Slime is a 5 letter word

It was a rainy day in the middle of the monsoons. The kind of weather you would want to stay in bed and sleep for '10 minutes' more. But as we all know. '10 minutes' is never 10 minutes and evil never sleeps. This greatly angers superheroes like me, who love their ’10 minutes more’ sleep more than anything (well, almost anything).
Knowing this fact, the then prevalent evil in the city decided that this was the best time to strike. Hence, during the monsoons we saw the evils of potholes, dirty clothes, leaky roofs, stolen umbrellas and not to forget the most feared of them all, wet underwear. But this monsoon was different. Apart from the water proof undies, we saw the return of Slimeball. Now for those of you who have not subscribed to the Know Your Villain weekly, here is a brief about him (nothing to do with the water proof undies).

Slimeball was born in a well to do family and was the only child. As he grew up, he discovered a knack for making slime out of anything. He landed a dream job with the global slime giants Goop Industries, (who ironically slipped their way to the top) which ended up being a dead end job extracting slime from snails. This pushed him toward the evil side. Today he is one of the most feared villains in the world and has even shared the top spot with The Joker at one time. Today he resides in his two room flat with his two dogs and 1022 snails (and counting) which he rescued from Goop Industries one snail a day.

Now getting back to the problem at hand, the city suffered from major traffic jams every time it rained. No, it was not your regular traffic jam. These jams were caused by a red substance. (No! it was not real jam) On closer inspection of the substance in question and days of analysis at the lab, it was determined that the substance was definitely slime. No one but the infamous Slimeball could be behind this. By some ingenious method, Slimeball was able to add gelatin to the rain which caused it to become slime once it hit the ground. This slime, due to its thickness, would not flow down the drains and would remain on the roads causing the traffic jams.
I had to catch this slimeball Slimeball and put him behind bars for good. The city could not afford to suffer any more traffic jams. I remembered I came across a fellow superhero a few days back and decided to give her a call. Let’s face it; we superheroes need to stick together. So drawing a plan with Double S, we set out to get our hands on that no good slimeball.
“How should we go about catching this fellow?” I asked. “May be we should follow the slime trail. It should lead us to Slime HQ,” replied Double S. Such brilliance from such a young superhero. I see good things in her future. Anyway, getting back to the topic, we started following the trail of slime. It lead us to a television studio. Now, being a little camera shy, I was hesitant going in at first, but I had to find this Slimeball. I stepped into the studio walking closely behind Double S. What I saw in there blew my mind. It was the studio in which the popular dance show ‘So you think you can dance’ was shot in. They were shooting a show as we entered. We followed the slime trail to one of the dancers changing room.
“That’s strange,” said Double S. “Could one of the dancers be Slimeball?” Being a huge fan of the show, I had not missed a single episode. It struck me, that a dancer named ‘Slides Alot’, one of the best dancers on the show, bore a striking resemblance to Slimeball. Even his dance involved a lot of quick yet smooth sliding on the floors. As we spoke, we heard the host announce his name “Give it up for Slides”, she said. We ran to the stage, but Slides, errr.. I mean Slimeball was on the other side of the stage. He recognized me from across the stage and made a run for it. Double S and I decided to give him the chase. Not realizing that we were running across the stage, we suddenly heard a roar from the audience. The judges looked as us and said “So you think you can dance?” My stage fright combined with my camera shyness was all of a sudden overcome and I yelled, “No! I don’t think I can dance!” Now it was difficult to lose Slimeball, thanks to his slimy tracks. We ran and were quickly behind him. But just at that moment, the rain started to pour and the slime started to build on the roads, making it nearly impossible to run. Slimeball lived to see another day.
Finally getting back home and into come clean clothes, Double S and I sat to rethink our plan. The weather report said we were in for some heavy showers the next morning. Knowing that the weather reports are always wrong, we decided to go after the slimeball in the morning. Rightly so, the sun was shining brightly, bright enough to have to apply sunscreen before going out in the sun. (Hey! A superhero also needs to take care of his looks ok!) Knowing his weakness for suffering snails, we decided to lure him with a ‘Snail sale’. I will not lie to you, business was slow but only till Slimeball visited our sale. After selling him every snail (and covering our costs), we decided to confront him. “So Slimeball, we meet again”. Slimeball replied in his shrill voice, “Oh no! It’s you again Double S.” “Ahem ahem,” I cleared my throat. “Oh SuperCraig, didn’t see you there,” he said.
He made a run for it. But within 2 minutes, the sun had dried him out. “That’s what happens when you don’t wear sunscreen,” I thought to myself. He was a wrinkled statue, and would remain that way till he got to soak up enough of water. We carried him to the nearest jail and locked him up in a room. Not taking any chances, we added a dehumidifier for good measure.
Satisfied with a job well done, we decided to celebrate. However, it started raining once again. Slimeball had planted some gelatin just before coming to buy the snails. For the last time, the city was faced with slime on the roads. Just then an idea came to me. I made some quick calls and within a few minutes, a number of helicopters were hovering around the city dropping sugar and flavor on the roads. This mixed with the slime made a delicious jelly, which the citizens of the city enjoyed! The city was saved once again by SuperCraig. But of course, I wouldn’t have done it without Double S.How did Slimeball manage to spread the gelatin across the city without anyone noticing you ask? Well, years later we discovered that he cleverly added gelatin to beetle leaves. Thanks to the number of people spitting out their paan on the roads the gelatin was spread all over the city. Kinda gross, now that you think about it.
This is SuperCraig saying bye for now, reminding you that a donut without u is don’t.

