... or rather, they decided by majority vote at the Killmanorappa Council that occurred roughly in the year 53425.84 on the planet Zinkawatogare 8-A in the Toadstool Quadrant of the Blingfjord Galaxy. The Council was large - a massive event, the summation of several decades of planning and not a small amount of heavy drinking and the resulting intoxication - and drew the attention of the Qarfaz, who was not at all impressed with the entire affair. In fact, the idea caused him intense dizziness. The Qarfaz wanted "Cheese" as the national anthem. He even came up with the lyrics. He did this after eating too much Limburger, reading stories about the Swiss Family Robinson and watching the Muensters on his vidscreen:

"Oh Cheese, Cheese, Cheese
Oh Cheese, Cheese, Cheese
Cheese Cheese Cheese Cheese
Cheese Cheese
Cheese."

...this of course was only the introduction. The introduction was, for the most part, an instrumental orchestral score, with words chanted as a sort of mantra in the background by blue whales. The main portion of the song had a bit better lyrics, written by of course "Monterey" Jack Daniels:

"Oh Say - Can You Cheese?
By the Dawn's Early Brie
Which So Proudly We Eat
With Our Algae-Stained Teeth.
Oh Say - Can You Hear?
We Eat Cheese With Beer
It Makes Us Spew And Drool
And Intensifies Our Stool."

Needless to say, the remaining lyrics are a bit too explicit to print here at this time, since the FCC might eventually get ahold of this torn, yellowed copy of our humble text and sue us. Once, we read this aloud at Harrison High's graduation ceremony, and just about every parent at the event not only booed us off the stage, but also called the cops. When the entire episode was over, we wound up attempting to explain to the sergeant of Bakyrsfield why we decided to make the last line:

"...and then we shove forks up our ass and bake."

And then we had to admit that we had NOOOOOO idea WHY we decided to make the song end like this, nor why we decided to make the Pungees appear as a cameo in the title, nor why we had such a fetish for Cheese at the time of writing. Perhaps Twitch was feeling constipated. Or perhaps not. No one knows.

And by the way, the Jack Daniel Liquor Cooler bottles were filled with cheap KOOL-AID, and NOT Jack Daniels.

But anyway, back to the story: Qarfaz wanted this particular version of "Cheese" as the national anthem of the planet Zinkawatogare 8-A. And he (the Qarfaz, an amorphous unidentified alien created by Will's psychotic Kool-Aid infested mind) was going to do it no matter HOW long it would take.

Even if he would have to miss Seinfeld!

Episode Five-

"Another Hope"

I'm not sure if we mentioned this or not, but there was a cat involved with all of this galactic goings-on brew-ha-ha. Keep in mind, of course, that the cat had absolutely NO idea that any of this was occurring. (This takes place in the present, so most humans - obviously with the exception of WE, the editors - did not know of the presence of the Qarfaz in the Galaxy Blingfjord. And anyway, even if they DID, they wouldn't call the galaxy something as stupid and ludicrous as "Blingfjord." They'd call it "Gemini A-4" or some other ridiculous sort of thing. See, scientists always name galaxies after the stupid old epic stories written by long-dead blind poets from thousands and thousands of years ago - like "Andromeda" or "Hera" or even "Augustus Keelover." But obviously someone of high class and good taste named Blingfjord "Blingfjord" - perhaps they were Finnish. But anyway.) Yet still the cat was involved in a rather small, but very important way. And we will tell you why.

But right now we are talking about the pungees. So, as the Council convened, the President of the Council stood (squatted - the President was a Fuzzbucket unable to stand erect) before the podium and spoke.

"Citizens of Blingfjord and fellow sentient beings - we have come to discuss the possibility of removing the frog from the cover of General Mills Sugar Smacks. He is repulsive and generally distasteful to our sensory organs. But first, let us briefly decide whether or not to kill time."

The assembled crowd looked, slithered and twitched at one another, wondering how they might address this issue. One of them, a graying politician from a planet in the Snickers Galaxy said, "Let's do it. I'm all for it. Let's go ahead. Then we can move the business on to this whole Sugar Smacks ordeal."

