This is the online component of the humor section of the Argus, the Wesleyan University newspaper.

2/11/10

Re: Gremlin Necromancy

Dear Gremlinz,

We know about you.

We know that after Mocon was decommissioned, a small population of gremlins quickly occupied the space, as gremlins are wont to do. You filled the musty bowels of the building, lurking in the dark, rough spaces behind unplugged industrial freezers and rusting furnace-system components. In the moonlight, you climbed into the jumble of gears and chains that once comprised the conveyor belt underbelly and cranked the old system back to life, turning the corroded cogs by hand. We imagine that the latches slid and creaked in ghostly imitation of their former function.

We also know that you, the gremlins, worship as your deity an old vending machine, sliding votives through the food slot and dancing around the base of its rusted husk. (According to one experimental ethnographer, your form of worship descends from older Eastern vending machine cults.) And we the students of Nicolson V write today to inform you that we have stolen your deity, this vending machine.

She is safe and intact, but we will not consider her return until you meet our one demand: through your gremlin necromancy, disinter and resurrect Sir William T. Butterfield, patriarch of all debauchery and buggery.

Once Lord Butterfield is again among us, he will supplant the current ruler as potentate and consider our demands for grilled whole baby calamari at Summerfields. And a Butterfield Inferius would be a formidable opponent to any of our enemies.

Mark our words: if Procurator Butterfield is not resurrected by the end of this lunar cycle, students from Down II will deface and destroy your deity with halberds and glaives. And you will have to show yourselves. Nobody has ever seen a gremlin, but when I am in the shower at night I hear soft voices that tell me you exist.

You have been warned.

Cordially,
The Federated Students of Nicolson V

Where In The World Has Carmen Sandiego Been All This Time?

Dear World,

HA HA HA! It’s me! Carmen Sandiego! I’m back! Maybe you haven’t heard my name in awhile. Back in the day they were even making video games about me. Shows how much I was getting into your head. Maybe you thought I was just exhausted edutainment material, but you couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ve just been keeping a low profile, and now, I’m ready to announce my biggest heist yet: Spitzbergen!

I know what you're thinking: Wow, is Carmen so desperate to steal something she hasn't stolen already that she'll nab an island in the Svalbard archipelago? Well, maybe. I mean, once you've stolen the goddamn Bermuda Triangle, how do you top that?

My plan is brilliant, if you really think about it: Not only do you not know where Spitzbergen is now – because I stole it – but you don't know where it used to be. It's doubly mysterious, and you poor fools are human putty in my hands.

Just try to get it back from me. Think I was hard to find back in the day?I’m impossible now. I don’t leave alliterative, pun-laden trails of verbal clues. I don’t use cartoonish goons anymore. And don’t even try looking for a bright red coat and matching hat. I'm not really sure why I ever though that was a good outfit for a thief to wear.

So in exchange for returning Spitzbergen, I want my own TV show again. I’ve already come up with an idea: “Where in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is Carmen Sandiego?” I don’t think we’ve done that one yet.

Nefariously,

Carmen Sandiego, DDS