THE TERROR OF THE SNOWMAN

HEY SNOWMAN, LEAVE THOSE KIDS ALONE
By Tim Colin

Last night my brother’s Ted, Mike our colleague Gerrard and I spent the night in a local children’s park waiting to capture one of the strange monsters known by the general public as snowmen. However, professional investigators like us believe that some snowmen are tainted with evil and come to life after midnight every December when the moon is full. Our organization learned of these evil snow demons from Gerrard’s great grandfather.

Gerrard’s great grandfather is named Hank and he was born in Germany back in 1902. Hank lives nearby the park and will often take a leash out for a walk through it. Hank lost his pet poodle 20 years ago but imagines that the pooch is still alive. Hank feeds and waters his dog everyday and after mid-night he imagines taking his dog for a walk so the dog can do its business in the children’s park. Hank had told his great grandson Gerrard that he had seen a large snowman roaming around the park looking for people to switch with its long stick fingers.

According to Hank people in the village where he was born believed that in December when the moon was full the snowmen made by children would come to life and switch the naughty children on the backside with the stick hands that stuck out of the abdomen. Gerrard told us that this was an old Celtic legend. I pointed out that the Celts were in Ireland and Scotland not Germany. Gerrard responded “Well, my grandfather’s village was in the mountains so he must have been a highlander.”

I saw absolutely no problem with his logic. Neither of my brothers said anything because they have problems locating the United States on a map of North America. My brother Mike thinks the nations of the world are arranged on the globe in alphabetical order.

Before we started our investigation I decided to check out the story old Hank told Gerrard regarding a snowman prowling around the children’s park after mid-night. I listened to a police scanner the other night and sure enough there were several reports about an old white man wandering around aimlessly in the park when it was blowing snow and well below freezing. I was then sure that the reports must have been about the snowman. I then decided to assemble a team to set out in the cold with me and wait for the dangerous snow beast. I figured Tim and Mike could fight the dangerous snowman and since Gerrard was so slow, I could outrun Gerrard if need be so the snowman would catch up to Gerrard first which would allow for me to escape. I had things pretty well planned out. Because no one knew what the snow creature’s intentions might be I had Mike bring along a baseball bat so we had some means of defense besides hope and snowballs.

When we arrived at the park last night it was cold and quiet. The clouds had parted revealing a glowing white full moon. There was a large snowman in the park and luckily there was a snow fort built near enough to the snowman so we could hide and observe the creature and hopefully avoid being switched. Unfortunately, the fort was not big enough for all four of us so I persuaded my younger brother Mike that he should find another place to hide. He is not too bright so I suggested that he make a snow angel and lie still in the angel indentation and that the rest of us would cover Mike up with snow. Mike made a show angel. We immediately covered him up with snow and packed it down tightly so it didn’t look like a snow grave.

Ted, Gerrard and, I hid behind the walls of the snow fort waiting for the creature to start its demonic movements through the park. Then a gust of wind blew up and at the same time we all saw the hands and arms of the snowman monster move. “Did you see that?” I said.

“I can’t believe this,” responded Ted. “I thought this was just a dumb story that Gerrard’s great grandpa made up to scare little kids and big sissies like Gerrard.”

“Well your grandpa believes in leprechauns,” retorted Gerrard. “Who could believe in people dressed up in green running around with a pot of gold? Everyone knows people with money work on Wall Street and run around wearing black suits and they keep their money in ATM machines. I know because I saw them using ATM machines when I went to New York as a kid. Or was that Mt. Pleasant? I get those two cities mixed up a lot. I think it was the city that has the bridge that goes to Canada.”

“Would you guys shut up,” I said. “That thing is still moving out there and I think it is creeping our way. Where’s’ the bat? We need to clobber that thing before it gets us.”

“I think we buried the bat with Mike,” answered Ted. “We’ll have to ease over to Mike and dig him up in order to retrieve the bat.”

I had a better idea. “Mike!” I hollered in a whispering voice, “Take the bat up to the monster and bash him in. I can see the monster is going right for you now so hurry up you slow poke.” Mike did not rustle under the snow. He was either too afraid to act or he had gone to sleep right when we needed him to defend us. You just can’t count on family for anything. I knew then that it was up to me to motivate Ted and Gerrard to attack the snow monster and save us all. I motioned for Ted and Gerrard to ease along over to where Mike was buried. I followed them.

When we reached my brother Mike we unburied his face. I slapped his face a couple of times but he did not wake up. Mike is a light thinker but a very deep sleeper.

“He does not look too good,” observed Gerrard. “Is he still alive?”

“Right now that’s not important,” I responded. “The important thing is that we need to save ourselves. Besides, if Mike is completely frozen we can sell his internal organs on the Internet and make a fine profit. Anyways, I’ll still have Ted here as a brother in case I need a kidney or something one day.”

Then Gerrard held up the baseball bat and said triumphantly, “I found it.”

Then suddenly there was a tremendous gust of wind and the snowman started waving its arms and hands frantically like Frankenstein’s monster. The snowman came at us and I led the charge for about half the distance to the monster and then I let Ted and Gerrard lead the way with Gerrard holding the bat in one hand held over his right shoulder. When Gerrard got close to the snow monster he smashed it in the head with the bat. With one swing of the bat the head of the monster disappeared. Then Gerrard knocked off the dangerous branch arms from the beast. Gerrard had to stop because he was having an asthma attack. After a few seconds Gerrard was fine. Then my brother Mike woke up and came over to congratulate Gerrard for defeating the evil creature.