The president stared at the politician, not at all amused. "That answer does not in the least bit satisfy me."

"These guys from the planet M&M/Mars never think all that much before replying to pressing questions," another member of the Council, a Futfyik named Joe (For Short), muttered.

"Hear what Joe (For Short) says," Joe's consort, Queen Matilda, yelled, "and what he mutters must be the Truth."

"Shut up," Becky said.

The Council erupted into a mass chaos as just about every species of sentient and somewhat smart things began battling each other with every appendage available to them at the time, even if it was somebody else's. The President rapped his tentacle on the podium for attention. "Order - ORDER!"

"Shut up!" yelled Becky.

They did.

The President spoke again, this time with a bit more authority in his slime-dripping voice. A bit of cottony nastiness dripped from his Fuzzbucket form as he leaned toward the Council, redness evident in his eye. "All right then. Allow me to ask the question again: The Pungees have moved to kill time. All in favor, say 'Bootie-Ootie-Oo.' All opposed, say nothing."

A chorus of varying voices and sounds from approximately 89.24% of the crowd chimed in to favor the bill. Unfortunately, none of them could repeat the words 'Bootie-Ootie-Oo." The mess that instead caught the hearing aid of the President was more like: "ARGEHGTEWHTTRTRHYRYH!"

The President shook his shaggy head sadly. "No, no, NO. That won't do! We need a definite answer."

See, and this is where the cat comes in.

Episode Thirty-Nine-

"Harris Finally Catches His Father At Work"

Finally, after many hours of trying, Harris called his father's office in the Drummond building downtown and got ahold of him. A deep voice answered, one resembling his father's but you never know in these stories.

"Skittles, Inc. Mr. Pierson speaking."

"Dad?"

"Fuck you, I told you never to call here. Now what did I say?"

Harris began to weep, trembling in fear and pain. "You said, "Fuck you, I told you never to call me here. Now what did I say?" But still, my bike! What are you going to do about my bike? I'll never get to Taco Bell on time to work!"

"WHAT did I say?"

"Fuck you."

"Exactly."

The phone went dead. And Harris was alone... so alone... and his boss would REAM him out for not coming to work on time... OH GOD it was ALL GOING TO END...

Episode Six-

"A Small Hope in the Form of a Feline"

Becky looked up at the above paragraphs and noticed that we accidentally, due to an editing mistake, skipped at least two dozen episodes. This, normally, would be a deadly and downright annoying thing - especially if these were re-runs of Melrose Place. However, since this is instead the fourth season of "The Pungees That Decided To Kill Time," we are not at all at a loss for what occurred between these episodes. So. We'll get to Harris in the next few pages. Unless Fox pulls our funding. Then we'll be screwed.

Renfro was a cat, a gray tabby cat to be exact, and he lived in a small house on the outskirts of Middleborough, which, although its name may suggest something else, was in the middle of absolutely nothing. (I guess this means it really was in the middle of something, it's just that the something was nothing, that's all. Okay. I can accept that. I guess. But then again, I really have no choice, since it's already typed , and as Pontius Pilate said, "What I have written... I have written. So there.") He was owned (enslaved) by a small boy about sixteen years of age named Harris. Harris was a pill. He will not come in very much in this part of the story. At least not until about Episode Thirty.

One day, Renfro was wandering through the neighborhood and was about to jump in this small bush on the corner of Poll and Werring Streets when he noticed a small light emanating from the Radio Shack store. Investigating immediately, he curiously looked into the light.

And was killed.

A roving alley cat name Jorge noticed the dead corpse of Renfro and tried not to take notice (he knew DAMN well what happened to cats who were investigatively curious) but wound up wandering against his will toward the side of the Radio Shack building, near where the reinforced back door was. And then the back door opened. This was an odd thing, since it was four in the morning. And a blazing green light lit up the entire alley between the Radio Shack store and the Mr. Fables beside it, and out came an alien.

