Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Wondrous Inventions

Zack: I'm using a barely-controlled deadly monster to wash my dishes. What could possibly go wrong?

Steve: I think this is a great idea. Think about how good black puddings could be if we had them. We could clean up the environment in no time.

Zack: Introducing horrifying monsters to the ecosystem is a proven effective method to clean up the environment.

Steve: First of all, a black pudding is hardly horrifying. I eat pudding all the time and it never horrifies me. Second of all, you don't just turn it loose out there, you lead it around and have it eat up pollution.

Zack: If you're going to walk it over to all of the pollution why don't you just clean it up yourself?

Steve: Some of it might be hazardous.

Zack: Exactly! These things eat organic material, so if your lake is polluted with crumbs and dead fish or something, great, but if you've got a million gallons of benzene helper blob here is going to scream and slink away.

Steve: I don't know what benzene does to a pudding. I doubt there are even rules for it.

Zack: Most factory effluent has more in common with a breath weapon attack than a pile of Beggin' Strips.

Steve: Yeah, but you could still use him to clean up other stuff. Like if you had too many rabbits in your town or a bird was stuck in a pipe.

Zack: Those are both serious causes of global warming.

Steve: Also if a mouse gets in your car and dies and then your car stinks all the time and you can't find the dead body.

Zack: The first thing that comes to mind when my cars starts smelling bad is to pour gallons of semi-sentient evil ooze into my vents.

Steve: A pudding is not an ooze, my friend.

Zack: Ah, I always forget! That must be why the last time I tried to start my car the Creepshow 2 lake monster tried to pull me into the glovebox.