Tail End Charlie - The Carpet Monster

You have almost certainly experienced it. You are working on a model or figure, holding a part in your tweezers, when suddenly – ping! - the part is gone. You may still hear a sound from somewhere in the room proving that it landed, but if you have a carpet, you will hear nothing at all. Occasionally, you manage to spot the part lying on the floor during those first few seconds. But take your eyes off it for just a moment, and by the time you bend down to retrieve it, the part has vanished! In all likelihood, it has been eaten by the creature known throughout the modelling community as the Carpet Monster. It is a truly cunning and malicious beast.

You have almost certainly experienced it.

You are working on a model or figure, holding

a part in your tweezers, when suddenly – ping!

- the part is gone. You may still hear a sound

from somewhere in the room proving that it

landed, but if you have a carpet, you will hear

nothing at all. Occasionally, you manage to

spot the part lying on the floor during those

first few seconds. But take your eyes off it

for just a moment, and by the time you bend

down to retrieve it, the part has vanished! In

all likelihood, it has been eaten by the creature

known throughout the modelling community

as the Carpet Monster. It is a truly cunning and

malicious beast.

The loss of a part is followed by the usual

ritual: the modeller crawls around the floor on

all fours, desperately searching for it - often

for tens of minutes - to the great amusement or

disdain of family members and household pets.

The journeys taken by parts lost in this way

are truly unpredictable. Sometimes they are

discovered later that same day; at other times,

they mysteriously reappear several years

later. Quite often, however, they vanish without

a trace.

A friend once told me that he eventually

found a missing part on a shelf that was

considerably higher than his workbench - and

relatively far away from it as well. There were

no elfs in the house, so the Carpet Monster was

most likely the perpetrator.

Sometimes the Carpet Monster is not

responsible; ordinary physics and chemistry

are to blame. I once read about a modeller

whose wife helped him find a missing

part during dinner. It had stuck to the skin

beneath his eye, and he had not felt it at all.

The Carpet Monster can nevertheless be an

extraordinarily devious creature. According

to theories proposed by some modellers,

it employs wormholes in the fabric of the

universe. How else could we explain a modeller

who never wears socks finding a missing part

inside a closed drawer among his socks?

In another almost unbelievable case, a part

was found on the rear side of a car outside the

house - but only after the modeller had driven

the car the following day! He never discovered

how the missing part had escaped from his

modelling room, left the house and ended up

on the car.

In other cases, a part has been found in

the shower or has even reappeared inside

a completed model - after the modeller had

made and installed a replacement. That is

outright sadism on the Carpet Monster’s part.

So how can we fight this phenomenon?

Playing the Muppets song with Kermit and

Sandra Bullock will not help, but you will at

least understand animal psychiatrist will not

solve it.

Some people use a small vacuum cleaner.

Unfortunately, this is of little help when a part

follows a hyperbolic trajectory towards the

chandelier and becomes lodged somewhere

above floor level.

If using the household vacuum cleaner

might cause complications, the recommended

method is to stretch a nylon stocking over

the nozzle. This catches the part before it

disappears into the depths of a dust-filled bag

perhaps containing all manner of unpleasant

things.

A clean floor around the workbench is

generally a good starting point if you hope to

recover missing parts. Modellers with tiled

floors sometimes even polish them to make

small pieces easier to see. One of my friends

places a flashlight directly on the floor,

allowing its horizontal beam to reveal missing

parts more effectively.

Naturally, a missing part will reappear by

miraculous means as soon as you purchase

another kit or a replacement sprue. The Carpet

Monster is understandably unhappy when this

happens, so it retreats into a dark corner of

the workshop and spitefully loosens the cap of

your glue or filler, allowing it to dry out.

I believe that the best way to prevent the

loss of parts is to use a high-quality pair of

tweezers designed not to double as a launching

device.

I hope the Carpet Monster leaves you

alone as much as possible. I have included

an illustration of this mythical creature that

I produced a few months ago for my colleagues

at Guideline Publications. I believe it may be

the first illustration of this particular species,

so if anyone wishes to create a Wikipedia page

- or a page elsewhere - devoted to the Carpet

Monster, you have my permission to use the

drawing for that purpose.

No parts were lost and no Carpet Monster

was sighted during the writing of this article,

although I did listen to an album by the

Czechoslovak underground band The Plastic

People of the Universe.

THE CARPET MONSTER

Text: Jan Bobek

INFO Eduard

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August 2026