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September October | November | December | Home Beautification committee sets sights on dead cat waver April 5, 2000 Election campaigns contribute to global warming April 12, 2000 Gene patent filed for chicken lips April 19, 2000 Moles rain from sky April 26, 2000 Beautification committee sets sights on dead cat waver By Wilma Whipstittle Signal-Gazette Staff Writer The Stray Lake Beautification Committee announced plans last week to upgrade Stray Lake's image by running Eloise Brackett out of town. "We just can't have someone swinging a dead cat around out on the highway," committee chairperson Lafonse Duboise said at a news conference sometime last week (this reporter can't remember the exact date; they served drinks, so sue me). Committee members said Eloise had run at least three busloads of potential tourists out of town by standing in front of the Tipple Time and waving her dead cat while she made faces. "Stray Lake residents are used to that," Duboise said, "but those tourists probably have never seen someone swinging a dead cat around by its tail. They probably think it's disgusting. Come to think of it, I probably think it's disgusting." Eloise said her only motive was to air out her late cat, Harriet, which she takes to bed with her each night. "I loved Harriet like a sister," Eloise explained. "Then she got run over by Mayor Leroy Wertzbrimmer's reelection van, and I haven't been the same since. Neither has Harriet. Neither has the mayor's van, because Harriet had been wrestling with a skunk the night before." Mayor Wertzbrimmer would have no comment for the record, but in confidence told this reporter he thought Eloise was crazy. Eloise returned the compliment. Lafonse said the beautification committee was willing to buy Eloise a bus ticket to anywhere she wanted to go (within reason, such places as London and Katmandu being nonnegotiable), and would see that Harriet was shipped by next-day-air if she could be seriously disinfected. He added that the committee would reconsider its offer if Eloise would wave Harriet on the other side of town, where passing tourists could not see her. "I'll stand by my right to wave a dead cat anywhere I see fit," Eloise told this reporter (or something close to that). "And if anyone says otherwise, I'll whomp him with Leroy, my dead goat." Mayor Wertzbrimmer said he would have no position on waving dead animals in public until he had consorted with his reelection committee, which is mainly his sister Wanda. It is the guess here that even after he has a position he won't really have one. Eloise said she did not give a hoot what the mayor or his sister thought, and believed them not worth waving a dead gerbil at. Election campaigns in Stray Lake are moving into high gear for next month's primaries, in spite of the fact that all the candidates are running unopposed. "I don't know about anyone else, but I just love to hear myself talk," Mayor Leroy Wertzbrimmer explained to this reporter in a moment of rare candor last week at the Tipple Time. "Besides, if I make promises now, people are likely to forget them by November, and I can make some entirely new ones I have no intention of keeping." The mayor then abruptly ended the interview, but was not hurt when he hit the floor. At a nearby booth, Third District Councilperson Paul Boxtuttler said his platform included sprucing up city parks and offering free dog grooming. "All these mangy dogs on the streets look bad when the gambling tourists come through town on their way to the casino in Loomisville," he explained. "No wonder no one stops. The dogs in Loomisville are much better looking, and if we expect tourism to become a vital segment of Stray Lake's economy we're going to need better looking dogs." When even the hangers-on Paul was buying drinks for got kind of slack-jawed, he explained further that taxation from the increase in tourist business would soon pay for the dog grooming. Until then, he suggested funding might be had from the mayor's campaign chest. "Leroy must have raised about a zillion dollars for this election, and he's still calling that run-down van of his 'campaign headquarters' and paying himself rent for it," Paul went on (as he likes to do). "He bought that thing for $50 when he first ran for mayor four terms ago, so he's probably socked away enough rental to buy a couple of small countries." The mayor had no comment, still being unconscious, but Second District Councilperson Louise Taylor-Gumblatt said from her booth that she thought all the dogs in town ought to be rounded up and spayed or neutered, including Paul's. "That dog is almost as ugly as he is," Louise commented. "No amount of grooming is going to do any of them any good, and neither of them should be allowed to have any progeny. What we ought to be putting our money into is paving some of these streets