Cheesy Chess

 
Have you ever played chess? It’s quite a pawpular game. Chess has been around for centuries, and there are even variants: Star Trek has three-dimensional chess, Harry Potter has Wizard’s Chess, and we rats? You guessed it: Cheesy Chess. It’s a game both fun and tasty, because the chess pieces are made of cheese!
 
To start out, pieces are carved from different-color cheeses; moldy ones, like bleu or Roquefort, are often chosen for the black pieces, and pale cheeses like parmesan make up the white. In the past, pieces were contrasted by hardness or softness rather than color, but rats of yore found the soft cheeses hard to carve – a process done with our sharp incisors (mmm … tasty) – and they also kept oozing all over the cheese – er, chess – board.
 
I’ll admit: I’m not much of a Cheesy Chess player. I’ve tended toward other hobbies – like keeping my fur well groomed – rather than taking up the sport, but I don’t mind taking in a good game. Recently the Cheesy Chess Championships were held in my hometown of Ratlanta. Many rodents spectated, but the event was also broadcast in audio via the sewer pipes: recent rains washed them out, providing a clear conduit for play-by-play squeaks to travel.
 
Unlike sporting events like pawball that use brawn to win the game, Cheesy Chess is very cerebral. And sure enough, this year’s Cheesy Chess Champion turned out to be none other than The Brain, very loudly cheered on by his not-so-cerebral pal Pinky. Brain won in the final round when his pawns checkmated the sire – for you see, in Cheesy Chess, the pawns are the most important.
 
If you’ve never tried your paw (or hand) at Cheesy Chess, I encourage you to do so! A squeak to the wise, however: playing the game can get expensive, as you have to buy a new set of pieces for each game. Because in Cheesy Chess, when a piece gets taken, it gets eaten!
 
Keepin’ it squeak,
Bob
 

Photo credit (with modification): http://www.threadnz.com/uploads/images/Food/2010/cheeseboard%20chess.jpg
   

Mite Club

  
Pests. You humans have vermin. We rodents have fleas. But lately a critter’s come ’round that gets under my skin – literally! And that’s squeaking something indeed, as I’m made of rubber. I’m squeaking of nestlet mites, which have recently invaded the Rat burrow.
 
Imagine my daily plight, if you will. (And yes, I do mean “daily”: we rats are nocturnal and prefer to revel after hours.) Imagine returning from a night’s carousing, snuggling into the warm comfort of your bedding, about to nod off just as the sun’s morning rays break over the manhole of your sewer, when CHOMP! you’re awakened by an agonizing pain right between your shoulder blades, the most difficult spot to scratch.
 
After two longsuffering weeks of this, I finally had enough. I did some digging (with the help of some naked mole rat friends) and tracked those nasty nuisances to their Ratlanta headquarters in a condemned building, dubbed “Mite Club.” I sniffed out their leader, Mite Mayhem, and boy, did he make my muzzle cringe! Turns out Mayhem was responsible for the recent mite invasion, and like villains Ratlanta has faced before, he had plans for expansion. First on his list: the nestlets of my pups!
 
Now, I’m a very docile rat; generally, I wouldn’t harm a flea (unless it was biting me). But when it comes to my family and the city I call hovel, even this peaceful rodent is moved into action. I scuttled right up to Mayhem and challenged him to a rat-to-mite fight. The contest: Take on the mighty mite in a drywall chew-off. The stakes: If I won, he and his mangy miscreants had to move their mitey mischief elsewhere. If I lost, Mayhem and his mites would invade my nestlet permanently (though I made him guarantee they would leave my family alone) and I would have to publicly shame myself by announcing defeat on Muzzlebook. With a paw-to-claw shake I agreed to fight the mite.
 
Mayhem came out strong in the first round, gnawing right through the drywall of that abandoned building so that you could see the pipes corroding underneath. But I countered with my super-strong teeth, fortified from my recent visit to the rodentist. In round two that mite began to falter, as his jowls, used to carving through soft flesh alone, were unable to breach the stiffness of more drywall material. My incisors, however, which grow constantly (as I am a rodent) and are accustomed to biting through hard cheeses, cut through that wall quicker than a pair of mice can breed eight generations.
 
In the final round, I brought down the Mite Club in squeaktacular style. I scuttled all over the place, gnawing here, gnawing there, until I stepped back and took a look at my resolute ratty creation. Punched through that drywall for all to see was a sign reading “The Mites Met Their Match.”
 
Mayhem and his minions moved their mitey marshmallow selves right out of town, hanging their jowls in shame. And the notoriety of their loss spread throughout the pest community, as I posted a mite-mortifying post announcing their defeat. Because while what happens at Mite Club stays at Mite Club, what happens today is on Muzzlebook tomorrow.
 
Keepin’ it squeak,
Bob