Mordle on the Shelf

Have you ever heard of Elf on the Shelf? It’s that game where parents buy an elf and then arrange it at night doing weird things—which the kids can then find later on. Well, my husband has created his own version… using Mordles.

It started a while back—with a dream, actually (you can read about it here). My husband bought me a set of blue Mordles and gave it to me right away (before I exploded with excitement). After that, he started doing weird things.

He bought a Mordle egg, for storage. One evening I found the egg sitting on my pillow with a Mordle sitting on top of it. I picked up the egg and shook it. Nothing. I put the Mordle and egg on my dresser and went on with my day. The same thing happened for several days. One morning, just when I was disarmed enough, I shook the egg on my dresser, and it rattled. Inside was a Mordle of a different color. This process happened on and off for the entire summer, and eventually I had a set of Mordles in dark blue, pink, green, and yellow.

Life continued on, and the Mordle craze cooled for a bit, but from time to time I would check out the website (toyfinity.com) to see if any new colors had appeared.

Well, on my birthday we awoke at 3:45 a.m. The furnace was half broken, and the repair person (who would not be able to repair the furnace until an ordered part had arrived) said if it got too cold outside, the heat pump would stop working, but the electric furnace (the backup) would not be able to come on because that was the part that was broken. We awoke to a rumbling in the attic—the temperature had dropped, making the heat pump fail. The electric furnace was trying to come on but failing. No heat. I buried my head under the pillow while my husband turned off the furnace for safety—and I prepared a cold start to my birthday. (Luckily, we have our main furnace in the basement—the broken one is just for the upper-level of our home). There, in the cold darkness, my husband whispered, “You are being watched.”

I turned on my lamp, and sure enough—a blood red Mordle was sitting there on the book I had been reading before bed—watching me. The discoveries continued throughout the day. There was a red Mordle on the dog treat jar, on the hook where I hang my keys. Even one in the fridge! By the end of the day, I had found all ten of them.

Red Mordle chilling in the fridge!

I also found a few more in a packet labeled “Happy Birthday!” Apparently, my husband had contacted John at ToyFinity about purchasing the Mordles, and he sent a few as a birthday surprise!

Anyway, I brought them upstairs, where all my Mordles from the summer were stored in two egg containers. I dumped out one of them, and put a brown explorer Mordle, a red Mordle, and my original Mordle that I still have from the 1980s on top. I said, “I wonder if anything will hatch.”

The next day, the egg was cracked open, and a midnight black Mordle was sitting in the middle of the ruin. It’s probably the coolest of all Mordle colors. Black as midnight and very sinister. When I came home late after a meeting, the black Mordle was sitting on the dogs’ food bin next to a black permanent marker. It was sitting on a sheet of paper with strange markings on it (that looked similar to WingDings font):

A mysterious message

When I finally decoded the message, it told me that the black Mordle and its nine siblings were hiding—three on each level of the house, all hiding in blackness. I searched the house, and the midnight Mordles were hiding in shadowy darkness: on the black leather chair, on the black DVD player, in the folds of a black umbrella.

It reminded me of the Elf on the Shelf game: some were sitting there watching TV. Others appeared to be reading or watching the dogs. I think the Mordles could give Elf on a Shelf a run for its money. Someone should write a book: Mordles in the House. Start a new tradition good for any time of year. Heck, maybe I’ll do it.

Anyway, here is a glance at my Mordle collection as of now. There are still a few colors missing:

The biggest surprise of my birthday, however, was a special chocolate chip cookie cake (my favorite kind of “cake.”). My husband asked if I would go get him a glass of milk, which was odd—why would he ask me to get up and get him something on my birthday? It’s uncharacteristic, and also suspect because he was already in the kitchen and I was in the other room. I knew it was a trap! There on the counter below where the milk glasses would be, was a photo-cookie-cake featuring… the Mordles (the “crawler edition” blue—my favorites)!

Mordle Chocolate-Chip Birthday Photo Cake FTW!

Keep calm and Mordle on!