so the tourists don't leave town feeling like they've been on some thrill ride in an amusement park. No, wait, maybe we ought to turn Stray Lake into an amusement park." Stray Lake Civic Club President Bethelina Tutter said she thought dog grooming, dog fixing, street paving, and the amusement park all sounded like good ideas. "I can see it now," she explained, her eyes clouding with the vision. "Every street in Stray Lake has a brand new coat of asphalt, so new you can still smell it curing. On every street corner sits a beautifully groomed dog, not one of them thinking about anything but fireplugs and drooling. Then, down the giant roller coaster in front of the courthouse, a busload of gambling tourists hurtles toward the mayor's reelection van. The mayor is giving a campaign speech, to no one in particular, and he looks up to see ..." The vision evidently became too much and Bethelina passed out on the table, while Paul's second wife, Ernina, showed up to drag him out by the ear. This left Louise holding the floor ... actually, the mayor still had the floor, so let's say Louise was just holding forth, and this reporter left to see if the mutant fireflies were swarming yet over the sewage lagoon. Stray Lake U biology professor Darnell N. Amphib has filed for a patent on gene manipulating technology that will create chickens with lips. Four people in the patent office in Washington have reportedly been hospitalized for the effects of excessive laughter after reviewing the application, but Dr. Amphib has hopes the patent will soon be issued so he can start marketing microwaveable frozen chicken lips. "If people eat chicken livers and chicken thighs, they can't balk at lips," Dr. Amphib said at a press conference at the Tipple Time. "In fact, I may start a franchise chain specializing in fried chicken lips. Can't you just picture mom, dad, the kids, and grandma putting away chicken lips while they watch game shows on the television or arm wrestle on the lawn?" The sparse crowd took a moment to picture this, retired to the bar, then returned for more about chicken lips. "I have a marketing campaign worked out," the doc continued, evidently unfazed by his own vision. "We'll have little mechanical chicken lips in kiddie meals, chicken lips on the doors welcoming you to the restaurant, maybe even the employees dressed as chickens with lips. And, the frozen lips will talk while they're cooking in the microwave, giving the address of the nearest carryout franchise location. Of course, this involves some internet technology we haven't worked out, but we'll get there." After another session at the bar, the attendees with the stomach for more heard that one set of lips per chicken was merely the start. "No reason a chicken shouldn't have three, four, even a dozen sets of lips," Dr. Amphib explained. "Lips don't have to be on a chicken's beak, for gosh sakes. We can put them on the feet, the thighs, the wings ... wouldn't it be cool if your chicken leg could talk to you while you were eating it? It could say something like, 'Lips are all we're talking about at Amphib's Lip Palace,' and then run down a list of the fabulous merchandise being offered, like chicken lip mugs and T-shirts and caps." The crowd returned from the bar to find Stray U President Dufoise Trolleyhauler arguing with Dr. Amphib over just who owned potential patent rights to chicken lips, the doc arguing for himself, the prez going for the Stray U College of Animal Husbandry, where doc works. "You used college chickens for these experiments," Dufoise was saying, "and that makes their lips ours. I don't know what you've been hearing them say, but as I came out of the bar and past those cages full of three-lip chickens you've got out by the restrooms, I heard them squawking the Stray U alma mater." Doc Amphib allowed that he had not brought any chickens, lipped or otherwise, to the press conference, and that Dufoise was probably hearing the gin buzz in his ears. Dufoise said he knew the alma mater when he heard it, started into a dismal rendition of same, and drove everyone back to the bar. There, we found LaGrange Kravner from the Kravner Egg Farms and Brewery, who said he had brought the chickens parked by the restrooms. "They've got three legs," he explained. "I've been breeding them all winter from a natural genetic mutation. I'm trying to interest Lou the bartender in buying an extra leg with each chicken. I just wish I could figure some way to get rid of those darn lips. Those chickens keep singing this horrible song, and it's driving my laying hens to distraction." The crowd decided to just stay in the bar, where we were soon joined by doc Amphib and the prez, who heard LaGrange's story and stood each other drinks for the rest of the night. This reporter left early, but understands the sunrise found the two college men, LaGrange, and the three-legged chickens