In this day and age, people no longer believe in the Tooth Fairy or the Loch Ness monster - even the goddam Sasquatch can't get arrested in this town. So, it's not surprising that people often ask me, "quidnunc, is mothninja real? Or is she just a mythical projection of society's unconscious desires - you know, like … Read more

In this day and age, people no longer believe in the Tooth Fairy or the Loch Ness monster - even the goddam Sasquatch can't get arrested in this town. So, it's not surprising that people often ask me, "quidnunc, is mothninja real? Or is she just a mythical projection of society's unconscious desires - you know, like Santa Clause or Al Gore?" Well, let me tell you what I know, and then you can make up your own mind about that. Nigh on thirty years ago now, me and my wife were hiking in the Austrian alps. I remember how beautiful the scenery was, and all that fresh, crisp mountain air - it feels like only yesterday! Anyways, we stopped off at a little cabin on a hill overlooking Salzburg and decided to have a quick shot of some schnapps. And yet when I opened up the bottle and tried to pour Mrs quidnunc out a glass, you know what flowed out of that bottle instead of clear, aromatic schnapps? That's right - mothninja. We'd been lugging that girl over mountain after goddam mountain in a bottle of hootch without even realising it. The next time I saw her was in the Sudan. I was living with a cow-herding Nuer tribe, trying to sell them exercise equipment - "AB-FLEX" machines, mostly. Anyway one day this little boy came to me in my hut and said, "Mister - something strange in the sky!" - just like that, he said it! Well, we both rushed out and looked up, and sure enough, there was mothninja, partially eclipsing the sun. And all the Nuer witchdoctors were runnin' around, shouting gibberish - but she just slowly set below the horizon, without even sayin' a word. The last time I saw her, I was walkin' down a street in Milwaukee - just goin' down the drug store, you understand - and suddenly a manhole in front of me started shaking. Then, all of a sudden, it just flew up, must-a been twenty feet in the air. And then a great burst of mothninja - in a gaseous state - came up out of the sewers. She just drifted off into the sky, mingling with the atmospheric particles, and I thought to myself - "goddam it. Now I've seen mothninja in solid, liquid AND gaseous form." Well, that's my story! - and every goddam word of it true. I reckon I've seen that girl in every state of matter 'cept her goddam quark-plasma form. So next time someone asks you, "Mister, do you really believe in mothninja?" - you just tell 'em, "Yes sir. I surely do".