Goosebumps #026 “My Hairiest Adventure” – Well, this is embarrassing.

Lorraine: There are a lot of emotions that I experience when I read one of these old books. Sweet Valley usually makes me serial-killer-angry. Nancy Drew made me crying-baby-at-a-restaurant-annoyed. This? My first Goosebumps book? This just made me really, really sad that I was ever a kid. Seriously.

Kids are dumb. I’m pretty glad I got over being one.

Sweeney: THIS. Working in schools I have so. so. so. many “kids are dumb” stories.

Lor: We start our brilliant story with this: “Why were there so many stray dogs in my town?”

Hmm. This book is called “My Hairiest Adventure.” Well… for 1.) how many hairy adventures have you had, kid? If this is your hairiest, how lame was your second hairiest? and for 2.) I’m gonna guess and say that it all has to do with dogs. I’m not a genius or anything, but I’m just throwing that out there.

Guys, remember how I got pissed in Nancy Drew because the author asked about a billionty questions as a form of narrative? Apparently, kids have to be guided in their thought process by way of questions. We’re on page one and so far we have 5 questions. Out of 15 sentences on a page, 5 were questions. *twitch*

So, there are all these stray dogs and they are chasing our main character whose name is Larry. In the first Goosebumps book we recapped, it was SUPER SIGNIFICANT! that the character’s last name was “Byrd.” ‘Cause she got turned into a bird. Well, Larry rhymes with hairy. Real clever, author. Reeeeal clever.

Sweeney: This is necessary because kids are just that dumb.

Lor: Larry’s being chased by these stray dogs and he trips and falls because he’s a moron. His good friend Lily shows up in the nick of time to yell at the dogs, who listen to her, and stop chasing Larry. Lily, we’re told, is cute and blond and has super special eyes because one is green and one is blue.

We’re introduced to Larry’s other friends, who we’ll just call Inconsequential, Useless and Filler. These three, plus Hairy Larry and Special Eyed Lily are all best friends and have a band. We’re told about a thousand times that their band sounds “pretty good.”

We also learn that Larry gets embarrassed by anything and everything. He blushes a crap ton. His friends love taking advantage of this fact and make fun of him a lot. Then they sit back and watch his face turn colors, and they laugh some more. Best. Friends. Ever.

At the moment Best Friends Ever are chanting, “hairy Larry!” over and over again. In case you had any doubts that Larry does in fact rhyme with hairy, they say it a lot.

Lily wears a gold coin around her neck. You might look at that sentence and think, “why in the hell is that important?” And to you I say, “go listen to Justin Bieber for a millionty hours. When the world no longer makes any sense, come back to reading Goosebumps and learn that you do not question the ‘Bumps. You just go with it.”

Or maybe I just say: COUGHFORESHADOWINGCOUGH.

Sweeney: The number of kids who have not yet figured out that the girl whose eyes remind me of a big creepy dog and wears a fucking dog collar on her neck has some significance to this stupid dog story can be filed away as “Kids Are Stupid, proof #9845983693845.”

Lor: After making fun of Larry some more, and Larry blushing some to the mother fudgin’ more, the kids go outside to play with snow. While Useless, Inconsequential, Filler and Lily are making a snowman, Larry chooses this moment to go rummaging around in a dumpster down the street.

…

…

Uh. Okay.

He finds an orange bottle and get super excited about fishing around in the trash. He brings the orange bottle back to his friends and reads the label: INSTA-TAN. Rub on a dark suntan in minutes.

“Cool!” says Useless. “We should definitely take this mysterious liquid you found in someone’s trash and rub it all over our bodies. Surely our parents, if we had any that cared for our well being or, you know, watched us at all, would encourage such behavior.”

Sweeney: WHY DO THESE BOOKS NEVER HAVE ANY REAL FUCKING PARENTS? That’s the real horror of these stories: they are actually about child abuse and/or neglect. We have been reading them wrong.

Lor: So, the kids head back inside and “jam into the upstairs bathroom.” And so you guys don’t think I’m entirely gutter minded, I’m just going to share a few excerpts from the following description of rubbing this mystery liquid all over their bodies.

Ahem: “Poured a big glob of it into her hand.” “Creamy white liquid.” “Mmmm. Smells nice.” “Feels cool and creamy.”

Sweeney: All right, so it’s child abuse/neglect, and a dash of pedophilia.

The tagline is “It keeps growing… and growing… and growing…”
TWSS.

Lor: Larry chickens out when it comes to rubbing the creamy white stuff all over his face, but not because he found this crap in the garbage. NO. Because the expiration date has passed. Better safe than sorry, Larry. We wouldn’t want to rub ourselves down with expired garbage because that would just be plain silly.

