbook@344design.com and I’ll make sure you’re the first to get the book when it becomes available. In fact, if you put yourself on the mailing list, I’ll send you a custom monster desktop picture—full color and everything!—by the end of the week.
I hope you’ll have a great Thursday
and that you’ll come back tomorrow and over the weekend.
98, 99 and the Big 100 are waiting for you!
They love you as much as 344 LOVES YOU
…It’s a pity pogosticks only have one leg. It’d be nice to have two shiny red shoes to go with my topcoat.
One leg? Psh! That’s what you think. Durek has twenty-seven but is on the run from government officials for his development of invisibility. He’s wearing invisibility pants with twenty-six leg holes, but you wouldn’t know because his legs are now, obviously, invisible! His development would break all trust between countries and normal human interaction if it ever came into the wrong hands. Fortunately for us, Durek really only uses his invisibility clothes to see movies for free and no one notices or cares (well, there was that one time someone tried to sit on him, but luckily for him, he slipped away quickly). Durek is also not that fat. To throw off his appearance, he took heed from his pet cockatoo and the hunchback from Notre Dame putting on a hunchback suit and growing out his skull-skin. In this rendering of Durek, he is posing with his hand on his chin — a standard pose for someone who thinks as much as he does. If he didn’t think that much, how could have developed invisibility!?
It really hit me that there are only 3 more days of monsters for me to write for. It’s sad, really. I am excited for new projects, the book, and the weekly monster.
Charles never considered having two eyes to be a handicap.
It was a normal Tuesday afternoon when the explosion sounded. The cloud that formed above the Red Shoe Testing Facilites was visible for miles. Witnesses described the boom as something similar to a small earth quake, and store windows even shattered as far away as downtown Heelsville. The details are rather sketchy, but what seems to have happened is this. A new intern was busy testing the sexy factor of a new shoe coating that would, hopefully, revolutionize the products of Red Shoe, Inc. The testing procedure involved painting a bit of the black–and very volitile!–liquid on a piece of paper while counting the number of times the testing monkey (aptly named Narcisimus) said “Ooo-la-la!” from his cage. All was going well–there had been a record forty-five exlamaitions from the primate in the first minute and a hlaf–when the intern, Robert, made a crucial mistake. Whithout noticing, he had spilled a drop of the sexy solution on the floor, and was presently about to step directly on it! (Everyone knows that Red Shoe Sexy Solution is only stable when completely dry.) This, of course, resulted in a resounding BOOM! The roof of the testing facility was blown clean off, and Robert would receive the brunt of the blast. His face became covered in sexy solution, and because of the heat, it dried as it was splattering him. This resulted in not only his face being covered in the unremovable substance, but also in his hair being drenched as well. And, because his right leg was the first thing to come in contact with the explosion, he lost it as well. Now, in the history of lab mishaps, the receiver of disfiguration usually has an axe to grind, and winds up in a sour mood for the remainder of his or her life (most likely making it his mission to seek revenge upon completely unrelated persons as Spiderman, Superman, Batman, and Captain Planet). However, in the case of Robert, he was pleased with his new look. Because Red Shoe’s Sexy Solution had been designed to raise the sexiness level of whatever it coated by 700%, Rovert was in high spirits. Hopping around on his single leg caused him no bother, and he would live out the rest of his days as one of the most popular scientists in the world. Of course, he did acquire the unfortunate nickname of “Monster No. 97” but he was able to brush this off, as his sexiness level easily won over any critics.
Ninety-Seven was born one of nine brothers in his hometown, and migrated to the USA in July, where he joined various members of his family including his brother Nintey-Five and numerous cousins. The Ninties family set up a number of businesses in major cities, primarily importing groceries such as olive oil, cheeses and sugar. The latter ingredient would bring them into their first contact with the criminal underworld due to its use as an ingredient in alcohol production – the family would supply sugar to gangs distilling spirits, a territory previously occupied by the Fourties family. The Nineties also branched out into opening a bakery and a confectionery shop, among other ventures.
With his crazy mohawk and cherry doc martens, 97 was the moshpit pogo champion of the world. Nobody could resist that charming grin, they just had to join in.
He led a worldwide movement to bring the pogo back to moshpits, replacing the boring push and shove pits they’d become. Once again crowds bounced to the beat.
97 is planning to team up with the Free Hugs guy on his next world tour, since what the world needs is more pogo fun and hugs!
Pepe was full of glee. His plan to evolve into a superior creature with legs was going swell. All the other monopods on his planet will soon be the inferior. Pepe’s formula was working, and under his trechcoat he felt the little stump soon to grow into another leg. Pepe hoped to grow at least 4 legs, and then begin his domination over the world. He was so ecstatic, he decided to hop around to try and make the stump grow faster.