Die another day

Firstly, sorry for making you wait so long for my next adventure. I was trying to figure out for so long what was wrong with my PC, but only just realized, that it wasn’t plugged in.

So any-hooo... perhaps the most notable adventure in the past few months would have to be my tiff with the one and only ‘K-Woman’ (or just K to make it easier to type). I am sure most of you haven’t even heard of this K, but let me tell you, it wasn’t a kake walk. Damn! Her effects are still showing. If you have not figured out her power as yet, read on. Even if you have figured it out, read on.

K loved to create havoc among the masses by screwing up spellings of normal words by including ‘k’ in it. May not seem like much, but believe me, it could turn into a nightmare, as I recently figured out.

The city seemed normal for a hot winter’s day. The muscular men with their tight sleeveless tops, non muscular men as well. However, I did notice something. A new AA center opened up just around the corner. I contemplated going, but decided against it. Contrary to what ‘Over-exaggerating boy’ says, I am not an alcoholic. It was disturbing to see so many people flock to the new place on the first day of its opening, all looking so weak, so fragile. Oh well, serves them right.

The city was devoid of any trouble for the next few weeks, so I regretfully tell you; I turned to the bottle to keep my busy. But after a week of drinking myself to sleep, I realized I needed to change. No good was coming from this habit. So I decided to check out the AA center. While casually passing the place, I noticed the people coming out. They all looked stronger, smarter and taller. I said, “Hey! I could do with some strength, increased brain power and definitely some height!” I decided to give it a shot

The next day, while casually walking past the AA center, I quickly changed direction and entered. Yes I was ashamed what I had become. When I went in I saw happy people, full of energy. They were playing basketball, riding cycles, doing their homework in record time. I was amazed. I had to join this place. So I went in for one of their sessions. The woman conducting the session was awfully familiar. I remembered her from the chemist. She was placing an abnormally large order for something. I distinctly remember her telling me, “It’s for the kids at the school”. I couldn’t remember what she bought. Anyway, sitting through the session I got out enlightened. But I still went home trying to remember what that woman bought at the chemist.

The next day, I went there 5 minutes before the session. I had to stand in the long line. But I was sure it would be totally worth it. While entering the center, I was handed a glass of a brown liquid. “Weird”, I thought as I took the glass in my hand and walked inside. Everyone there was gulping it down. I asked one of the guys there what was in the glass. He looked at me and said, “Who cares, it’s magical!!”

I walked outside and took a closer look at the sign over the entrance. It said “Enter”. I looked around and to the side of the door it said, ‘Alco-horlicks Anonymous’. It call came rushing back to me like the crowd entering the train at Dadar during peak hours. The woman was ordering 72 packs of Horlicks at the chemist. And then I recalled, she signed the receipt as ‘K-Woman’. It all added up now. She was building an army for herself right under Our Noses. Our Noses was a store on the first floor catering to the fake nose market. (This was surprisingly a huge market thanks to the late MJ)

It all made sense. The people in the center, playing basketball, cycling and doing their homework in record time was due to the brown liquid. The Horlicks!! I thought I would go into the session and midway reveal her plan to her unknowing victims.

As I entered, I noticed a weird stare from her. Thinking I had a Horlicks moustache I started wiping my upper lip. I looked back up and she was gone. All the doors and windows were locked from the outside. I was trapped in this room with about a hundred people who had been drinking Horlicks everyday for over a month. I had to get out and stop her. But how?

I yelled out, “Is there any one in here named Will?” One guy raised his hand. And just as I thought, right behind him, was a way. A way out. Running through the small passage way, I came out, and just in time, K was rushing to her bike. Just as she was about to ride away, I reached out to the bike ignition key and turned it off.

“So K-Woman, we meet again,” I said, with my hands on my hips. “Who are you again?” she replied. She was obviously playing dumb. I explained to her how I came to know of her evil plan. She replied, “Oh! You were here to stop me? I was running because I saw a man with a police uniform come in.” But then she explained what she was really doing, and she was not as evil as I thought. She was much worse! She was giving out the Horlicks not mixed in milk, but in water!! (Yuck!)

Not on my watch missy. It wasn’t enough that she was building an army of people without their knowledge, she gave them a sub standard drink. Below standard actually. But she did cure them from their alcoholism, which was a good thing. Now, come to think of it, she wasn’t that bad after all. I decided to let her off and give her another chance. Who knows, she may come to my rescue in the future. You remember the lion and the mouse don’t you?

I took over the ‘Alco-horlicks Anonymous’ from under Our Noses and turned it into an organization that gave underprivileged kids doses of Horlicks. We still catered to alcoholics who wanted to turn over a new leaf.

The End.

PS: This in no way is a promotion for Horlicks. None of the effects of Horlicks mentioned here are proven. Horlicks was chosen as it fit in perfectly, nothing else.

I also hope you haven’t turned to alcohol after reading this post.