I was truly glad that the ordeal was over and the creature was now just a cowering pile of snow. I was glad the snowman had not gotten to me because if it switched people for being bad then I would have been switched a lot because I have been a bad boy several times this last year.

Dr. STEIN FRANKEN AND HIS TURK/BEAR MONSTER

By Ted Colin
I caught up with Dr. Stein Franken in a back alley as he exited the sheriff’s headquarters in downtown Traverse City. I asked the good doctor if he would join me for a cup of coffee at a nearby café. At first he scoffed at the idea but then, he recognized me as the blog reporter who interviewed him and his family after they were attacked during a neighborhood backyard luau by the notorious Northern Michigan Lizard Monster. Evidently, Dr. Franken thought that I understood what he and his family went through when they were attacked by the lizard monster. Dr. Franken had appreciated the fact that I had not put too fine a point on the fact that he and his neighbors were nudists and that they were all buck naked when the lizard monster attacked. It seems my cover-up of the nudist propensities of this former University of Michigan research geneticist had earned me an interview.

Dr. Stein Franken and I drove over to the Flap Jack Shack for coffee and pancakes. They have terrific pancakes but, the coffee there is simply great and I figured an old lush like Dr. Franken could probably use a little coffee to make his story more coherent. Dr. Franken ravenously ate down a plate of pancakes and guzzled an entire coffee pot of caffeinated coffee. I was unable to finish my pancakes because Dr. Franken has a long grey beard and it was just full of pieces of pancake and sticky pancake syrup and he was sitting right across from me and he just made me sick. He had coffee drooling out the corner of his mouth and his bad breath made my eyes tear up.

Finally, I decided to start the interview. “So Dr. Franken, what have you done now?” I asked.

“It really is not my fault” replied Dr. Franken,” I have a real drinking problem and every time I overindulge I start thinking about how I can improve the world. I begin to think about how I could play God and make this a better place for all creatures great and small. I see all the creatures frolicking in the forest and I really believe that I can help evolution along in some way. Well, yesterday I was fishing and drinking cherry schnapps when this big black bear came out of the woods and he would not leave me alone until I gave to him my two rainbow trout I had caught that morning. While this thieving creature ate my trout I noticed a giant snapping turtle was crawling up the river bank. I decided that the bear might be more attractive with a turtle head, backside and, shell so I kicked the bear as hard as I could in the groin and did the same to the turtle. Both animals were in such pain that they passed out and did not come too until the operation was complete. I had spliced together the genes and body parts of a bear and turtle and created the world’s first bearturt.”

“So what happened with this bearturt?” I asked.

The old Doctor looked blankly at me as he was retrieving what turned out to be some horrifying memories of the bearturt. “Well,” began the doctor,” the bearturt was really quite a hideous creature and I told it so. It seemed to get perturbed but I’m not sure if it was mad because of what I had done to it or that I had told it that it was ugly. At any rate, it chased me out of the forest and onto a highway. The bearturt then flipped over several cars and flipped off several SUV drivers. SUV drivers always tailgate so I always preprogram all the creatures I create to flip SUV drivers off. At about this point the sheriff and his deputies showed up and starting shooting at the awful looking creature but it seems the turtle shell kept the bullets from penetrating any vital organs. The creature then fled into the woods to do whatever horrible a bear/turtle monster might do.”

Dr. Stein Franken was so high on coffee that I had to drive him home. After I dropped off the mad scientist I began to wonder how mankind could make such hideous destructive things like the turkbear but, we are unable to cure male pattern baldness. We are truly a messed up society and we do not have our priorities right.

NOSE SLUGS ENTER BRAINS IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN

THE BED BUG NOSE SLUG
By Tim Colin
Many people with cabins in the deep woods of Northern Michigan have been complaining about being attacked by a type of nose slug that lives in the bedding like a bed bug. But, unlike a bed bug the nose slug slithers up into your nose, nourishes itself on your nose hairs and then continues up into the brain cavity where it lays its eggs and then dies. For the next six weeks the victim will have to go everywhere without a single nose hair hanging down below the nostril.

Drake Nostrello was one such victim. “You cannot believe how embarrassing it is to walk around with no nose hairs. It would be less noticeable if I had had my eyebrows eaten off then my nose hairs. Without nose hairs my nostrils are always so dry that they constantly itch. You can tell when someone has been attacked by a nose slug because they constantly have their fingers up their nose scratching away at that incredibly dry nostril skin.”

Diane Nosette, another victim of the nose slug said that “The worst thing about the nose slug is when the eggs they lay in your brain hatch out. The eggs turn into little butterfly that fly out of your nose at the oddest times. Sometimes they fly out during dinner which makes anyone you’re having dinner with quite uncomfortable. No one ever says anything because I guess they don’t want to embarrass me by pointing out that little butterflies are coming out of my nose. I recently got married and my honeymoon was a complete disaster. My husband still won’t give my nose a kiss because he’s afraid a bunch of bugs will fly out at him."

There has never been an outbreak of nose slugs in Michigan that was this serious. Most experts believe the nose slugs entered this country from Canada where nose slugs are very common. It seems the first settlers in Canada did not have anything to trim their nose hairs so they imported the first nose slugs to this continent. The Canadians also found that nose slugs were very good to eat and worked well as a sausage casing. Nose slugs by themselves are said to taste best with mayonnaise although French Canadians prefer nose slugs with cheese sauce and light vinaigrette.