It's Mo Monday!

Like much of the country, we've had a particularly hard winter that doesn't seem to want to end. It's starting to have an effect on people. And also on animals. Look at poor Mo.

He just wants the snow to end.

Mo is so ready for spring to arrive he didn't even try to attack us when we took this photo.

A tale of a Tempy

More than half a year ago we introduced you to Tempy, the Hutt's assistant. 

Then we never talked about her again.
 
There's a good reason for that. Some four months ago, Tempy took a leave of absence to sell her second home in Florida or South Carolina or Alabama. Someplace down south like that. We were told that as soon as the sale was final Tempy would be back. Not so friends.

Last month, the Hutt had a really serious conversation with all of us at a staff meeting. Tempy's house closing was taking too long, the Hutt said, and with no sign of things finishing up down there in South Floribama there was no choice but to let her go. The Hutt wanted to give Tempy time to get things settled but enough was enough.

"Spoof and Speck," you are saying, "what gives? There is nothing funny or even outrageous about that story. Where is your usual awesomeness?"

You, not being entertained by this post.

Well, for the awesomeness we have to go back in time a little bit to the day that Tempy left. Our spies tell us that on that day, Tempy tried to quit. She turned in her letter of resignation. She knew that house closings can take time and she didn't want to keep us hanging in Tartarus. The Hutt refused to accept the resignation. All of this frustration over the time that Tempy was taking is ALL THE HUTT'S FAULT. And that's what makes this story worthy of the Death Stare.

That's right, Hutt. Your fault.

Coincidentally, the Hutt and Shoes are currently interviewing for a new Tempy. We'll let you all know if anything interesting happens on that front. 

Now that's teamwork

Grapey Updatey

Two weeks ago we introduced you to our new friend Grrr-apey. We love him so much that he is making another appearance. 

Firstly, here are the grapeys as they look this week.

Ewwwwww!

And just in case you thought this was the only moldy food in the Tartarus refrigerator, here are a few other gems we found hiding in there.

We believe this was once a cheesy potato casserole.  Like 6 months ago. We're pretty sure the person who brought this dish in doesn't even work at Tartarus anymore.

We haven't the slightest idea what this once was.

 

It's Mo Monday!

We are worried. Mo has made a new friend.

That's right. Everyone's favorite Melmakian, Alf.

Already several neighborhood cats have gone missing. We can't even begin to guess what they will do next.

Shoes doesn't get it

Do you recall the policy change we were dealing with last month? Well, they've finally made up their minds about the changes and we are now expected to implement the policy. There are still a number of problems. Namely, none of our questions have actually been answered. The policy remains entirely incomprehensible. Every time we ask for clarification we get a scornful reply of "just use your best judgement."

Today we cornered Shoes and demanded some answers. "This line of policy is unclear," we said. 

"Just do what seems right to you," said Shoes.

"But what if what I think completely contradicts what another person thinks. We're going to be telling patrons different information every time they come in."

"Yeah, I guess so," said Shoes.

"And you see nothing wrong with that?" we persisted.

Shoes just blinked and shrugged.

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!

The sad thing is, we sort of understand how this interpretation of policy works in their minds. The truth is the Hutt, Shoes, and the board really want us to be a bunch of mindless robots they can program to exactly follow their wishes.

Perfect Tartarus employees

Where the place is staffed by a bunch of individuals, we predict utter chaos. This is probably not the last time you will hear about this stupid policy.

Taylor Swift was writing about you, Spoof

Here's an annoying one for you.

Today, Opie spent probably five minutes telling a patron about an event we're holding tomorrow. Let's call it Program X. After the patron left, Opie walked away. Spoof, having witnessed this interchange, thought perhaps Opie was being rational today.

All of you who've read this blog before know better

When Opie walked back up to the desk two minutes later, Spoof said "Opie, I noticed there is nothing on our website about Program X."

Opie said,"Oh, is that tomorrow?"

Spoof was calm and instead of screaming at Opie very calmly said, "Did you forget you just told that patron about Program X?"

Opie didn't even respond, just looked wounded and walked away.

Now we've been talking about Program X off and on for at least a month. It was specifically mentioned in our staff meeting earlier this week. Opie even offered to help with prep work on two separate occasions. Opie and Speck spent at least fifteen minutes talking about details of Program X just yesterday.

All of this is annoying, but kind of standard for Opie. What makes this story really bad is what happened next. As Opie walked away, Shoes came shuffling over.

"Don't you think that was kind of a mean thing to say to sweet, sweet Opie?" said Shoes.

"No, no I don't," snapped Spoof. And Spoof walked away as well, or the next things said would probably have been quite mean indeed.

They want me to trip, don't they

Do you all enjoy Stuff Out of Context as much as we do?

Today's line is: Must be the frogs with shoe laces.

