THE LAVA MONSTER

By Ted Colin
Recently I met a lady at a bar named Emma DeLusional. Emma was an attractive blond lady and was about 30 years old. She claimed to have seen a Lava Monster down near the border between Michigan and Ohio. I asked her how there could be a lava monster in Michigan when we don’t have any active volcanoes.

“But, we do have an active volcano in Michigan,” she argued. I used to work at the power plant where the volcano was active.”

“Well, tell me about it,” I begged.

“Why should you care?” she asked.

I gave her my business card and said, “You see I work for the Humor News Nuts bloging organization. We like to cover stories that no legitimate news organization will touch and I am sure from what you’ve told me, no one else would even listen to your story.”

Emma sighed, took a deep breath and then began telling her tale. “I was chief of security at the Big Lava Power and Light company plant down near Detroit. I was in charge of keeping people out of the plant: you know people like terrorist, news reporters, government inspectors and, other nasty people that might try to stop power generation at the Big Lava Power and Light plant. Of course one main reason we didn’t want anyone nosing around our facility was that enclosed deep within the main building we had a captive lava monster. The lava monster crash landed his spacecraft near Detroit in about 1910.

In 1910 the auto manufacturers were just starting up but, they needed a steady source of power to keep their factories running at peak capacity. Well, the only source of energy back in those days was animal dung and there were just not enough animals in the mid-west to produce the required energy. But, just as all the automobile factories were getting ready to retool and start producing horses and buggies again, the lava monster landed right in the lap of the mid-west industrialist. The automotive industry was saved and once the lava monster started giving off energy at full capacity the automobile industry expanded exponentially. In fact, there was so much energy being put out by the lava monster that plants were built to produce not just automobiles but sewing machines as well.”

At this point I just had to interrupt Emma because some of the things she was saying needed some clarification otherwise I knew my readers would not take me seriously. “First of all Emma I understand the need for a good steady source of energy for the industrialization of not just the Detroit area but, the entire Mid-West. Everyone knows from their high school history class that dung was the primary heat source and even building material for most of the previous ten million years of human history. The very first ancient alien astronauts to visit the Earth probably used animal dung to power their spaceships. Certainly Noah himself brought all those animals on board his spacecraft in order to preserve the very creatures who would create dung to heat human homes and to rebuild human habitation long after the world had been flooded with fluoridated water. But, what I want to know is how the lava monster was captured and what happened to the lava monster? After all, his demise could be what has brought our entire economy to the brink of collapse.”

“The way the economic collapse occurred is exactly what I’ve been trying to tell you about but, I’ve been sitting here at the bar all day and I’m getting tired so my mind is kind of wandering. You see I have these curtains at home that need to be sewn- up because they’re dragging on the floor. But, I won’t talk about sewing anymore. Instead I’ll just tell you about how we captured the lava monster.

The idea of how to capture the lava monster came from a meeting of the big car company executives. At that meeting way back in 1911 the executives decided to use a tried and true technique for capturing any type of fire monster. It was a technique that had been around since the dark ages and had been used by kings and saucers to capture creatures like fire breathing dragons. You see fire breathers of all sorts have a penchant for toasting marshmallows. They just can’t resist those big, white, sugary snacks that taste so good especially when melted and placed between two gram crackers along with a chocolate bar. If you ever noticed when you have a crackling camp fire and you stick a nice luscious marshmallow over the fire to roast that the fire just leaps right up at the marshmallow? Heck a lot of the time the fire leaps up and catches the marshmallow on fire.”

“I have noticed that,” I replied.

“Well, the automotive executives got an entire convoy of horse drawn wagons full of marshmallows to lead the lava monster away from its crash site and to the building where it was imprisoned. And, it wasn’t easy to imprison a million ton monster made up of molten rock. But, what the executives did was to build a titanium prison up, over and, underneath the molten lava monster. You see the lava monster was made up of molten iron with a fusion reactor at its core which also doubles as a brain. Once inside the titanium walls, floors and, ceiling the lava monster was ours. Of course just to be on the safe side truckloads of marshmallows were delivered everyday to the incarcerated lava monster and the sugary product seemed to calm him down as he burnt each marshmallow to a crisp.