The alien was a nasty, hideous thing that looked like Chewbacca on acid and protein pills. It beckoned with one horrible pawpad to its two tiny servants (slaves), the same size as Jorge himself, but twice as fuzzy with no apparent feet, just a little black pad underneath a round blue fuzzy head, two tiny antennae and fuzzy little eyes, but no mouth. These little eyes now looked at Jorge as if to say, "This big hairy nasty terrible thing lurking in the alley bathed in green glow is actually the alien slave trader Jourgen, who took us from our rightful place at the Killmanorappa Council. Kill him, please! Somehow! Then we'll be free and get the hell back to what we were doing before we were captured (enslaved)."

Jorge called upon the inner energies ambient within his spirit and suddenly transmogrified into a giant panda bear (rivaling the cuteness of Jourgen's unhappy servants (slaves), who cheered him on in tiny, tinny, telepathic little voices). He swatted at Jourgen with one big white paw and knocked the nasty Star Wars throwback for a loop, landing him in a pile of cheese stool near the back of the alley. Jolly proud of himself, Jorge then immediately shrunk back down to his original size and form and grinned, feeling a bit hungry. He eyed the servants (slaves) greedily.

They hopped up and down in a crazed hectic manner as if to say, "Please don't eat us! We're just cute little Pungees who do nothing but vote on silly matters and enjoy licking pop-ups while watching 'The Life of Brian.' We would watch 'The Quest for the Holy Grail' but we've seen that too many damn times. All we want to do is be transmatted back to the Council where we are voting on highly secret and important matters. We are sorry that we cannot tell you exactly what we are voting on. This would be a violation of the Universe Security Code 4682t3."

"So...what are you voting about?" Jorge asked, licking his small paw, stained with the inner juices of the alien Jourgen.

"Oh, just whether or not to kill time," they seemed to eye. (So far, they hadn't vocally said a damned thing.)

"That sucks. This could really affect the future episodes of this television series that we happen to star in. If you kill time, then nothing could happen. Not that anything has really happened yet - I mean, hell, nothing happens of consequence in most Fox sitcoms, and they STILL have good ratings - but it would certainly help things along. So, you see, if you killed time, then nothing would happen, and most likely the producers would pull their backing and then it would be all over. Then you'd be in deep trouble. Where ELSE would you appear, except in Twitch's silly little drawings or a bad episode of the X-Files?"

The Pungees thought about this for a moment. "Damn," one of them sent telepathically to the other, "I didn't think sentient life appeared anywhere on this planet. This cat impresses me."

"Yeah, at least smarter than YOU," the other sent back with a rather unholy, violent oath to back it up.

"Shut up," said Becky.

After a bit of debate, the Pungees decided to transmat back to the Council (the other end of the beam was still glowing green in the Radio Shack store) with Jorge in tow, who mewed with pride. The transmat jump was reasonably quick and painless but affected Jorge slightly as they emerged on the other side of the universe. (Ever seen Stargate? Okay, then you know sort of what I'm talking about.)

"WWOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW!!! What a TRIP, man," Jorge moaned as he looked about at his new surroundings.

Jorge, his stomach growling as he surveyed the Council Building, noted with a small lurch of surprise that the Councilman right next to him was, in fact, his Uncle Bill. He just didn't LOOK like Bill anymore, that's all.

"Hey, Uncle Bill!"

The cat (now transformed into a sort of panda bear/cat/koala mix about seven feet tall) turned to look at Jorge in surprise. "Jorge! What brings you here?"

"Those two silent Pungees over there," Jorge pointed. "Thought I'd come along for the ride to... well... wherever THIS is."

"You're at the Killmanorappa Council in the Blingfjord Galaxy. I'm the ambassador from Earth."

"Really? I thought that humans didn't know about this. At least that's what the writers said in Episode Four."

"Look at yourself, Jorge," Bill sighed, "you're a sentient cat. Not a stupid, brainmelded human."

"Oh," Jorge said meekly.

"But no matter. We're just about to vote on whether or not to kill time. The Pungees wrote the bill just last week and they're in a terrible hurry to pass it."

"Why?" Jorge asked curiously.

And was killed.