with lips all singing the Stray U alma mater in the Tipple Time's parking lot. The rain of moles which descended from the skies above Stray Lake last Monday has been traced to Sturm and Ida Linking, who hooked their garden hose to a fire plug while trying to run the burrowing critters out of their front yard. "How was I to know there was that much pressure in the lines?" asked Sturm. "Heck, the fire department never seems to have water when something is burning. And how was I to know there were that many moles under my lawn? And you certainly can't blame me for Helen Ludwhig having a beehive hairdo. By the way, did they ever get that mole out of there?" Not at last report they hadn't, which was making Helen something of a celebrity. This reporter personally witnessed two busloads of gambling tourists on the way to Loomisville stopped at the Ludwhig house to take in the spectacle, and Mayor Leroy Wertzbrimmer said he was considering naming Helen a Local Monument and getting a reelection campaign picture made with her. The falling moles were first noticed by Miss Matilda Chucker, who was on her way to the library about 6 p.m. when one of the animals dropped down the back of her dress. Miss Matilda at first thought her corset was too tight, then remembered she does not wear a corset from April 1 until Labor Day and so began to suspect the scratching at her spine came from somewhere else. Miss Matilda began to squirm and wiggle, and soon was surrounded by admiring youngsters who thought she was demonstrating a new dance. That's when the second wave of moles descended, there evidently having been a logjam somewhere under the Linking lawn that had them backed up about 40 deep. Signal-Dispatch Delivery Engineer Scully Henderson was passing the library on his paper route, and when one of the moles dropped into the basket of his bicycle he panicked and rode off yelling, "The moles are coming! The moles are coming!" (Scully's history class has been studying the American Revolution.) This brought Lumbar Eddington from the bomb shelter he has occupied since being 4-F and an air raid warden in WW II, during which time no one paid attention to him and has not since. Lumbar began to crank the old air raid siren he keeps in front of the shelter, and about this time the third wave of moles hit the skies. The fire department heard the siren, rallied at the firehouse, hit the streets looking for a blaze, and soon had moles down the backs of most of their coats. As the fire truck rounded the corner of Eloise and Main, driver Speed Hathaway's vision was obscured by a mole which landed on his spectacles, causing him to veer the truck into the Helen Compton Memorial Cat Shelter, which at the time had a full house, some 70 or 80 felines. Most of the cats scattered, but about 20 attached themselves to the fire truck and went after the moles, causing fire fighters to begin shedding their coats as the truck raced down Main toward the Town Square and statue of Col. Richardson, Speed's glasses still covered by a mole. It was here that Helen stepped out of the Lawanda Hough House of Beauty and Hair Design, having just paid $29.50 plus a tip for the beehive, which stood about two feet high before the mole got to work on it. Helen saw the fire truck just as the last wave of moles came down. She threw up her hands, started to run back into Lawanda's as fast as her stiletto heels would let her, and was hit square in the hairdo by a mole. Speed swears it was at this moment he heard the mole on his glasses laugh and felt it lose its grip and drop to the seat, allowing him to veer past Helen and just miss the fountain. Helen shed her heels, ran in circles for a few seconds, then fainted into the arms of Lumbar, who had stopped cranking the siren and was running around blowing his air raid whistle. Helen being, uh, no lightweight, she knocked Lumbar to the ground and fell on him, causing him to give an extra-loud blast on his whistle, which happened to be pointed straight at the beehive. This evidently stunned the mole, for when Doc Pandemic revived Helen her hair seemed pretty stationary. It was not until that evening that Helen's husband noticed movement, poked his finger into the beehive, and had it bitten. County Agricultural Agent Elliot Dorntwist says the mole should tire of burrowing in a week or so and look for greener pastures, provided Helen has no grubs in her hair. The moles pretty much scattered back underground by the time night fell, the cats took stock of the garbage cans around town and went back to the shelter, and Lumbar retreated to his shelter to await the next air raid. Miss Matilda is thinking about a revised corset schedule. The Sturm and Ida say they will try gasoline should the moles return, which has the fire department on standby. And Scully got extra credit for his history course. |
| ©2000, Robert A. Markwalter. All rights reserved. |