Now everything went well for nearly a century but about two years ago I got this call from an old boyfriend named Bill. I really liked this guy but I was never really able to impress him to the point where he would tie the knot. Bill owns a chocolate candy bar and gram cracker factory in Dearborn so, if I landed him as a husband I’d be sitting pretty when it comes to finances. Well old Bill called me up to find out where he could get his hands on about 50 tons of marshmallows ASAP. It seemed that Bill wanted to branch out his company with a brand new product known as lemon flavored smores. Bill had bought up an entire shipload of spoiled lemons and he already had the chocolate bars and the gram crackers but, alas he had no marshmallows and the country where marshmallows are grown had just gone into some sort of civil war so marshmallows were nearly impossible to come by in the open market. Bill said he knew that at the plant where I was in charge of security the very last shipment of marshmallows had been sent. He begged me to send him the shipment. Well, I did a real no, no and said I would send him the marshmallows

Now I sent Bill every single last marshmallow hoping that the lava monster would just behave and he did behave for the first couple of hours but then the lava monster started to become agitated. Suddenly, lava was slopping and slapping against the titaninium walls. The lava monster went all around the structure slapping the walls like he was looking for something. And, he was looking for something and that was a weakness in the wall. Of course after several hours of testing the wall for vulnerability he found it. It seems someone had incorrectly made a small portion of the wall so that the titaninium was actually just plain iron. It was just a small little scratch in the wall not more that about six inches long but, that was enough for the lava monster to squeeze it’s entire massive molten self through.

Soon the creature was heading east toward Lake Erie. I and my subordinates from the plant followed him as closely as we could just try to see where he was going. When the lava monster reached Lake Erie it stoped for just a moment. I don’t believe that on the planet the lava monster came from there is any water because he seemed to be a bit confused. It was like he didn’t know what he was looking at but, he knew he had to cross lake eerie and get to Canada which was on the other side of the lake. It seems that over the years the monster had probably heard of people swimming across Lake Erie to Canada to avoid being drafted. At any rate, the monster bolted head long into the lake and the lake began to boil. There was sizzling spitting water and steam rising up all over the place. I’m not sure if the lava monster felt any pain in those last few moments but, it was not long before the boiling water and steam subsided and nothing could be seen but the cool, cold waters of Lake Erie. The lava creature had no fire left in him and was now just an iron stature on the bottom of Lake Erie.”

I waited for a while to make sure that Emma was done with her story and then I said “So that’s how it all ended. That’s how America lost its automobile making capabilities.”

“That’s how we lost it but, we’re getting it back. You see there are other lava monsters that have landed here on Earth. Germany has one, Japan has another and India has two. It is rumored that China has at least ten lava monsters in captivity which is helping to power their economic boom. Luckily for us, China has lent us a couple of lava monsters to keep for a while. We hope to breed them so we can have our own little lava monster to bring back our economic vitality. The civil war has ended in the country that grows all the marshmallows so we now have plenty of food to keep our next lava monster happy.”

I SAVED EARTH FROM THE SPACE-MONKEY AND HIS ENORMOUS ASTEROID

The Space-Monkey As He Steers His Asteroid Toward Earth. 

HOW I SAVED PLANET EARTH FROM A SPACE-MONKEY 

I am Shiva, Destroyer of Your World.  I'm writing on this blog in order to communicate with my fellow off-world alien rats.  It seems that my spacecraft is now lying at the bottom of a Russian lake so I have no way to directly communicate with my home world.  I know that occasionally all web sites on planet earth are scanned by alien worlds to look for hidden messages from agents.

the problem is that Earth Space Command is now monitoring websites for alien messages.  Of course a website has to be one that someone on earth occasionally reads before it shows up on space commands radar so to speak.  Luckily, this website has never been read by anyone so space command will never find my messages to my home world.  Even the contributors to this site never read it as is evidenced by all the serious grammatical and spelling errors found across all the postings.

