El Chupacabra

Sure, this is a still frame from Nosferatu: eine Symphonie des Grauens, but I think that it captures the spirit of el chupacabra.

The X-Files, despite featuring such stars as the Flukeman and whatever the thing in Space was supposed to be, never had a chupacabra episode. Mulder mentions the urban legend as a possible explanation once, but that's it.

There's a joke I picked up from one dark corner of the internet that's become my favorite joke. In the legend of the chupacabra, a name that literally translates to "goat-sucker", the creature feeds on the blood of livestock, particularly goats. The first recorded sightings of the creature were in Puerto Rico, but it has also popped up as far south as Chile and as far north as Maine, drawn there most likely because of Stephen King's gravitational pull. Anyway:

Q. Do you know what really gets my goat?

A. El chupacabra.

Everyone loves this joke. My friends never get tired of it. It's rare that you find a joke that is truly timeless, truly eternal, but the evidence bears out the fact that this is one such joke.

El chupacabra itself is described as, quoting Wikipedia, "leathery or scaly greenish-gray skin and sharp spines or quills running down its back."

(Wikipedia itself quotes Corrales, Scott. Chupacabras: And Other Mysteries. ISBN 1-883729-06-8, if you were curious.) Obviously the creature is a harbringer of the Lizard People who dwell below the earth and we should respect that it finds our livestock delicious.

I think that the creature could make a useful member of a household, come to think of it. I mean, Jack and I would have to institute the Goat Protection Unit, but the cryptid's dedication to bloodsucking really speaks to its work ethic. I could see it: el chupacabra helping to grind coffee and scare crows away from the fields, accenting its natural skin tone with autumn colors, preying on the goats of those who have wronged me, playing Cards Against Humanity with Kim in the evenings. I think that it could be quite nice. And it wouldn't hurt to start building good relations with the fearsome Lizard People who dwell below the earth before they attempt their takeover of the world as we know it, you know?

#elchupacabra