Return Of The Fraggles.

  Memories. We spent every moment of our lives making them. Some, we forget about quicker than my girlfriend can scream when she sees a spider. Others strike such an emotional cord that they stay with us to the day we die.

  The thing that surprises me is that when you talk to people about a memory, they tend to automatically assume it's a good one. No one, ever thinks you could be remembering the death of a loved one or the day you lost your job. Maybe it's because even the most jaded of us really wants life to be this happy shiny place.

  I am one of those people who fall into the 'happy shiny' category. For the vast majority of my life, I believed a bad memory will always be bad and a good one will forever remain pure. Man, it really sucks when life proves you wrong.

  If you were to ask me a few days ago what my favorite child memory was, without hesitation I would have said hanging out with my brother and watching Fraggle Rock. We would pretend to be different characters from the show and knew all the songs by heart. I think I still have that soundtrack somewhere.

  I have so many fond memories attached to that show. That is until a few weeks ago, when I discovered what the true history of Fraggle Rock is.

  The residents of Fraggle Rock did not always live underground. Thousands of years ago, humans and Fraggles lived on the surface together in peaceful harmony. Some documents even place the Fraggles in the Garden of Eden. The two species existed happily together for quite some time. That is until, the Fraggles made a unprecedented leap forward in genetic engineering.

  For all their good qualities, Fraggles did not like to work. They loved to play and dance and have adventures, but avoided work as much as possible. Never wanting to have to work again, the Fraggles turned to the one job they didn't mind doing. They began coming the DNA from different animals to create a working class. Someone who would build their buildings, roads and bridges. The humans tried to persuade the Fraggles to abandon this path, but they refused.

  It took 30 years, but the Fraggles finally succeeded. In a big ceremony, the Fraggles introduced the Doozers. The Doozer was no more the seven inches high, looked as if it was made of green Play-Doh and had a built in desire to build.

  The Fraggles offered to let the humans use the Doozers as well, but they refused. It didn't take long for the Doozers to go from being a part  of the Fraggles life to being just another tool for them to use. The Fraggles worked the Doozers around the clock. Sometimes having them build things just because they wanted to see what it would look like, then destroying it as soon as they were done. Other Fraggles would destroy Doozer buildings just to make them have to build it again. Most Doozers life spans equaled to only a few months due to being fed very little and forced to work 24 hours a day.

  The time came when the humans stopped negotiating with the Fraggles and started to demand the Doozers be freed. Eventually, this lead to a great war that lasted over 70 years. The battles were bloody and casualties were high on both sides. However, over time the humans would slowly gain the advantage, and on the last day of the war offered the few remaining Fraggles a choice. They could either stop their mistreatment of the Doozers or be banished underground. The Fraggles made their choice.

  On that day the Fraggles disappeared from our lives, taking the Doozers with them. Except for a few pieces of paper, all evidence the Fraggles ever existed had been erased. As the centuries past, the Fraggles became nothing more than characters of myth and legend.

  That is until, they decided the time was right to reclaim the surface world and exact their revenge on all humans. While underground the Fraggles had grown harder, uglier and cold. They no longer cared about having fun and playing. War was their lifestyle now. It is believed that all the reported sightings of trolls were really people spotting Fraggle spies sent to gather information. Uncle Traveling Matt, the most famous spy of all.

  The Doozers had changed as well. While underground the Fraggles had continued to manipulate their DNA, until the tiny, cute Doozer was no more. As a first strike, the Fraggles released the new hate filled Doozers against the world. They now stood 20 stories high and cared nothing about building, only destroying everything in their paths. Preparing for the world for the coming of the Fraggle Army.

  When banished it was believed the Fraggles numbered no more than 30. Reports from satellites and ground penetrating x-rays reveals there are now hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of Fraggles living beneath the ground all around the planet.

  As of now, it seems all the nations are still preparing for this threat on an individual level. From all the reports and footage I see on tv at night, I don't think we can stop this threat without joining forces with the other nations of the world. The Fraggles are to well organized. I think if we don't present a united front, the Fraggles will win and reclaim what was once theirs.

