Operation Toothpick

According to the most common version of the story, Operation Toothpick was initiated in order to discover the smallest piece of wood necessary to immobilize a vampire. In some versions of the story the experiment took place over the course of dozens of years, with EOT members battling vampires by working their way up from smaller to larger pointed pieces of wood until one of them work. Other versions of the story claim that the experiment was shelved after a single disasterous mission.

The Federal Monster Hunter Act requires that nearly all M-Force records eventually be made public. While the organization is permitted to withhold information temporarily in certain sensitive situations, keeping an M-Force mission report classified for more than 10 years requires approval by the Bureau of Monster Affairs. While all references to Operation Toothpick could still be hidden in the handful of M-Force case reports that remain classified, the lack of any reference to such an experiment anywhere in M-Forces public records suggests that the story is a fabrication.   The inspiration for the story, however, may have come from an actual mission. For reasons that require far too much exposition to fully detail here, an M-Force team from Scranton, Pennsylvania found itself facing off against a brood of vampires in a chopstick factory. The team had not expected to be fighting vampires and weren't properly equipped, so it's no surprise that a few of them tried to stake the vampires using the abundantly-available chopsticks. According to the mission report, this actually worked once, but in most cases the chopsticks were not strong enough to pierce the vampire's flesh far enough to reach the heart. This problem was solved by an M-Forcer who would forever after be known as "Chopstick" Tillerson. It was Tillerson who realized that while chopsticks were not well-suited for staking vampires, they did their job perfectly if you first caused massive tissue damage to the vampire's chest with conventional weapons, then reached int the gaping hole and pierce the heart with a wooden chopstick.

The story of Operation Toothpick first appeared in the late 1970s, possibly before the Experimental Operations Team even existed. In those days, the mission was said to be the work of founding M-Forcers like Abernathy Quinn or Mike Mulligan. As time has passed, prominent M-Forcers ranging form Chuck "Chainsaw" Findley to Agent Clooney have been recast as stars of the tale. While the story occasionally gets spread through social media stories, online message boards, and word of mouth, its most common transmission vector is the M-Force Academy. It's rare for a class of recruits to make it through training without someone hearing the story and passing it along to their classmates.

Some versions of the story mention that Operation Toothpick also involved experimenting on captive vampires by injecting them with wood pulp. While one self-taught "Cryptochemist" did submit a grant application to M-Force for just such an experiment, the grant was denied and there is no record of such an experiment ever taking place.

The M-Force movie features a minor character named "Tillerson" who is always seen with a toothpick in his mouth. This is generally believed to be a reference both the Operation Toothpick tale and its real-life counterpart.