Sweeney: Please tell me how we are supposed to believe that the kid whose impulse was to ditch his snowman building friends to go dumpster diving is the first one to say, “HEY. GUYS. EXPIRATION DATE. LEARN ABOUT IT. But the weeks old half-eaten fungus all over my body from rolling around this dumpster in search of said bottle? NBD.”

Lor: Lily, though, is all, “expiration dates are for pussies.” It reminds me of a friend I had who used to eat expired food all the time. His theory was that those dates meant that the food was BEST by then but it was still GOOD after. He probably belongs in a Goosebumps book.

Sweeney: Did he have parents?

Lor: Never met them.

Still in the bathroom, Larry takes the “last sticky glob” and “splashed it onto [his] face.” In case you were wondering, it was “cool and creamy.” Also, “the others cheered when I finished rubbing the cream in.”

You can’t tell me that the author wasn’t sitting around cracking up as he wrote about globs of sticky white liquid on children’s faces. And that? IS SO WRONG. WHAT THE HELL WERE WE READING AS KIDS?

Sweeney: And what the hell is this pervy mother fucker writing!?

Lor: Larry starts feeling very, very sick. Apparently, Larry has a sweat gland problem and he overheats, like a car but stupider. He needs to get a shot every two weeks from a very mysterious doctor. I think doctors are like old ladies when it comes to children’s books: stay the eff away.

That night, Larry is brushing his teeth when he notices that his hand is suddenly covered in thick, black hair. He starts calling himself “Hairy Larry,” to himself, in case we forgot that Larry rhymes with hairy. Also, this is a really, really hairy adventure y’all.

Larry shaves his hairy hand and we’re treated to 79 more questions. Why is hair growing on Larry? Was it the INSTA-TAN jizz (Sweeney: fixed it!)? Could it be the INSTA-TAN? Also, what if it was the INSTA-TAN?

The next day, Larry has a book report to give in class. Right before his turn he notices that his hairy hands are back so he runs out of the classroom and is super embarrassed. The principal sees him in the hallway and is all, “dude, you cold? Or is wearing gloves indoors a thing now?” Larry is so glad that the principal mistook his gross hands for gloves.

Homeboy bails on band practice in favor of running home to shave his hands. I think I’m going to start using that excuse instead of “washing my hair.”

“Hey Lorraine. Wanna go out on a date with me tonight?”
“Yeaaaah… I can’t. If I don’t shave my hands tonight, people will start to think I’m wearing gloves.”

It has the added bonus of probably scaring people off from ever inviting you anywhere else again.

Sweeney: When you first suggested this plan, I was about to say that. And then I realized that there was more and you had already thought of it. It’s kind of like saying “Hi, I never want to spend time with you again” while giving the person the feeling that they are the ones making that choice. It’s the polite thing to do…

Lor: At home, Larry finally confesses to his mother that he found creamy, white liquid that he rubbed all over his body and now he’s sprouting hair. His mom is seriously the best mom ever, because as her child is confessing an entire story that involves pilfering through garbage, sexual innuendo and mysterious bodily reactions, she’s so engrossed in her phone conversation that she doesn’t hear a freakin’ word of it.

Sweeney: Can we add a child abuse/neglect count for the Goosebumps books, like the SVH cry count?

Lor: At this point it’s almost necessary. I guess it all depends on if we can count that high…

Larry gets chased by dogs again. He thinks it’s because he smells like his cat Jasper, who has yellow eyes. If you are asking yourself why having yellow eyes is at all important, than you probably should just go and watch Glitter a few times in a row. When you’ve lost the will to question life, come back.

Lily and the Inconsequential friend save Larry from the dogs and then, hey! They notice that one of the dogs actually looks just like their other friend Useless! It has his same soulful eyes! But LOL. That’s totally silly.

We’re moving on to gym class where Larry discovers he now has hairy knees. New hairy body part = even more questions! Had the INSTA-TAN seeped into his pores? Was he becoming a strange creature? Could it be the INSTA-TAN? Also, what if it was the INSTA-TAN? WAS IT THE INSTA-TAN?

It’s band practice time again but the Useless friend is missing. The gang decides to go visit his house but what they find is an empty house, completely stripped as if no one had ever lived there. The kids figure he had to move really, really fast. I say he had to go shave his hands in another state.

On Saturday during his weekly jog with his father, Larry comes clean about the white goo and hair. His dad is all, “DID YOU SAY HAIR? We gotta go,” and he drags Larry to the Doctor of Doom.

Dr. D gives Larry a shot for his sweat glands and then is like, “are you an idiot? INSTA-TAN jizz can’t make you grow hair. Stupid.”

And Larry is all, “I dunno doc. It was an old bottle.” Dr. D tells Larry that it definitely wasn’t the INSTA-TAN and that Larry should trust him on this one.

So, basically in Goosebumps language that means Larry should definitely not trust this man and never see a doctor again. Got it.