One April evening at an ordinary-looking Office Max in Peoria, Illinois, Jarred Hockersly was sweeping up for the night. A storm was brewing and he wanted to get home as soon as possible, so he was hurrying when his broom handle accidentally knocked a box of felt-click pens off the shelf. The box opened and pens spilled onto the floor, rolling across the pile of dust he was pushing around. That dust included such ingredients as an old Taco Bell salsa packet, a plastic-coated paper clip that a young boy had sucked on earlier in the day and then dropped, and the dust of thousands of disaffected office workers and computer nerds. As Jarred hurried to scoop up the felt-click pens, he heard the rumble of distant thunder. He hated thunderstorms. Hands shaking, he jiggled the pens back into the box and did not notice that he had missed one. A single, red felt-click pen lay on the floor, coated with a fine layer of that complex dust.
An hour and a half later, Jarred was safely home, having sped away from the Office Max in his Geo. By this time, the storm had gained strength and was now hovering directly the Office Max. Suddenly, there was a great crack and a bolt of lightning struck the roof of the store. The store’s innards were bathed in an electrical fuzz, despite the many surge protectors on hand. That lone, red, felt-click pen was still lying on the floor where it had been bathed in the detritus of disaffected employees, and the electrical fuzz buzzed around the pen. The pen sizzled, but did not melt. It fizzed and sparkled and then, lo! it jumped to its feet. It kicked off its cumbersome lower sheath to reveal that the springy felt-click action had become a monster! A grinning, happy, jumpy, electric, felt-clicking monster, better known as Snidely Clickit.
Clickit giggled in glee, happy in his new jumpy life, and clicked his way down the aisle, leaving behind his “footprint” of tiny red hash marks. He was ready to make some corrections, he was.
The words of the casting director ringing in his ear like uncharitable tinnitus (“Need I say, with overmuch emphasis, that it is in the leg division that you are deficient?”), 97 hops to the door. He’ll come over to your place tonight to let you know that he botched another audition.
It is true that the two of you had to bow out of participating in the three legged race at the company picnic, and you have to constantly remind him that flamingos are not making fun of him when they go unidexter at the zoo. It is true: he is no Johnny Weissmuller, but let’s be frank, you are no Maureen O’Sullivan.
And tonight you will have a dream. You are walking outside Grauman’s Chinese Theater with Monster 97, past Maureen O’Sullivan’s square, past Johnny Weissmuller’s, past the square of Dudley Moore, who, you note (as you are a fan of synergy), was in a film with Bo Derek, who was, after all, in a Tarzan movie. And you look down at your own square and then turn to 97 and ask why there is only one footprint.
“That,” 97 says, “is when I carried you.”
Maureen O’Sullivan was Ireland’s first film star. Were you? She was Woody Allen’s mother in law (kind of). Were you? No. You will wake up and look at him lying there and realize that despite everything you are in this for the long haul. “Sleep tight, 97,” you’ll say. Tomorrow, you’ll call in sick and help him practice his audition monologue (the clergyman speech from “Princess Bride”), but for now you just say, “Sleep tight.”
It was the farkelization of it all that bothered Kevin the most, the strange lint under the bed that never really turned into anything important, the being on the street corner that never quite looked you in the eye so that you could determine its place of origin…
“That,” he thought, “is the 97th thing that makes farkelization another global economic force to be reckoned with – millions of jobs are at stake.”
At that moment, a being on the corner across the street gazed intently and meaningfully at Kevin’s shoe. Transfixed by the unaccountable eye contact, Kevin began to slowly meander in the slim being’s direction, unable to counteract the attractive force targeting his pedal appendage!!
“How could this be happening? When did corner-bound beings start directing the fate of innocent pedestrians?” mused Kevin, beginning to panic ever so slightly as he realized precisely how vulnerable to oncoming vehicular traffic he soon would be.
“Pardon me,” he shouted calmly at the being. “Would you mind looking to your left for just a tad?”
The riveting eyes of his assailant? savior? dinner date? did not waver and Kevin hopped ever-nearer to possible collision or even a jaywalking ticket.
“But I am the only farkelization analyst in this district,” Kevin brayed with dismay, bouncing past the lane markers. “Could you please tell me the time?”
Not a blink, not a glimmer of distraction passed the being’s countenance.
“My lucky red shoe? How could this sort of thing happen while I was wearing my lucky red shoe?” Kevin moaned. Even changing to a side-shuffle kick step was only delaying the inevitable.
What if the 4:22 bus should actually be on time? Why was this being so intent on moving him to that particular corner? And why had he ever believed Sara when she’d told him that striped pants would make him look slimmer?
Showcasing the latest and greatest in pogotastical gesticulation, Trenton Power vivaciously recoils resiliently across the floor.
It’s the newest in footwear technology offered by Hudsucker Industries, PogoSoleO. You know, for kids.