The Battle Lines are Drawn

  I originally meant for this post to go up on Monday, but given the fact my computer had become self-aware and was confiscated  by some secret shadow organization, it had to wait.

  To be honest, this post would have been perfect for Memorial Day, because it reveals how they have drawn the battle lines. They have hidden themselves everywhere, and often attack when I'm sleeping.

  I've tried to reach a peaceful solution, I really did. They just kept coming and taking more and more territory.

  Finally, I was left with no other option, but to set aside my humanity and answer their declaration of war. Over the last few weeks I fought back with everything I had. I took the lives of at least a dozen of their soldiers, but still they continued their invasion. I've given this war everything I have, and while I refuse to give up and surrender, I find myself having to admit... they are winning. The crickets are taking over.

  Yep, you heard right. I said, crickets. What? You think just because they are crickets, it makes this war less meaningful. Let me tell you, crickets are vicious and care only about themselves. 

  I suppose the real question you are asking yourself is how did all these crickets end up in my apartment in the first place. It all began with a sand demon who wears his heart on his sleeve.

  In October I purchased a little bearded dragon. The idea was to decorate his cage in a dessert theme, so I thought an appropriate name would be Gaara. Loosely translated it means "demon who wears his heart on his sleeve."

  When I first bought Gaara, he only ate about 20 to 30 crickets a day. And those crickets were really small. I think they called them pin size. So every couple days i would buy about a hundred crickets. When they are small like that all you need is a little cricket cage and  you never have to worry about them  getting away. Sadly, Gaara continued to grow, and now he eats about 50 to 70 crickets a day. That amount of crickets would cost a lot of money if you were to buy them from a place like Petsmart. One weeks worth of crickets would cost you about $50. Not wanting to spend $200 a month in crickets, I went online and found a website that allows you to buy 2,000 of them for $12. A much better deal. Sure they are sold out of some government lab in Nevada, but at the time I figured who cares. I was saving money.

  For a while everything was still okay. I did have to buy a bigger cage but it seemed to be doing a good job of containing them. That was until one day I was feeding Gaara and eating a corn dog at the same time. I might have dropped a few bits of corn dog in the cricket cage. Like Piranha the crickets swarmed over the corn dog bits, devouring them in seconds.

Genetically advanced cricket hungers for human

  A few days later, I came home from work and saw the lid to the cricket cage open. I also noticed my crickets seemed to be bigger. Over the next few days I kept finding more and more crickets in my apartment and also noticed they were now about 7 inches long.

  This didn't seem right. So I did something no one would do in this day and age. I called the company and asked them why my crickets are getting close to being able to attack Tokyo. They told me some stuff about the crickets being part of an experimental breed, and that when they eat breaded meat it causes a rapid mutation. They offered no solution except to buy some bug spray. I tried that. The crickets came up to me, took the can out of my hands and sprayed me in the face with it. I even tried extreme cold, but all the crickets did was go skiing down all the furniture and ice skating in the bathroom sink.

  For weeks now our battle was raged. Neither side able to gain an advantage. That is until I realized why those mutant crickets were able to hold their own. Not only were they big but there was literally thousands of them. I know I only started with two thousand crickets, but in their mutated form, the crickets breed like nympho rabbits.

  The crickets had become too big for Gaara to eat, so whenever I had the chance, I would crush them up and then feed them to Gaara. As the weeks and war went on, I noticed Gaara was starting to grow bigger too. Instead of a normal sized bearded dragon, mine was about four to five feet long. So big in fact he could stand on his hind legs and look out a window. It took me a while to realize that whatever chemicals were present in the crickets that made them grow to ginormous sizes must have been absorbed by Gaara when he ate them. 

Gaara standing 4 Ft tall
and looking out the window

  Finally the sides were a little more even. I'm actually able to sleep at night since Gaara can patrol the apartment. The war has slightly shifted to our favor, but the crickets were still growing and getting braver. I can't say how this will end, but I will warn you to be careful when buying crickets online. Always make sure your crickets are from a non-governmental secret test facility, and never ever ever feed them corn dogs.
  Wish me luck.