Larry asks his friends if any of them have been growing hair and they point and laugh and start chanting “hairy Larry” again because they are sweethearts and angels. Lily doesn’t join in the teasing though and looks all shifty eyed and perturbed like she could be hiding a very hairy secret. SEE WHAT I DID THERE? #punny.

When Lar grows a thick band of hair on his forehead, he decides he has to find the empty bottle of INSTA-TAN and take it back to Dr. D to prove that the mysterious liquid did in fact fuck his entire life in the ass. In short, this plan is a fail because Larry is a fail.

Lily is missing in school the next day. Ruh-roh. After school, Larry is followed home by a dog. He goes to check it’s collar but hark! It’s not a collar at all. It’s a gold coin. Lily’s gold coin. Larry still doesn’t get what’s going on until hark! This dog has one blue eye and one green eye. It’s totes Lily.

Larry runs all the way to Lily’s house and finds her parents packing up their car. Larry is all, “hey can I see Lily to prove to myself that she hasn’t turned into a dog?” and Lily’s parents are all, “Uh… Lily who? Look. We’ve got to go shave our hands forever now. See ya.”

Larry tells Useless and Filler that Lily is gone. The kids are more concerned with the fact that they have now lost their lead singer and the battle of the bands is coming up. They decide the best way to completely ignore the fact that their best friend has disappeared mourn their friend, is to play on without her.

Sweeney: Obviously. This book teaches children how to deal with loss, duh.

Lor: The kids start playing and they are doing “pretty good” when suddenly the audience erupts in cheers and applause. “Great special effects,” people are shouting, and Larry realizes that his entire face is now covered in hair. The kids win the contest, obvs, because hair growing skillz trump musical skillz any day.

Larry runs home and is all, “See, Negligent Parents! The INSTA-TAN made me grow hair!”

And then in the quickest resolution ever written in a book, dad explains.

“Larry, you have to know the truth now. You’re growing all that hair because you’re not a human. You’re a dog.”

Oh. Oh. Well, um, I guess that would explain it!

The last chapter is told to us by Larry the dog. His human body disappeared. See, everyone in town works for Dr. Doom who is running an experiment. He found a way to change dogs into children and that’s really what the shots were all about. Too bad, because overheating sounds kind of cool.

It wears off though and the kids go back to being dogs. Dr. D has decided to never test on dogs again, because the serum just doesn’t last and it causes all the families of this creepy community a lot of pain when their kids start chewing up their shoes and sniffing their crotches.

Lily and Larry are best doggy friends. The stray dogs are all ex-children.

Sweeney: And this is when you throw the book at the wall. Or stare at it in your lap without reading and keep repeating, “…the fuck?” over and over. Oh wait, I’m sorry, I was talking about page 3. My bad.

Lor: Where you looking in my window as I read this?

Anyhow, Larry sees his ex-parents pulling up to his ex-house and starts wagging his tail all excited. ‘Cause that’s what dogs do. He notices that they’re carrying a tiny baby and mom is all, “what a good girl you are Jasper.”

Jasper, with the yellow eyes.

DUN DUN DUN.
Fin.

So, I guess the moral of the story is that it’s totally okay to go through people’s garbage. Also, that you should rub white goo on your face without fear of consequences. Also, never see a doctor, ever. Also, if there are a lot of dogs in your town, ask your parents for a birth certificate or something. Also, never name your kid Larry. Also, don’t try and turn your pets into kids. I’m pretty sure sex is more fun. Or adoption is cool too.

Sweeney: Also that you are totally right to be afraid of shots and not trust your doctor. Also that it’s totally fine that your parents are shitty parents. That’s normal, see?

Lor: Thank you Goosebumps for all of your valuable lessons.


Number of times Larry was embarrassed: 19

And that was just counting the word “embarrassed” and not when he blushed which was about another 20 times. If you want to talk about embarrassed, let’s talk about how my brother-in-law found my copy of this book on my bed. Now, I blog semi-anonymously and certainly none of my family knows about this or my main blog. So how was I supposed to explain? “You’re reading Goosebumps?” he yelled. “You are the biggest dork ever.”

EMBARRASSING.

Sweeney: Just remember that you said this because it’s going to explain the picture I will take from the inside of my Goosebumps book. Also, I have definitely been reading my BSC books at work. Whenever I hear someone come in the store I basically chuck the thing across the room, “ME? READING THAT? OF COOOUURRRSSEEE NOT.

Lor: These are the things the Snark Squad does for you.

So, basically, if you cut out “embarrassed” and “Hairy Larry” from this book you get this:

Larry rubs lotion on. He grows lots of hair. These two things are not related because Larry is a dog. Worst. Parents. Ever. The End.

Sweeney: And since the jizz was irrelevant to the dog situation, we can also conclude that it was purely there as a result of the author being a pervy mc perv.

Marines (all posts)

I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.

Nicole Sweeney (all posts)

Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.