Now getting back to the details of my report;   as I said my wrecked spacecraft is now lying on the bottom of a Russian lake.  Thousands of videographers witnessed the remnants of my ship roaring across the skies of the Russian Federation leaving behind it a trail of fire and smoke.  There was a massive sonic blast which devastated windows in buildings a hundred miles away.  Yet, after all that pyrotechnic display everyone on this planet thinks that a mere meteorite crashed into a Russian lake (humans have such a limited imagination).    Of course the lack of imagination that humans have to process alternative narratives to those given by the media is fortunate for space aliens.  However, sometimes their acceptance of corny explanations regarding the things they see and hear is really beyond belief.
It is of course bad enough that humans accept simple narratives for some really remarkable observances but, their ignorance in finding coincidence where it obviously exists is really astounding.

Of course, I am referring to the fact that not only was there a  crash of an alien spacecraft in a lake that was witnessed by millions but, at the same time a massive planet killing asteroid barely missed the earth.  "Coincidence" was the word used by the scientists and media to explain the crash of a meteorite (my little star-ship) and the near death experience of the planet.   Earth nerds are so not cool.  I understand humans are easily fooled in matters regarding science, technology and history however, I wish humans would appreciate the fact that I sacrificed my way back to my home world in order to stop a really nasty space monkey from crashing a massive rock right into the planet earth.  I barely escaped death myself and I have a terrible space-monkey bite mark on my tail which reminds me every time I prat around in a sewer that, I had a run-in with an ill-tempered space-monkey.

Now it was not long ago that it was announced by earth media that a giant asteroid was approaching earth. Of course human scientists knew that the asteroid was not approaching but instead, it was heading directly toward the little blue humanoid infested ball.  I of course had advanced computational systems on board my spacecraft which indicated to me that the earth was doomed and it was time for this rat to abandon the earth ship.

Of course I would have been happy to get off this planet for good however, because I had not completed my mission I thought I might have a problem explaining to my superiors back on my home world that I had failed.  They would have no doubt wondered why I just didn't go up and redirect the asteroid away from the planet.

My superiors have been chomping on my tail lately because I haven’t found a certain multiverse travel machine (A 1973 Volkswagen Pop-Top Camper).  My rat race is currently poised to completely take over this universe including all points in time with a newly discovered time machine (A 1974 AMC Matador Coup).  The Volkswagen would allow them the opportunity of taking over all the
infinite number of universes.

With no good excuse to let the humanoids and their planet be annihilated, I decided to take my ship up to the asteroid and figure out what I would need to do to redirect it.  Because the asteroid was nearby my trip was a short one.  I landed on the asteroid in a pocket which had earth air and gravity.  I knew that earth air and gravity had to be generated artificially so I started looking around for the source of the environmental enigma and the intelligent life I knew had to be behind it.
It did not take me long to find the aforementioned source:  It was a little cave, about one meter wide that led into the asteroid.  I followed the cave feeling a bit like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz human fantasy story and like Dorothy confronting the great Oz I confronted at the end of the tunnel a high technology laden cavern with a monkey sitting at a control panel which seemed quaintly ancient with hundreds of toggle switches, levers and blinking red and green lights.  I knew that this space monkey was clearly not up-to-date on his earth electronics when I saw a “Made In Japan” label on his computer console. I didn’t know how I was going to tell the little guy that the electronics hay-day sun had set on the Empire of Japan and that Chairman Mao’s communist China was the place to buy your current computer toys.

“Pardon me,” I said, “I am Shiva Destroyer Of Worlds.  Who are you and what are you doing?”

The monkey swiveled around in his black office chair and confronted me in the most vicious tone, “I am designated as “Space Monkey Zero”, the first monkey assigned by earth scientists to leave the solar system.  I was deep frozen and sent off on Voyager I with the hope that if some alien spacecraft were to come across me I would be thawed and brought back to life.  It was hoped that because of my superior intellect that I would act as an ambassador of goodwill to the aliens who revived me.  You see I am not just a monkey.  I have the DNA of the most intelligent creature on planet earth spliced into my chromosomes.”

“Don’t tell me your part human!,” I exclaimed with disbelief.