Once, while walking down the road to the nearest 7-11, I spied a small insect in the grass. This normally would never have bothered me since insects are everywhere these days, creeping and crawling in the grass, on the pavement, in the soil, and in the cupboard underneath the box of wheat gluten, but this day was a bit different when it came to insect spyings: this insect spoke to me. I'm not sure exactly, to this day, how I heard its small, buzzing, high-pitched voice, but I heard it. At first, I thought it was just reciting some old Edgar Allen Poe poem that I knew, and I was going to keep walking, since I already knew the poem pretty well and didn't care all that much to hear it again... at least not until I had a Coke-Cherry Slurpee in my hand. But then it spoke again.

"Hey, you! Big guy!"

Strange... I was only about five feet tall, short by normal standards for humans, but here was a voice calling me "big." Strange. Very strange.

I looked down and it was at that time when I noticed the single insect I had mentioned in the opening paragraph. I hunkered down, shifting my weight and squatting to get a better look at it. The insect, as it turned out, was a little black thing with lots of parts and moving pieces - like the original Optimus Prime transformer, if you remember the original one, not this re-hashed re-released cheap plastic garbage that they have out now, I'm talking about the original! But what was most peculiar about the insect was its face. It had a face. And its face was vaguely familiar.

"John!" I called out. For it was, indeed, my good friend John Studdard from Geometry, MTH 110. I couldn't believe it. Well, I could BARELY believe it. I guess I had no choice.

"How the hell are ya?" I asked him.

"I've seen better days," he replied, waving various moving parts at me.

"Nice thorax, there, my man," I said in awe. "I sort of like this new look."

"Oh, bug off," John said. "Pun intended. I need help, man. I was transformed into this strange form when I went to work this morning at Radio Shack. You have to do something. There's this strange piece of equipment sitting in the middle of the sales floor, right next to the stack of radio controlled buggies that we have on sale for $19.97. They're cheap pieces of trash - everything we sell is cheap - and it never ceases to amaze me how we sell so damned many of those things. But anyway... we've got to do something about that machine before it grows and detonates and kills everyone in town!"

"Aren't you exaggerating this a little bit?" I asked dubiously.

"What?!" the insect exploded ( I mean... yelled). "Do you think I'm making all of this up or something? I need HELP!"

"Listen," I sighed, flexing my knees, which were becoming a bit tired from all the crouching I was doing. "You've always been sort of a twitchy character. You've always had this strange need for attention - from parents, from friends, from peers, from gorgeous women. How do I know this isn't just a strange sick stunt you pulled for the purposes of empathy?"

"You ASSHOLE!" the insect screamed shrilly. "When I get back to my real self, I'm going to beat the living shit out of you for that!"

"Save it for the press, pal," I said with a wave of my tired hand. John wasn't going anywhere fast. I wasn't in the least bit afraid.

The face on the insect blinked in surprise. "And speaking of those gorgeous women... check THAT out!"

One of John's little pinchers waved toward the space in back of me and I turned my head, looking down the sidewalk and up the hill toward the 7-11. There, her long dark hair shining in the afternoon sun, amber highlights throwing sparkles over her perfectly formed face, was Becky.

"Hey, it's Becky! How about that? She's in this episode too," I said, feeling my legs ache with the strain of the strange position I was sitting in, crouching over the ground.

"You idiot! Be careful!" John squeaked as I began to lean forward, unable to keep my balance.

With a slight cry, I fell onto my side, rolling over the ground, my legs kicking out involuntarily. I heard a sick crunch emanate from underneath me and before I knew it I was looking at the squished and rather massively deformed insect carcass of John Studdard.

Gosh... NOW how would he pass Geometry?

The two Pungees who had previously appeared in last month's episode (Episode Six, "A Small Hope in the Form of a Feline," aired Tuesday night at 8:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. on channel 62), leapt forward, far forward, way way WAY forward to the front of the flinging crowd in the Council Chamber to where the Fuzzbucket-imbued President stood (squatted). They pushed him aside with their little fuzzy heads and took control of the podium, their little antennas waving hurriedly as if to say, "FISH!"

"Shut up!" yelled Becky. (Her voice was getting scratchy. She was tired.)

The Council shut up.

