August 06, 2004
Quote of the Day
Roxanne,
How are things in Seattle? Quieter, I hope. I had a close call today, I tracked a goblin in on my shoe. Actually, to be precise, my boot, since I was luckily wearing my black leather western-style riding boots. At first, I thought it was a chunk of mud and hay from the pasture out back. Its arms and legs looked like twigs and were covered up by the real pieces of hay and grass and dead vegetation that had been captured by its evil stickiness. I didn't realize what it was until I had pried it off my boot with my Buck Knife. Something about the way it hit the carpet just wasn't right for a mud-clod. That attracted my scrutiny and allowed me to see past the camouflage, that and the smell. The goblins here don't smell very strong, unless they're in rut and mark at you, but even during the dry season they have a putrid wrenching metallic stench that isn't any more pleasant for being subtle.
It had obviously been a typically ugly little abomination, even before I accidentally smashed it with my boot: all head and spindly appendages, like a cross between Humpty-Dumpty and a daddy-longlegs, but with a gross parody of a human face with a gaping slash of a snaggle-toothed mouth across its belly and rank greasy black hair everywhere but the face. The head-body was about two inches in diameter and the arms and legs were around six to eight inches long. I don't doubt that the thing that had saved me from its toxic bite was the sterling silver decorations you sent me for my boots, the toe-tips and faux spurs, one of which still held a nasty little gobbet of goblin-stuff on its point. The eyes had burst under the pressure and still leaked rancid jelly onto my carpet. I was pretty sure it was really dead, since I'd never seen one reanimate with its eyes busted. Still, you can't be too careful, so I got out the tongs and brought it over to the fireplace receptacle and flash-burned it into grey ash and a puff of grey-green smoke that vanished up the vent. Then I popped a beer from the fridge and congratulated myself on a job well done. Thanks again for the silver
boot decorations.
Harley, down the road, has a suggestion for the Troll in your culvert out at the country place. He says the red-orangey ones with big green teeth, like you have, are resistant to the Black Flag Troll-Away and the Raid Trollacide, too, which would explain why those didn't work for you. He says the only way to get rid of this kind is to immobilize them with liquid nitrogen and throw them into a volcano, which would be very expensive. He also says you could wait until a really cold night, fifteen below or colder, and very carefully toss a loop of rope onto it while it's sluggish and just drag it twenty or thirty miles away and leave it by the culvert or bridge of some rich S. O. B. who could afford to have it frozen and transported to Hawaii. I assume you know this is illegal as well as dangerous. Until you figure out what to do about this, I guess you'll just have to keep using the back road into your place.
Your suggestion about the deal with the cookies has solved my brownie problem; I haven't seen a single one for over a month and the cows have been undisturbed. Now, if I could just figure out an easy way to clean the fairies off the windshield of my pickup...
Sincerely Yours,
Rocky Frisco
"Varmints"