“Of course not,” answered the monkey.  “I have the DNA of a rat in my cells.  You and I are like cousins.  So, you must realize why exterminating a race of beings descended from toads like humans is a good thing on every level.  Humans are just nasty creatures.  They pee on you when you squeeze them. Each one releases tons of toxic methane gas into the atmosphere every year.  They certainly have not treated our rat brethren kindly and most of all they have treated my monkey cousins even worse; casting us off to explore dangerous uncharted worlds in order to save themselves casualties from mission’s cowardly humans would never dream of making.  Missions like my own cast-away mission into deep space with an almost zero chance of survival.  I was expendable to the humans.  Now all humans are expendable to me.  Ha! Ha! Ha!”

“Well listen space monkey; I don’t have time for all this.  I have to destroy this asteroid and save earth so I can continue to look for the multiverse machine which not only guarantees my kind mastery of all universes but, guarantees that I can return home and see my kids.  When all is said and done I couldn't give a rat’s rear about this planet but, I do want to go home empty handed so stay out of my way space monkey.  I have a planet to save.”  

"I will never let you stop me space-monkey.  For all my family has been sent out there into space and I will never see them again."

"But, what about your sister?  She is on Voyager II.  She needs you somewhere way out there in space."  

 While the space-monkey was preoccupied with thinking about his lost sister  I ran as fast as I could toward the space monkey and the control panel but suddenly the monkey hit a toggle switch and the entire control panel blew up.  I could smell melted circuits and observed several broken vacuum tubes on the floor.  I knew then that the space monkey had destroyed any hope I had of diverting the asteroid away from the earth using his technology.

“Now why did you do that space monkey?” I asked.

“Because even though I love my sister I think that now the earth must die.  I will have my revenge upon the monsters who made me a monster.  Maybe with humans gone monkeys or rats or some other superior species will rise up and become worthy space and time travelers.  Maybe something better will arise out of the human extinction.  I think I've done good today.”

I was really peeved but, I knew the little twerp was just acting out of some  earth-creature inclination of melodrama.  Earth creatures always want stuff to have some deeper meaning when maybe they should be a little more shallow and accept the obvious. “Listen space monkey, I am still going to stop this but, if you don’t want to be marooned on this rock forever you need to come with me in my spacecraft right now.  Come on monkey, this is your last chance.’

“Sorry Space-rat but I’m going down with this stone.  My last thoughts will be those of pure satisfaction. For I will know that the progeny of those who tossed me into space will have their futures blow up in their faces.”

Suit yourself monkey,”  I said.  I then ran back to my spacecraft and quickly mounted the pilot’s seat.  I manually engaged the port side thrusters while maintaining my aft rudder in neutral.  The asteroid began to shimmy but, my thruster was not able to push the big rock into a trajectory that would miss the earth.  I needed more thrust to move the asteroid and I knew that the only way to create such a push was to detonate the tachyon hyper flight vale casing.  Of course that would move the asteroid but it would cause my spacecraft to go hurdling toward the earth.  I let it be so and away my ship flew toward the earth and away the asteroid and space monkey were pushed out into a non-threatening trajectory.  I and my spacecraft went hurdling through earth’s atmosphere.  Of course all the while my spaceship burned on the outside it became hotter and hotter on the inside until my hair began to singe.  I dismounted the pilot’s chair and jumped into a nearby spacesuit.  I didn't think I had much chance since I had the spacesuit made in by Enron and I had never tested it.  Anyway, I jumped out of my spacecraft which was now little more than a fireball traveling at Mach 10 and hurdling down toward a Russian lake.

My spacecraft as it plummeted into a Russian lake. 

Well, there you have it.  I saved the earth and my spacecraft is a big melted ball of plastic and caramelized papier-mâché lying at the bottom of a Russian lake.  l  am not proud to have save humankind but, maybe I can find the multiverse ship and return home to my many hundreds of spouses; not to mention my offspring.  

"One day I will return home"-Shiva.

         

THE PETOSKEY STONE: FOSSILIZED REMAINS OF A GIANT ALIEN BRAIN

What do we really know about the Petoskey Stone? We know it is only found in a very specific region on the planet Earth. That region is Northern Lake Michigan extending up to Lake Superior. Several sites on the Internet explain that the petoskey stone is a fossilized coral from the Devonian Era which would make the stone approximately 350 million years old. We have found someone with a very different opinion.

