THE CREATURES ARE BACK

November 20, 2025

by Rusty W. Mitchum

Yippee! The creatures are back. I’m talkin’ about those pesky phone creatures. You know the ones who call you durin’ supper, or just when a good movie comes on TV. I know what you’re thinkin’, “Why is he so happy the creatures are back?” Well, I’ll tell you. I like givin’ them a hard time. You see, my wife Janet put us on one of those do not call lists, and it’s been a while since I’ve gotten a call, and I was gettin’ out of practice. I mean, I was gettin’ scared that I wouldn’t be able to carry on a decent, or indecent, conversation with one. But all that changed the other night when the phone started ringin’.

“Rusty!” Janet yelled. “Will you get the phone?”

“Okay,” I yelled back, and I got up and grabbed up the receiver.

“Yellow,” I said. I didn’t hear anyone on the other end. Normally, I’d know that this was probably a phone creature, but like I said, I was out of practice. “Yellow!” I said louder. Then I heard a slight click, and my heart started beatin’ faster. It was a phone creature. An honest to goodness phone creature.

“Mr. Mitchum? Hello, this is Bill Hammond.”

I was so excited I didn’t wait to hear what he had to say, I just jumped right in.

“Hey Bill,” I said. “You callin’ about the ‘tawba worms? I wish you’d hurry up and come and git’em. I’d git’em for you, but I can’t climb trees no more. Not since I climbed up after that possum and he latched onto my finger and skinned it down to the bone. Now, if I git more’n two limbs up a tree, I throw up.”

“No, Mr. Mitchum,” the creature said.

“Yes, I do, too,” I said. “Oh yeah, bring your own can to put ‘em in, too. My wife’s got all ours filled up with snuff spit. I told her to pour ‘em out, but she won’t do nothin’ I say. All she does is sit there, rockin’ in that old chair. She’ll rock forward every once in a while and spit, then rock back. I think she gits more on her leg than in the can. I’ve threatened to put her foot in a bucket, so’s when the spit runs down her leg, it don’t get on the floor, but I ain’t done it yet.”

“Mr. Mitchum!” the creature said louder.

“By the way, I got a cane pole you can knock the worms out of the tree with. Unless of course, you’ve got a monkey like that feller a couple of years ago had.”

“Mr. Mitchum……Hold it.…..Did you say monkey?”

“Yeah, weirdest thing you ever seen. He comes pullin’ up in a truck and in the back he had this here cage. He opened that cage and out jump a little biddy monkey. Liked to have scared me to death. It was dressed in a little sailor suit. Had a little sailor cap and all. He looked like a hairy Popeye.”

“I asked that feller what he was gonna do with the monkey, and he told me to just watch and see. Well, let me tell you, that monkey put on quite a show. He ran up one of my trees and went from limb to limb gatherin’ up them worms. He’d grab ‘em with his right hand, and then shove ‘em into his left hand. Afore long, it’d look like he was carryin’ a bouquet of ‘tawba worms. Then he’d come down the tree and he’d put ‘em in a big one gallon ribbon cane serp can. It wudn’t long ‘fore he had that can filled to the top. Then he’d grab the lid, which had air holes in it, slap it on top of that can, and then jump up and down on it till he sealed it. He wudn’t too neat about it though. There was several of them worms that wudn’t all the way in the can and when he jumped down on that lid, yeller stuff would squirt out in all directions.”

“Yuck!” said the creature.

“Yuck is right. But I told that feller that I wudn’t responsible for them squished ones and he’d have to pay for ‘em just like they was still unsquished. He said he would. In no time at all, that monkey had stripped that tree, and went to work on the others. Afore long, I was out of the worm business for that year.”

“Amazing,” said the creature.

“Sure was. I even tried to buy that monkey. I offered that feller $20 cash for him, and do you know what he did? He laughed at me. He really did. He laughed at me. Well, that made me mad. I told him to git his monkey, and to git. I ain’t havin’ nobody laugh at me, no Sirree.”

“Wow, that’s something,” said the creature. “But Mr. Mitchum, I’m not calling about the worms.”

“You’re not? Oh, I bet you’re callin’ about that tiller I got for sale. Well, let me tell you, it’s a good’un.”

“No Sir,” the creature said.

“It is, too,” I said. “I overhauled it myself. Well, me and my wife. She didn’t really do any of the work. I’d just have her hold the spark plug wire while I pulled on the starter cord, to see if it was gittin’ any fire. If she spit, it was gittin’ fire, if it just run down her chin, I knowed it wudn’t.”

“Mr. Mitchum,” he pleaded.

“You know, she never was right after that.” Then I heard a big sigh, and he hung up.

I was smilin’ as I hung up, but I had the eerie feelin’ that somebody, or something, was watchin’ me. I slowly turned around, and sure enough, there was my dearly beloved, starin’ a hole through me.

“What?” I said.

She looked at me and slowly raised her hands, extended her fingers and walked slowly toward me. Her hands were in a position that looked like she was gonna grab me by the throat.

“Hey now,” I said. “What are you doin’?”

“Nothing,” she said. “I’m just going to see if you’re getting any fire.”