CREATURE FEATURE

October 22, 2026

by Rusty W. Mitchum

I ran into a nice lady the other day, and she told me that she remembered a story I had written a long time ago about a phone creature. She had to remind me what it was about and then she asked me if I would rerun it. I just can’t say no to a pretty lady, so I told her I would if I could find it. Well, I looked and I finally found it. I wrote it about 21 years ago and here it is. I hope you enjoy it, too.

I got a complaint the other day about this junk I write. I really am not good about takin’ criticism, but I could understand this one, because I get criticized about it every once in a while. The complaint was that I had not written about phone creatures for a while. The reason I haven’t written about them is because I don’t get as many as I used to, and most of the ones I get now are recordings. Do you know how hard it is to talk back to a recording? I thought about recording myself sayin’ somethin’ and returnin’ the call, and let whoever answered listen to my recording about their recording, but I haven’t done that yet.

By the way, for you out there who’ve not been readin’ my junk for very long, and don’t know what phone creatures are, I’ll tell you. Phone creatures are what I call those pesky phone solicitors that call durin’ supper, or when you’re watchin’ somethin’ good on TV. I like to have a little fun with them. Heck, it’s only fair. They’re disturbin’ me, so I just disturb them back.

Well, I was watchin’ TV the other night, and the phone rang. The caller ID came up and said some kind of somethin’ that didn’t ring a bell, so I figured it was a phone creature.

“Yellow,” I said in the receiver. There was silence. “Yellow!” I said louder, and then I heard that faint little “click” that told me it was a phone creature.

“Hello, Mr. Mitchum?” the creature said.

“Speak up!” I said. “I’m half deaf.”

“Mr. Mitchum!” the creature said loudly. “This is Dewey Havel with Sprint.”

“Does my navel have lint?” I questioned.

“No, this is Dewey Havel with Sprint!”

“No, my navel don’t have no lint. Does your nose have boogers?”

“Let me explain!” the creature said.

“Okay,” I said. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’ll explain.”

“Mr. Mitchum,” the creature tried.

“The reason I ain’t got no navel lint, is because I ain’t got no navel.”

“Listen Mr. Mitchum,” he started, and then paused. “You don’t have a navel?”

“I used to have,” I said. “It was an innie.” But then I started datin’ girls and I was showin’ out for this real purdy one, and so I was gonna show her how strong I was and I tried to lift the backend of my ’57 Chevy. Well, I grabbed up under the back bumper and gave a mighty heave. Then somethin’ popped in my belly. I looked down and my innie was now an outie.”

“Do what?” the creature said.

“Yep, not only was it an outie, it was a big one. Stuck out about three or four inches. Well, I went to the doctor, and he said he could fix it with surgery, but when he told me how much it would cost, I told him to forget it.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” the creature said.

“Naw, I ain’t kiddin’,” I replied. “Oh, it took some gettin’ used to, but after awhile it came in pretty handy. Like, for instance, when I was takin’ a shower. I had a place to hang the wash rag or my soap on a rope when I wasn’t usin’ them.”

I shut up for a second to give the creature a chance to say somethin’, but there was nothin’ but silence on the other end.

“You still there?” I asked.

“Uh, yes, sir,” the creature said. “I’m sorry; I was picturing what you told me in my mind.”

“Later,” I continued with my story, “I tried to join the army, but they wouldn’t take me because of my navel. They said I’d have a hard time crawlin’ through the jungle on my belly. Either I’d leave a trail by diggin’ a trench with my navel, or get hung up on a root, or somethin’.”

“My big break came when they started the Break-Dancin’ craze. Boy, howdy, you should have seen me then. I’d get to dancin’, and then I’d drop down on my belly and start spinnin’ on my navel. My arms and legs would be straight out and I'd just be a spinnin’ like a top. I was quite a hit.”

“You did this on your navel?”

“Yep, it was quite a sight. I traveled all over the country performin’.” But fate stepped in, and dropped on me like a ton of bricks.”

“What happened?” the creature asked.

“Well, I was scheduled to go on the Ed Sullivan show, for my television debut, and I got in a crowded elevator. When I got on the elevator there were so many people on there, I had to squeeze in and turn around to fit. I was the last one in, so I was facin’ the door. Well, when the doors closed, my navel got caught sandwiched in between them.You see, my navel was callused up and got hard from all the spinnin’ and stuff. Well, we started up, and my navel started down. By the time we got half way up to the next floor, my navel had been snapped off.”

“You are kidding?” the creature said.

“Yep, snapped right off. And you know it left my belly just as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Not even a dent.”

“That’s amazing,” the creature said.

“What’s amazin’ is, that’s how I met my wife.”

“How so?”

“She was outside the elevator when it broke off, and she grabbed it and she searched and searched lookin’ at bellies tryin’ to find the one without a navel. Then one day, she came to my house where I was havin’ to work for my wicked stepmother and two evil stepsisters, and she tried the navel on me and it fit, and I was miraculously transformed into a handsome prince, and we lived happily ever after.”

The creature was silent.

“You still there?” I asked.

“You are a sick man; do you know that?” he said.

“Do you want to hear about my fairy godmother?” I asked, and he hung up.

I was chucklin’ to myself as I hung up the phone, and then I stopped. I had a really weird feelin’ I was bein’ watched. Slowly, I turned around. There starin’ at me intently was my wife, Janet.

“What?” I said.

“Rusty,” she said. “You are not right; do you know that?”

I smiled. “Want to play with my navel?” Then I smiled and moved my eyebrows up and down a few times.

She didn’t.