In an old gravel pit about ten miles west of Traverse City, there is a Petoskey stone dig site managed by Professor I. M. Alyar. Professor Alyar teaches Paleontology, Astrophysics, Alien Psychology and, Human Proctology at the Bare Truth Online Institute of Education and Adult Photo Journalism.

We caught up with Professor Alyar at the dig site to ask him about the theory he was advocating regarding the origin of the Petoskey Stone. The Professor had previously contacted us and said he would pay us $50.00 to publish a story about his “Origin of the Petoskey Stone” theory. After some intense negotiations, the Professor also agreed to pay for our gas. The following is an outline of the theory as he explains it:

“The Petoskey Stone came to my attention as I noticed that people were making a lot of money picking up these stones and selling them on EBay and to tourists. I remembered that my uncle I. Ben Alyar owned this old gravel pit where I picked up petoskey stones as an undergraduate student. It then occurred to me that I could get a government grant that would pay me a salary to do research on the petoskey stone for a couple of years. So last year I began digging up petoskey stones for research and the extra stones I sell for money (cash only, no receipt if you want any).

Well, last week I received a letter from the government wanting to know why I haven’t published any papers on my findings. The letter went on to say that if I were fraudulently obtaining grant money that I could be prosecuted if I did not return the money with interest. I like most people in Michigan have a penchant for Black Jack so; I have no money to give back and no published paper.

Then, suddenly it hit me. As I was in the bar located out on the highway, I suddenly realized that the petoskey stone seemed to look a lot like a piece of gray brain matter. But, not just any gray matter. Animal gray matter does not have those eyes. Then, I realized that those were not eyes but, they were individual cells. These were cells to the brain of some incredible creature. Brain cells of incredible size that must have belonged to a massive brain. This brain had died 350 million years ago and had been fossilized over time. It all made sense. Over eons of years, glaciers broke up the fossil and scattered brain cells all across Northern Michigan.

But, I asked myself, where does this giant brain come from? There is no evidence in the fossil records to indicate this creature ever existed. Finally, I concluded that this creature was not of this world. It was in fact a creature from outer space that most likely died upon impact with our planet over 350 million years ago.

The fact that the creature had or was a giant brain means it must have been physic. This makes sense because many physics use this stone for healing or to go into trances to see the future. I should charge more money for the stones I sell. Perhaps a medical research facility will be built in my name to study the medical uses of the Petoskey Stone.”

Because the Professor kept rambling on, I shut off my recorder. We of course believe everything he postulated. True to our word, we are publishing his theories now. A couple of days ago the Professor was arrested. This is too bad because we were thinking of making him our official scientific advisor. Yesterday I received a call from the Professor asking if I would use the $50.00 he gave me to help bail him out of jail. I told him that unfortunately, I was a problem gambler and lost the money playing Foosball.

THE RAT WITH THE GIANT BRAIN

SHIVA THE RAT: DESTROYER OF MY WORLD
By Gerrard

I got a call today telling me that I had to come down here and write a 1,000 word story for Humor News Nuts publications. I guess I was the only one home because everyone else is out on the lakes having fun. So here I am. I have never been allowed to write anything before. I hope I don’t get in trouble.

I’m not sure if my story qualifies as a space alien type adventure. It was really weird and that says a lot coming from a guy who raises rats for a living. I guess I have to start telling the story now. I hope I just added enough fill words to put my blog over 1,000 words when I’m done.

To begin with, I live in my mom’s basement and raise rats for a living. . It is a big basement and I have several thousand rats in it. I raise the rats to sell to business and colleges. If you wear makeup, there is a good chance one of my rats had it on before you did. And, if you ever had open heart surgery chances are the surgeon that performed it learned how to do so on one of my rats. I raised all my rats from babies and I am happy about what my children have achieved. I hope that one day one of my rats will go into outer space. I’ll be a proud papa then, that’s for sure. It’s too bad girls don’t see my profession to be as exciting as I do.

I’m afraid I have digressed from the story. What happened to me involved rats? The one rat was a really smart little buddy of mine named Ernie. He was my best friend when I was in high school. You see my family has always been in the rat business and I just took it over when my dad died. Ernie could count up to six and even write the first two letters of his name “ER”.

