he pushed it open, sending it creaking open on its ponderous corpulent hinges. Even the malfeasance of his memory, though, could not protect him from surprise at the sight he encountered within. A pallid arachnid, dressed in some kind of papal bustier, turned to face him. This mutant horror, closer to the size of a blimp than an ant, turned with a horrible temporal scream and faced him. It whipped back a corner of its bizarre liturgical negligee and pulled a deadly rune-covered sword from its scabbard. "Hm! No happy shindig today," he thought to himself, the single thought filling the usual vacuum of his mind. The sword swooped down and caught him a glancing blow. The horrific spider laughed with glee, but the cheer caught in its thorax as he rose, unhurt, to his feet. Thank God he was wearing his kevlar
"Woo woo woo! Look at them legs!" the fresh maple leaves shouted. The cloth catnip mouse was offended, but said nothing. She had long been exposed to that kind of behaviour from deciduous plants. "I'll be glad to get home," she thought to herself. "I'm hungry, and at least Finky will treat me with some respect." She reached 44th Street and entered her building where Adolfo, the bumble-ball doorman, was on duty. He rose unsteadily and nodded to her. Next to his chair was a nearly-empty bottle of kaopectate. "'S' nothin'," he lisped drunkenly. "Jus' a little shot t' hold me until I getta break." She said nothing and, avoiding his gaze, quickly went inside. The elevator arrived at her floor and she dashed into their small apartment. To her surprise she saw the familiar large plastic penguin standing in the doorway to the kitchen, naked, holding a dozen roofing nails in one flipper and a birthday cake, with candles, in the other. "Finky!" she laughed. "You remembered!" "Happy birthday, Sheiloo, my favorite little cloth catnip mouse," Finky replied. After a leisurely candlelit dinner of cake and roofing nails, the two giggled and retired to the bedroom
and so even after wrestling the alligator, I still had to recover the DNA sample he had stolen. I knew he had already reached semiintelligence, and I had to find a way to trick him fast before he became any smarter than I was. "You're leaning a little too the left," I pointed out easily. "I think you may have lost one of your shoes." "Qhich one?" he asked, looking down. Ah-HA! Just the stroke of luck I was waiting for. I grabbed the vial and
sIQ must be well over two thousand by now; I imagine he must spend a lot of irate evenings in the swamp reflecting upon how easily he was duped
stag FISH plankton sticky glue-covered albatross, velcro-covered aardvarks for whole-room application - couch made of live mongooses, lovingly hand-weaved and asked to hold position long enough for you to sit down - if those shades dn't work for your interior decorating motif, why not just cover your windowpanes with live ants? -