"Listen, people of Blingfjord and fellow sapient thingies of the universe. Heed us, the two Pungees (the ones from Episode Six) seemed to say. "We were captured (enslaved) unmercifully by the evil Chewbacca-rodent Jourgen and brought to Earth where we discovered three-dimensional sentient creatures who may be affected by our move to kill time. We cannot do this thing, lest we make this entire television series useless. As if it isn't already... but then the writer's would be out of a job. And then they'd be forced to go through college courses all over again (gads!). So let's not do this, all right? Then we can get on to the good stuff about Dig'Em and breakfast cereal box covers."

The vast majority of the Pungees in the room hopped up and down joyfully, agreeing. However, one of them, a horrid little Pungee named Horace, sneered his nasty fuzzy face and blinked his fuzzy ocular sensors, interrupting the seeming speech by the two Pungees (the ones from Episode Six).

"Ha! Unbeknownst to you (but beknownst to the series writer's), I am a spy from the - "

At that point, he was interrupted. And all of the Pungees never quite found out what he was going to blink (well, at least William sure as hell wasn't going to let them), for at that VERY MOMENT, with a great rumbling crash, Qarfaz and his spaceship (but no one could really tell where exactly Qarfaz end and the spaceship began, he's been it for so long - but whatever) crashed into the Council Meeting Hall.

The Pungees looked up and . . .

. . . shouted.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!" they shouted.

And their little hearts (or what they use for hearts) palpitated (or whatever it is that Pungee circulatory organs do) all that much quicker in the noise and dust and general chaos of the moment.

Qarfaz's spaceship had the remarkable ability to morph into whatever amazing nifty device that Qarfaz needed at any particular moment. This fact made it really handy with asteroid mining or harvesting interstellar hydrogen for fuel or getting food from intergalactic drive-throughs. At this moment in particular, however, the front of the Qarfaz-spaceship thing which was protruding through the roof of the Pungee Council Hall transformed into a great and mighty megaphone out of which came Qarfaz's great, mighty, humbling VOICE!

"ALL RIGHT YOU LITTLE GREEBLINGS. I'VE GOT YOU SURROUNDED, OUT-GUNNED, OUT-DIVIED AND OUT-MANNED, AND I AM GENERALLY SUPERIOR TO YOU IN EACH AND EVERY WAY CONCEIVABLE BY YOUR LITTLE FUZZY MINDS (or what you Pungees use for minds)!"

Poor little Horace was right beneath the giant megaphone that came out of Qarfaz's ship. The sheer, unmerciful, unstoppable, undulating force and power of Qarfaz's VOICE! drove the bones in his ears (or whatever it is Pungees use for bones and ears) right into his brain (you should know the disclaimer by now) and killed him dead right there on the spot.

The Council, pointedly ignoring the twitching and rather flattened corpse of the turncoat Pungee Horace lying before them dead as a door nail (or whatever Pungees use for... oh, never mind), looked up at the spaceship in awe and utter terror, shaking and feeling every ounce and fiber of their being resonate by the sheer overwhelming power of the VOICE! One of them, her face defiant, screamed out in anger.

"Shut up!" yelled Becky.

"DO NOT TRY TO SILENCE ME YOU PATHETIC LUMWARD. I CANNOT BE SILENCED. EVEN IN THE INTEMPERATE VACUUM OF INTERSTELLAR SPACE MY VOICE CARRIES LIKE THAT 'TIL TUESDAY SONG AND RESONATES THE PLANETS IN THEIR GRAVITY WELLS."

The Grand Oompah of the Pungees stepped forth and kowtowed. "Oh, what do you want from us great and mysterious one, Oh Putrid Persona of Peacocks and Peas?"

"Ah, well... I DO have a few demands," said the Qarfaz-spaceship thing.

After all the negotiations were finished and everyone was very happy (except for poor Horace of course, but who cares about a sniveling Commie mutant traitor scum like him) there was a big picnic where there was dancing and drinking (and intoxication of course) and revelry deep into the night. The Qarfaz-spaceship provided the music for this great celebration of cheese and fun on account of his bitchin' sound system.

But the party went on too long, evidently.

One of the visiting Buccoks from the planet Booga-Wooga ate a little too much sharp cheddar and passed out. Immediately, security was called to discuss the matter and drag the dead and now rotting body of Poppie the Buccok out of the Council Meeting Chamber. A doctor named Willie examined the scene, shaking its mane sadly.