I was never going to sell Ernie. For one think he was a fluke. You see I have both white rats and black rats. It seems different institutions want different colored rats. I guess the humans are prejudiced about color but, rats are not. One day one of my really smart black rats picked the lock on his cage and sneaked into the cage of a little white beauty. The result was the grey rat named Ernie. Ernie got his daddy’s brains and was my favorite rat from the time he was born looking so different from all the rest.

A few weeks after he was born, Ernie was already an adult rat and was looking for love in all the wrong places. I caught him sneaking out the basement on several occasions. He was going out to hang out with those wild rats that hunt the dumpsters at night and chew into grocery stores to nibble on packages of cheese. I felt certain my friend would come to a really bad end. Most of the stores out there have traps set for rats. Of course there are also rat thugs who will eat off an ear if you look cross eyed at them. I tried to talk some sense into Ernie but, our long talks did not help at all.

One day I came down stairs and there was a large brown rat busily working on my computer. I was shocked. Ernie had brought a street rat into our home. I also wondered how a rat would know how to type on a keyboard let alone be so proficient. I did know the rat did not know what it was doing since the monitor was nothing but a bunch of numbers and math symbols with letters cubed and squared all over the place. Ernie was just sitting there beside the big brown rat looking at the monitor as the brown rat was typing away. Then, the big brown rat stopped typing, turned its’ head around and said, “I am Shiva, the destroyer of your world. I am Ernie is my boyfriend. You got a problem with that rat boy?” The big rat barred its teeth at me.”

“I don’t have any problem,” I said. I then walked to my bed that was in the far corner of the basement and lay down and pretended to go to sleep. All the while I kept one eye open watching Ernie’s new girlfriend type away on my computer. I was hoping she was not ordering stuff on line. Mom will be really mad if she has to pay for a bunch of stuff.

A few days later a short, bald, middle aged man in a suit came knocking at the front door. I opened it. The man held out a badge and said that he was detective Mike Ivan Black of the Traverse City police department and he was interested in talking to a man named Ernie who went by the nickname ER. “I’ll let you talk to him but, you won’t like it,” I said. “

I took the detective downstairs and introduced him to Ernie. Ernie just sat there and made little squeaky noises. The policeman was really mad. “Do you realize that you can go to jail for obstruction of justice rat boy?” the detective yelled.

“Sorry,” I apologized.

The detective then told me that there had been a series of graffiti pictures drawn all over the down town area and each was signed by Ernie or ER. The policeman said he knew to come to my address because the culprits also left their address under each signature. Before the policeman left he promised that he would be back with a warrant. Two days past and he never came back.

I went down to the basement one day and Shiva was busily working on my computer. ER was looking befuddled at the stuff Shiva was typing after all; he could only count to six. I figured he must have really been in love with that girl since usually he lost interest in numbers once he counted up to six. Big numbers made him wander off to sniff rat droppings or scratch him. But now, poor Ernie did not want to leave the side of Shiva the super rat.

“Oh by the way,” Shiva said to me “I took care of that detective. He won’t be coming around here anymore. And, how did you like that liver dinner Left out for you last night?”

I shuddered “I thought mom made that dinner for me and left it out,” I was in tears

“No I cooked the liver just for you Gerard. I also fixed that homemade bratwurst on a bun you had for lunch today. It’s made from an old family recipe.”

I was extremely ill then, down the steps came detective Black carrying a large suitcase. I was relieved and very frightened at the same time. I was relieved that he was alive but, I was frightened as to what the detective might be going to do to me for harboring an evil rat like Shiva.

The detective walked over to the computer station and opened his case. “You need to keep your mouth shut rat boy,” the detective said to me. Shiva and I are special undercover agents for the Rat Bureau of Investigations. We are trying to infiltrate an army of super intelligent rats who are plotting to take over the world and replace mankind as the dominant species your friend Ernie is our newest recruit.” That was all the agent said.

Meanwhile, Shiva hit a button on my computer and permanently fried my entire system. Shiva then jumped into the case and said “come on sugar pants” to Ernie. My friend jumped into the case and the policeman shut up the case and walked up the stairs and out the door. I never saw Ernie again.

I did receive an X-mass card a few years ago that I think came from Ernie. All that was written inside were the initials ER and the numbers 1, 2, 3,4,5,6.