How To Even…Hide From Monsters

By Michael Gushue & CL Bledsoe

There are a lot of problems in the world today. There’s what we call the three P’s: Poverty. Pollution. P-running out of snacks. Also, everything in the ocean dying. Every bird species going extinct. Financial collapse. Zika virus. The cost of parking. It’s enough to make a person plotz. But all of these problems fade in comparison to the most important issue facing us today: monsters.

Wait, what? You may be saying; monsters aren’t real! Right, right. You say that now, sitting at your desk in your cubicle under those soul-draining lights. But how about at 2 a.m., when you wake up in a sweat because you hear something rustling in the corner? You’re not so brave then, are you, Captain Talks Back To Blogs? Shivering in bed, desperately needing to pee but afraid to get up? Listen, if it helps you save face, you can just pretend we’re joking. HAHA monsters. IT IS TO LAUGH. (Meet me at the water cooler in five minutes. MAKE SURE YOU AREN’T FOLLOWED.) HAHA.

Seriously, though, monsters are real. Real hungry. For your FACE. Or maybe just your toes. But you know this; you just don’t want to admit it. Society has “civilized” you and trained you not to trust your instincts. That feeling you have late at night or when you wander into a dark alley? That feeling when you’re pretty sure something is watching you from the shadows and drooling? That’s the last vestiges of your primal instincts screaming for you to get the F away from danger. It’s the Kyle Reese of survival to the Sarah Connor of your complacency. Listen to it. It could just save your life.

What do monsters want?

First off, let’s disabuse ourselves of these generalities. There isn’t just one kind of monster, the way there isn’t just one kind of Frenchman. Some Frenchman are dirty. Some are smelly. Some are dirty and smelly. Some, supposedly, bathe and groom regularly (we think they’re called Algerians). Similarly, there are many types of monsters with many different desires. The monster in your bedroom could just be checking on you to make sure you’re okay. It knows you had a tough day at work. And stress might make you taste bad. Or maybe it can’t get the pickle jar open. Those jars are tricky for non-human hands. And you’d taste great with pickles.

So, yeah, monsters want to eat your eyeballs, sure, but they want lots of other things, too. Maybe they want to torture you for several hours beforehand. Maybe they want to eat your family, friends, or pets first. Maybe they’re looking for a fourth to get a game of bridge going, which will end in you being eaten. Maybe they’re looking for a friend to talk through some issues with and then devour.

Where do monsters come from?

Let’s answer that question by asking another question: where do people come from?

That’s right, just like you and me, all monsters come from a gigantic cabbage patch somewhere in the middle of Iowa. Inside each cabbage is a little monsterette (Now you know why cabbage is called the Devil’s Lettuce). Pelicans come and sweep up the cabbages and fly away with them. They drop these off all over the world into backyards or anyplace near where humans sleep. You know how you sometimes find a whole cabbage on your doorstep in the morning? Ever wonder about that? It isn’t the cabbage fairy; your parents lied to you. It’s monster-carrying pelicans. Anyway, the monsters slither into and underneath where people live and then Skype each other, usually to play Minecraft.

Monster Society

We bet you’d be surprised to learn that there are monster sociologists who study the history and development of human society to learn what behaviors make us taste best. There are monster architects who study the history of human architecture in order to determine the best ways to get inside so they can eat us. Monster fashion designers who create elaborate costumes to hide monsters from people so they can sneak up on us and eat us. Monster society is rich and diverse, with art, science, and philosophy. They’re also really into cooking shows.

But maybe you don’t want to be a part of this diverse culture, which, honestly, exists not only to devour us but also to, in many ways, praise us. Or at least how delicious we are. Maybe you think you’re somebody special who should be able to buck the tide of history, willy-nilly, and do whatever you want. Being eaten by monsters was good enough for our parents, and their parents, and their parents’ parents. It’s as natural as mayonnaise and as American as murder/suicide pacts. But not you, Captain Special Pants. You don’t want to be eaten alive. And why? Cause it’ll hurt? Because you had dreams? Listen, we had dreams. We had a lot of them. Mostly about being eaten. Once by a clown with teeth where its eyes should be and eyes where its teeth should be. We don’t actually mind giving that one up.

Unfortunately, not being eaten is tricky. Even the weakest monsters are a lot stronger than humans, which means fighting them is difficult. They’re also faster, so running away doesn’t really work. That means you’re going to have to hide.