"The enzymes in the whey of cheddar cheese is apparently poisonous to Buccoks... but only on Tuesdays."

"It's too bad this series airs on Tuesday nights then," one of the security guards, a very large cretin named Marr, said with a growl from his deep nasty serpentine throat. "If the writers could have pooled together their collective corporate pull, all of this could have been avoided. If only we were prime time on Wednesdays...."

"But then we'd interfere with Beverly Hills 90210," the other guard pointed out.

"Oh, yes, silly me. Then every fourteen and fifteen year old upper class Caucasian female on Earth would be deadly pissed off at us. What are we aliens compared to badly written and poorly produced hour-long teen dramas where the actors are actually sometimes ten years older than the characters they portray?"

"What in the hell are you guys TALKING about?" Willie roared..

"Oh, nothing," the reptilian/wombat guard said, looking up at the ceiling and twiddling its thumbs.

"Look, I think this is a very serious matter that should not be joked about," Willie said. "I think the Qarfaz is playing with us. I think the cheese is poisoned! I think there's a conspiracy going on here!"

"Always a conspiracy... always an undermining plan with these damned Jugghai doctors," the second guard said.

"Look, you stupid bastard, people are DYING! We have to DO something!" the doctor said, swinging its unsheathed claws at the guards.

"Look, all we know is that the Qarfaz has passed out free booze to everyone. That's all we care about," the first guard said, and everyone around them hanging around the scene of the crime nodded their tentacles, heads, veins, and oozing remains in assent.

"Oh, BUGGER OFF, the lot of you!" Willie yelled, stepping into the Chamber Hall proper, staring up at the Qarfaz's ship (still embedded in the ceiling of the hall) with undisguised glowering hate in his eyes. "I will get to the bottom of this! I swear it! I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE!"

Willie went raving off into the crowd (knocking over quite a few of the more happy guests), and the guards watched with not a small amount of alcohol-induced mirth as the maniac Jugghai tripped over the unconscious form of Bill the ex-cat (who had eaten too much cheese and drank far too much for his weight) and fell flat on his face, blundering inadvertently into the dreamless land of the unaware. Those in the crowd looked at one another, their paws/claws/pincers/antennas/mouths stained with crumbly remains of cheese and crackers. "Man, what a bozo," one of them said. And the rest of the crowd nodded in assent.

"I wonder what made him so darn hyper tonight," Councilman Troy said.

"Perhaps the fact that we never addressed the pertinent and very weighty Dig'Em issue at the Council," another guest hiccuped.

"Naturally, I think it was the wine," the second security guard said, his arms crossed, thinking nimbly to himself.

"Mmmm.... it does go well with the chicken," Troy murmured seductively.

Fillo the Werriay glanced at the caterer supplied by Qarfaz, who stood nearby (the caterer, not Qarfaz, he was STILL attached to his ship) handing out crackers, cheese, and small glasses of intoxicants varying in color and headiness. This caterer in particular had served other Councils, but this was undoubtedly his best work yet. "Delicious again, Peter," Fillo called out. Peter the Caterer nodded with a smile, bowing slightly.

Becky stamped her foot with a pout-esque expression on her face. She turned to all of us, hands on her hips.

"Shut up!" she said authoritatively.

And we did.

-- Concocted, Written and Scripted by the Pungee Refugee Committee:
Sloth, Twitch, Becky, and Kitty

-- With Special Guest and Cameo Appearance
by William Clifford

-- Extra Thanks to Spiderman and His Amazing Friends, the Snoopy
Sno-Cone Machine, Hasbro, Kenner, and the Soul Train

-- "Pungee" Spelling Corrections and Additional Unnecessary Comments
by . . . Bob!

-- Transcribed and Translated from the Original Latin and Hebrew
Texts by Editor-in-Chief, Toshi Yagamanti

-- With Apologies to Too Many People to Mention Here, Including:
Augustus Keelover and the Finnish

-- Actually, It Really WAS Kool-Aid, It Just
Had WAY Too Much Sugar In It!