A word about mushrooms and impostors...

These little guys here showed up last week. I heard them as I left the library after a round of checking out Beethoven symphonies or something like that. Upon closer examination I concluded that these are in fact--mushrooms. Notice how they are so friendly.


If you look closely at this one you'll notice the same thing. Definitely a mushroom. I noticed him, the caterpillar not the mushroom--mushrooms aren't hims or hers, while I was out exploring. The caterpillar said something about growing larger or smaller and was rather abrupt... He turned into a butterfly and took his hookah rig with him. But in this brief encounter I came to realize that this was in fact a mushroom because a caterpillar was smoking his hookah on top of it and giving me advice--a definite sign that you have spotted the real thing.


Now, every person who is in the know and hip to the jive knows that mushrooms are homes to little people... fairies, smurfs, hookah caterpillars etc... Well, this happens to be a very well disguised smurf home. Notice the natural lighting window that was recently installed in this home. You might think otherwise but here is the view out of this little window, (see below) More than a million dollars in that view if you ask me.
Not only does this provide a great source of natural light it is an inspiring view. this is a definite mushroom home. I will have to go back and try to catch a glimpse of its occupants. The
view is just another proof of evidence the magic that is necessary for one to distinguish the real mushroom from an impostor. Don't believe me? The next time you encounter a mushroom on your adventures just look out of its window.


Now... The fake, the facade, the charade, the dubious, the impostor... This my friends is none other than a pipepost. Although it has situated itself strategically amongst the foliage and undergrowth its (they too are neither hes nor hers) rust gives it away--mushrooms do not rust. This particular species of pipepost is only the small visible representation of a large and complex network of underground metals. This matrix of ore (as lore has it) stretches for miles and miles and transports nutrients. Only at suitable locations does this underground system necessitate such a growth as this one seen here. Conditions must be just right to produce such a benign growth... don't be fooled--it isn't the real thing.

I was almost taken in by this one. The light was fading and my senses were not on their guard... I passed it and a keen seventh sense (highly adept level 10 mushroom distinguishing senses) told me something was not right. That something was this extraterrestrialesce, aluminum gust-nob. The word gust-nob is not the word mushroom for starters. Gust-nob has only one "o," mushroom... two. Beside that salient fact there is the obvious... this gust-nob is growing right up out of concrete. Mushrooms do not grow well in concrete. I have never heard of a species that does. This gust-nob (much like the myth of the pipepost matrix) is only a small visible portion of a larger network of aluminum shafts that carry powerful gusts from place to place. The idea is that the gust-nob is where the gusts go when they are done gusting. They are grown only in areas that are relatively secluded and although they appear to be mushrooms, they are not. No smurf or fairy in its right mind would live in a gust-nob. Notice that the gust-nob has no window, no friends, no rhythm... Don't be taken--know the counterfeit when you see it.