and I had a craving for hot chocolate

It goes without saying that I had none in the house, and the nearest store had long since closed.

The rain falling on my still-unlandscaped yard made the dirt a slick cocoa brown; I put some in a cup but no dice.

I popped the mug in the microwave and -- ta-da! cake! --- but still no cocoa.

I pulled the cake out of the mug, and it broke open on the plate, unearthing a whole collection of mutant worms.

I sighed, muttering "I'm getting too old for this shit," tossed the plate back into the microwave and set the appliance to "annihilate."

You know, nuked mutant worms don't really taste all that bad. Really!

Then I thought back to my old radio days when the Prehistoric Shockjock I worked for did this kind of thing on his show and I, as Phone Wrangler, not only had to line up a half dozen callers smart enough to do participate, but simultaneously kept an ear on what was going over the air, because at any moment, he could yell "Next... Wendell!" and I was expected to pick up wherever whomever had left off. Now that was high-pressure live radio. And then there was the time a couple years ago when the primates at MonkeyFilter started the same game and I became not just a co-co-co-author, but one of the characters, along with several other members, Lassie and King Kong. It was not long after I spent this long moment reminiscing that I realized that twice-nuked mutant worms would be nearly impossible to clean off the microwave walls, unless I went out to the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant's Surplus Store for a can of "Nuke-Away". So I grabbed my keys and my Nuclear Surplus membership card and headed for the car.

The nice thing about owning a car made entirely of seagull guano is that you never have to wash it, and the ammonia stench coming out of the garage finishes off any mutant worms looming over your shoulder. It is a little hard finding the fish innards to scatter around the thing when it's parked far from the ocean, but you've got to keep the structure of the thing replenished with fresh material. Sometimes you can attract them with fresh Ho-Hos stolen from the neighbor kid's lunch, though, and they'll even go for some birdseed if you've got any handy.

I eased the Guanomobile out of the driveway while giving a ring to the house of that kid in Detroit who built his own reactor: if anyone knew where to get some sweet, sweet Nuke-Away action, it was him.

But none of the keys would unlock the car door. Had I grabbed the wrong set? No -- I'd driven home with this set. Was this my car? It certainly looked like it. Even had the right license plate.

I cupped my hands around my eyes and peered through the driver's window. Worms. Nothing but worms, just as I'd suspected.

Worms go really well with hot chocolate, I thought to myself. But how could I drive to the store to get more hot chocolate? This is a problem.. I muttered aloud to myself. Suddenly....

I realised I wanted nothing more to do with worms or hot chocolate. I had a squadron of cybernetic monkeys to fix. It was either that or watch the earth become slace to the Ntgthxyqx Consortium. The most evil race every to live in our corner of this Galaxy.

Quickly I drove to the laboratory. My beautiful but highly intelligent assistant Sarah "Hotstuff" Minerva was trying to align a quantum effect Transextrapulator. I walked over to her.

"Do you need any help?" I asked in my masculine & yet obviously caring voice. "I believe that you have the Intrinsic field emitters pointing backwards."

She giggled. "Oh Darn" she said breathlessly. I'm always making silly mistakes like that. Good thing I'm working for you. The most brilliant mind ever to exist on this god-forsaken rock we call earth."

I cuffed her gently with the back of my hand and we both laughed. I'd have her later, but before then I had an Earth to save ...

The End

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