It was the great landslide of ’85 that took Tobin’s leg. That year it rained harder then it ever had before in Portland. (And it rained a lot here.) It rained for 86 days straight. People started going mad, running into the streets screaming things like, “Lord save the ceiling tiles!” and “The sidewalks will eat us alive!” It was a scary time in the city and nobody knew what to do. You could set a 5 gallon bucket outside and it would be full in less then three hours. Everything was damp and soggy.
Tobin had been hammering away at some loose floorboards when he heard someone hollering from the street. At first he ignored it, since there had been lots of hollering going on lately. But after a few moments he realized that someone was hollering for help. He jumped up to see what that problem was, and promptly put his leg through one of the loose floorboards. He was caught up to his thigh. He started to holler and cry out for help. And then he passed out. He woke up three days later in the hospital, heavily medicated and short one leg.
So now he is a pant leg model for the Gerald K. Watson modeling agency. He makes good money and gets special treatment at the buffet lines. Tobin is pretty happy with that.
This is the Constant Hopper,
He hops from place to place,
He can’t be a mopper,
Because he only has one leg… um, yeah.
He doesn’t seem to mind
That he only has one leg,
The only thing that bothers him
Is that it is, in fact, a peg. Leg. Peg leg.
Man, I’m bad at poetry.
A very sharp dressed individual stood waiting for the 471 to roll into the station. The usual crowds push onto the platform. He looks around as though expecting to see someone looking back at him. Everything seems normal. Then he notices a quick head turn. Too sporadic to have been a natural movement. He sizes up the offender. Potentially an operative. A glint of white and clear peers from behind the ear. Definitely tapped. A cough into the sleeve. Obviously a communique. He’s picked out his pursuer, now to plant the decoy. He makes no attempt to hide his actions as he reaches into his breast pocket to pull out a small envelope, about the size of a mini-disc. An empty envelope, but the parasite doesn’t know that. The perfect bait. Now, who to give it to?
Kendur rides the 471 every day to and from work. Despite having only one leg, he is a very sanguine sort. Always with a smile on his face, and ever the jokester of the party. He’s pretty sly, Kendur, but he’s also the kind of guy who’d give you the shoe off his foot. Well, maybe not today. Today was a special occasion. It was the birthday of a dear friend of his and he brought out his favorite red shoe to mark the pseudo holiday. As the train came to a stop, Kendur hopped to the door, ready to disembark and head to the Plowed Oyster Pub for the party. The doors pneumatics hissed as they pulled open and Kendur bounced happily out.
As Kendur exited the train, the finely clothed man noticed him right away. The red shoe on Kendur’s single appendage enhanced his visibility and if having only one leg to hurdle about on didn’t stick out in a crowd, a big red target plastered on your foot certainly would. This was almost too perfect for the agent. His patsy was a 300-pound gorilla off the 471. He made his way to Kendur and, while being as conspicuous as possible with the envelope, bumped hard into him. In so doing, he slid the envelope into Kendur’s back pocket, with just enough of it sticking out to be seen. And seen it was. The other operative couldn’t help but gawk at the commotion caused by the seemingly klutzy agent he followed. He saw every detail of the “exchange”. But most importantly, he noticed the obvious sign of who he was to now follow.
The man with one red shoe.
Chip is the Boing 747 of monsters, and he’s transporting two pounds of bacteria. Just like you and me. No, seriously. That’s how much we co-habitate with. What’s amazing about this is how miniscule Chip is: about the size of a fob. Testament to the 747s massive power.
—
you’re all on fire! tsssss!!
oh god, those are funny. funny funny! one red shoe! peg leg! durek!
haa haaaaaaa! ooooo!
Suddenly, this monster fell out of the sky. He landed right in the middle of the street when a car was coming. The car ran right over him, SPLAT! I thought he was dead, but he kept right on going, hopping down the street with his one red shoe.
All of a sudden, a space ship came into view. I could see a little creature inside of it with a remote control. It had all types of number and lights and buttons that I had never seen before. There were little lights and big light and it was controlling the monster hopping down the street. I was scared. I had never seen anything like this before. Then, the little creature pressed a button and everything vanished!
I didn’t dare tell anyone. They would think I was crazy. I have watched the night sky, hoping to see a glimpse of the space ship and the funny monster, but they have never come back. I wonder some days if I only dreamed it.
Erfinder 76, der mit der ausstülpbaren Blase, dem vollbiologischen, körpereigenen Pogoball, ist hell begeistert von dem einbeinigen Hüpfer. Das besondere an Nummer 97 sind die im Bauchraum eingelagerten Beinfollikel, die je nach Ermüdungsgrad des Hüpfbeines platzen, am Hüftgelenk zu spriessen beginnen und dem Hauptbein zur Entlastung als Hüpfhilfen dienen. Ist das Hüpfbein wieder voll einsatzfähig, fallen die Hilfsbeine ab und können im Kompost dem Verrottungsprozess überlassen werden. Einziger Haken an der Sache sind die vielen roten Schuhe die mit der Zeit anfallen.