What is Living in Duff’s Computer Speakers?

Duff D. Moss, Triond writer extraordinaire, master of the writer’s challenge, self proclaimed Fat Bastard, and all around Nice Australian Guy, issued an unofficial challenge on the forum yesterday. The thread topic was “How to care for a sprain at home.” Duff wrote, and I quote: “I thought this thread was going to be about caring for some strange little hairless Mongolian subterranean rat I’ve never heard of. How disappointing. Anybody care to write me an article about a strange little hairless Mongolian subterranean rat I’ve never heard of?” I thought, what the heck – I could write that, I think.

Later that day, Duff shared with the forum people: “My computer speakers are possessed by the devil. They have voices coming out of them – even when the computer is turned OFF!!!” This comment lit up the 7 ½ watt light bulb in my brain. What could be lurking inside a computer speaker? It’s a mystery. Especially for me because I have no idea what sort of technology is supposed to be inside a speaker. For all I know, they could be powered by gremlins of some sort, like on the Flintstones.

It is entirely possible that Duff’s speakers have become the medium for some unspeakably evil and unclean spirit. If this is the case, Duff will need to pour approximately one liter of holy water on his whole computer system. If he only treats the speakers, the spirit could take refuge in his monitor, and that would be much spookier. This cleansing should result in the exorcism of the spirit but would fry the electrical circuits. He might as well just take a sledge hammer to his system and bury it in the back yard.

A much kinder and gentler finding would be that the unearthly sounds emanating from Duff’s speakers are in fact merely the infant cries of a nest of strange little hairless Mongolian subterranean rats. Granted, it is rare for these to be found in Australia, which is surprising given the myriad of odd critters inhabiting that continent.

How a nest of baby hairless Mongolian subterranean rats could have possibly ended up in the speaker system of an Australian mouse potato is a mystery indeed. The main export of Mongolia is cashmere sweaters. Fortunately, Duff’s writing challenge did not specify solving the mystery of how they got there; it was only to describe the care of these creatures. So without too much further ado:

• Take them out of your speakers. Hairless Mongolian subterranean rats should be given a bed of new or gently used cashmere sweaters.
• Feed them minced meat. Not mince meat, which really isn’t meat at all, but finely chopped meat. Any kind of meat except kangaroo. They can’t digest kangaroo.
• They need a strict feeding schedule. Give them freshly minced meat at 7:30 am, 10:58 am, 3:27pm, 8:12pm, 11:56 pm, and 3:60 am Mongolia time (UTC+7 to +8[7][8]). Failure to stick to this schedule will result in an exponential increase in appetite. They may even resort to eating kangaroo meat, which as stated previously, they can’t digest.
• Hairless Mongolian subterranean rats are very clean animals. For their elimination needs, they require two small water basins. They “go” in one basin, and then need to be bathed in the second basin. The basins need to be emptied, washed, and refilled with fresh water after every use.

Given proper care, your Hairless Mongolian subterranean rats should live up to 27 years, and each mating pair averages 96 young per year. Enjoy!