 

The Return of the Dunce Corner

On our website - Little House on the Prarie

Also on the website - a page where all of the links, no matter where they were supposed to go, went to the same place

A google search for "Charrlets Web" 

A sign - "Comments or Complainsts"

A phone call made by the Zebra - "Hi, this is Elephant calling from Tartarus. Can I talk to the Zebra?"

 

It's Mo Monday!

We're not really sure what is happening here. Is Mo satisfying his hunger with a mini-moose snack? Is he hypnotizing the moose to make it into his antlered minion? We don't know. All we know is, if it involves Mo it can't be good.

A match made in ... something

Some time ago, we told you about the man in the lady hat. Today we met his perfect match. Let's call her crazy boots. 

Crazy boots came into Tartarus wearing a dress and these massively furry boots. Like, came all the way up to her knees and had fur that was probably four inches long. They were furry from top to bottom. They looked insane. She informed us that she had made the boots herself! So it's not like these were the only boots available when she went shopping or something. No. This woman looked at some really long fur and thought "Hey, I bet those would make some really snazzy boots." 

They were even furrier than this guy's cats.

 

That's one angry piece of fruit

Remember the grapeys ? Grapes that are so old they've gone wrinkly. That particular batch of grapeys has gone away, thank goodness. But we've been tracking a new set. And now we have some help in the task. Meet Grrrr-apey.

 

This rotten grape's sole purpose in life is to watch  for gross, rotting food. It infuriates him. He's had about enough of this particular group of grapeys. Have a look.

 

Disgusting

The Further Adventures of Spoof and Speck

Everyone loves a creepy guy

We are in the middle of developing a new project involving one of our coworkers and at least one puppet. We will update you as more information becomes available. For now, we need some help from all of you. We've created a puppet character who is intended to be kind of creepy. The key is, he says very normal things in a way that could sound creepy. So far his catch phrases include:

You're my best friend.
Can I touch your hair?
Let me tie your shoes.
I thought you could come to my house for some supper. I'm making spaghetti.

Hopefully we can get you some audio of this fellow soon.

What we need from you is some suggestions. Please leave your suggestions for potentially creepy, face value innocuous, statements in the comments. Again we want to stress things that sound normal but could be creepy. We'll pick our favorites in April.

It's Mo Monday!

We never thought it would happen. Take a look.

That's right. We captured Mo! And we may have taunted him a little bit. Poked him a couple of times with a stick.  Of course, what you don't see here is that five minutes later he escaped from our makeshift cage and tried to eat Speck's face. But for those five minutes we had won.

We can't find what doesn't exist.

Spring is on it's way and the Murder Goose has come out again. He caught wind of one of the most irritating patrons we've had in recent memory at Tartarus. The following conversation really got his goat.

This woman came up to the desk with her demands. "You all have this book. It is about an Indian and a wolf. The title is something about a rainbow."
Spacey checked the computer record. "I'm sorry. It looks like we don't stock that book."
"Yes, you do," the woman insisted. "My friend said she got it here."
Spacey searched again. And again. Using several different combinations of search terms. "I'm just not seeing anything matching that description. Could the title be something different?"
"No," the woman insisted. "I know it was that. I'll just go look for it myself." If she'd left it at that we might not be telling you this story. Not so. Ten minutes later she came back to the desk, still with no book, and insisted that Spacey search again, using the exact same search terms as before. She couldn't tell us anything else about this supposed book. Did she really think it was going to show up in ten minutes? Or that Spacey was lying to her? 

And that's why Rainbow Woman is the next murder goose victim.

 

It's the deal of a lifetime

Introducing a new product from Stare Co. - The Ultra Moron Box.

Is your work place dull? Lackluster? Are you looking for a little excitement? Order the Ultra Moron Box. For only $19.95 plus $6.95 shipping and handling you'll receive one of Stare Co.'s premium morons. Your choice of: gibbering idiot, drool monkey, or mental slug. 

But wait! There's more! Order now and you can get the Super Ultra Moron Box - that's three surprise morons including one of our ultra rare morons - for just 10 additional dollars. That's the Ultra Moron Box or the Super Ultra Moron Box for the low low price of $29.95. Act now because supplies are limited. 

 

This is a gross one

Time for another installation of Stuff Out of Context.

Our line this week is: She needs more money for barf.

Jimmy Duck overhears stuff

Sometimes you hear one side of a phone conversation and what you hear is so stupid it bears repeating. Spacey spent a good 20 minutes on the phone with somebody today and this is part of what we heard.

"If you gave me the correct year, January 2nd and January 3rd are only a day apart."

Taking this statement to it's logical conclusion, Spacey must think that in some years January 2nd and January 3rd aren't just one day apart. Is there some year when there is a January 2.5, 2.6666, 2.8, etc?

Tell me more about this magical January.

It's Mo Monday!

We only wanted a pencil. We swear. We figured that there would be a pencil or two in that drawer. No pencils. Just Mo giving us a good scolding.

No pencils for you today Spoof and Speck.