POTATO MOON, Part 38: “Four Short of the Answer To It All, or Kevin Smith Plus One” by Arlene C. Harris

Meanwhile back at stately Sullen Manner, Dr. Argyle Sullen was engrossed in the new game from Poptart Games, “Potatoes Vs. Werewolves” and he couldn’t get the catchy themesong “there’s a werewolf in my yard” out of his head. Not surprising since he was a 400 year old doctor and his head was so full of all the other little stuff he’d picked up in 400 years that once he caught an earworm it was hard to get it out. Only “It’s A Small World” or “Happy Trails” could dislodge a catchy tune and he was not yet desperate enough to attempt either one of those.

Just as the werewolf in the game fursploded, signaling a level up, the phone rang. Luckily for him he had a cheap Skype knockoff so he didn’t have to get out of his chair. He’d have bought the real thing but that would have cut into his videogame budget. “Is that you, Edwood?”

“How did you guess?” came the flat, emo, boring, and sparkly tones of his “adopted son” or whatever they were calling their relationship these days, ifyouknowwhatImeanandIthinkyoudo.

“I never guess, Edwood. I am a doctor, and that requires a scientific viewpoint cultured through years of training. That, and you’re the only one not home right now and you won’t let Bela or Woesime touch your precious Iphone.”

“Hey I paid through the nose for that pho—I mean, good guess, ‘Dad.’” Through the horrible digital signal voiced through the computer Dr. Sullen heard Edwood whisper “Fu—I mean oh my heck.” Then Edwood said, “Just calling to keep you up to date on what’s happening.”

“You must be a hundred year old teenager,” said Dr. Sullen as the computer screen filled with advancing werewolves as they tromped through a vegetable garden on their way to eviscerate the garden’s planter. He was only half listening, or, considering the lousy VOIP connection, only one eighth listening. “No real teenager would ever call his parents to tell them what he’s doing, especially if it’s dangerous, or the least bit fun….”

“Well, Jakob’s now a werecow, and we’re on a quest with a guy with a serious case of the Self Importants and his two flakey henchmen Tweedledum and Tweedledumber.”

“Where’s a cow?” Dr. Sullen muttered absently as the werewolves nearly reached the door of his gardener’s house. He pressed buttons furiously, planting spuds to stop them.

“No, ‘Dad,’ a werecow. Werecow. There, castle.”

“That’s from Young Frankenstein,” said the doctor, always eager to catch Edwood in any pop culture reference. It was the only way he could assert domination over the sparkly little jerk. “And is Woeisme still…” Dr. Sullen didn’t have the right word for it, for all his 400 years of being the smartest guy in the room. And he was too lazy to look it up. In fact, he hadn’t seen the dictionary in ages. Where had that gotten to?

“Is she what? Eight going on sixteen? Half vampire? Even more emo gothy creepy than me? Recognized to a teenage Native American slash werepotato-çûm-werecow?”

“Stop,” said Dr. Sullen. “That last word… that’s… no, Edwood. Just, just NO.” He paused. “Oh, and we can’t use ‘Recognized’ either. There’s some people in Poughkeepsie that would come after us, and we have enough enemies. How about ‘impressed?’ No, wait, there’s a woman in Ireland who would rain death from the skies on us. There’s got to be a good word for that… somewhere.” He glanced over the room, missing the dictionary that propped up the Gamecube cabinet.

“You’re in one of those moods again,” said Edwood snarkily. “I’ll call you back when something happens.” There was a pause to suggest that Edwood was peeking over the top of the spine, despairing over the thick half of the book that still remained in the reader’s right hand. “If. I mean, if something happens.”

“And that’s from Bored Of The Rings,” Sullen mumbled and dropped the call. His game garden was trounced and full of werewolves. The words “Game Over” flashed on the screen. Four hundred years of life experience and twelve years of med school and he still couldn’t win a simple tower defense game. Hm. Good thing he never had to defend Sullen Manor.

“There’s a werewolf in the yard,” he sang, in a high falsetto; “we don’t like werewolves in the yard…” He went out back to find some beautiful natural woodland creature to eviscerate and suck dry. Now that was a real game! Let’s see those stupid game designers at Poptart take down a mountain cougar at 900 MPH with their teeth! Ha!

Then his shoulder pads sagged. “Stupid computer game,” Dr. Sullen moped.