Hiding Techniques

The classic technique for hiding from monsters is to pull the covers up over your head. When you’re a kid, that seems like a pretty good solution. But monsters aren’t dumb. Except Carl. He’s pretty dumb. Bless his heart. But he tries. The thing about most monsters is they actually have a pretty good sense of smell. Even if they can’t see you under that sheet (Spoiler: they totally can), they can also smell you.

Probably the best hiding technique is what’s known as “The Sacrifice,” or the, “Honey, Go Check On That Noise.” This is pretty self-explanatory. The upside is that, while your groggy mate or friend is being messily devoured, you can escape with your Star Wars collectible figures. Also, monsters, unlike serial killers, are known for being fastidious, so there won’t even be any cleanup after. The downside is eventually you’re going to run out of friends and family you can trick.

Or maybe you live alone, just you and your Morrissey posters and your crippling regret. Are you sure you don’t want to be eaten? Well, your choice.

A variation on “The Sacrifice” is the “Eat the Rich.” Literally, you’re offering up some rich person to be eaten in your place. This is a difficult maneuver. First off, you have to make yourself unsavory to monsters. Try using patchouli instead of deodorant. Monsters are very health conscious. A diet full of preservatives, including lots of junk food, will turn them off. This may seem counterintuitive because this sort of diet will probably lead to obesity, but think about it. When you buy a steak, do you want one that’s full of fat? No, you want one that’s well-marbled with a little fat to make it tender and juicy but not too much. Monsters have very sophisticated palates.

While you’re getting yourself nicely fattened up and stinky, you’ll need to do some research. Find some nice neighborhoods, then drive around them until you notice people glaring at you. Park somewhere and walk around until someone asks you to leave. This is a nice neighborhood. If there’s a gate, even better. When the monster appears, direct it to this neighborhood. Don’t feel that you need to do too much work in terms of scouting for vulnerable houses. Monsters prefer to do their own leg work. But offering a ride isn’t necessarily considered rude.

Trapping Monsters

Monsters are fast and strong, but as we’ve demonstrated with Carl, they aren’t necessarily that smart. It’s probably the high protein diet or the ease of finding and catching tasty humans to eat. But the bottom line is that monsters don’t expect us to try too hard not to be eaten. We’re so used to being devoured slowly by Capitalism, after all. So, it is possible to take advantage of this and trap a monster, at least long enough to get away.

1. Bait. The only thing monsters like more than eating people’s faces is classic pop culture collectibles. We’re not sure why. Maybe these things hearken back to a simpler time when people were less full of preservatives and tasted better. Or maybe monsters are mimicking humans and collecting them ironically. If you leave a collectible in a circle of salt, there’s a pretty good chance the monster will go in but be unable to get out. (Not because they’re afraid of salt, but because they hate messes. Salt is super-hard to get back in a circle.) This will give you an opportunity to escape. Note: don’t try to attack the captured monster. Most monsters are nigh indestructible. Also, they get cranky when you shoot them.
2. Traps. Only certain things will hold most monsters. Circles of salt, as we mentioned above, are choice. A variation on this would be what’s known as a “Reverse Honeytrap.” Begin by never cleaning your apartment. Pile trash, mail, magazines, whatever you can all over the place. It’s important to have some variety in your hoarding; if it’s all straight trash, it would be easy to clean by just throwing it all out. What you want to do is mix in some important items, like pop culture collectibles. Throw a Knight Rider lunch box in among the partially empty pizza boxes. Once you’ve got the place really messed up, simply wait for a monster. When one comes, it will have no choice but to tidy up. If you don’t have cleaning materials handy, all the better. The drawback with this, of course, is that the monster will eventually finish cleaning and will have worked up quite an appetite. This would be a good time to hit it with your taxes.

Whatever method you use to escape being eaten by a monster, just be aware that it will only be temporary. Eventually, a monster is going to eat you. It’s as inevitable as a gritty reboot of Fraggle Rock: the Dark Timeline. That said, getting eaten by a monster isn’t the worst thing that could happen to you. Ever driven through Indiana? Somewhere between Monrovia and Terre Haute you’d be begging a monster, any monster, to eat you. No offense to the fine citizens of Indiana. They have to live there, after all.

So, all right, a monster is going to eat your face and your eyes, no doubt while you’re alive and screaming. But, at some point, the whole being-eaten-by-a-monster event is going to be over. Sure, you’ll be dead, but there’s no avoiding death, is there? Think about all the unpaid bills and school loans you get to welch on. And you’ve made at least one monster happy, which is more than you can say you’ve done for your mom.