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August | September | November | December | Home Mayor's debate with himself changes few minds, loses many October 3, 2000 Restaurant closes when diners notice food moving October 10, 2000 Mayor offers free beer, still loses ground to himself October 17, 2000 Leaf blower shoots dog through house October 24, 2000 Mayor takes slim lead as opponents leave race October 31, 2000 Mayor's debate with himself changes few minds, loses many By Wilma Whipstittle Signal-Gazette Staff Writer Overnight polls indicate Mayor Leroy Wertzbrimmer's long-awaited debate with himself Tuesday at the Tipple Time did little to change voters' minds, possibly because most voters were more interested in watching the ball game than the mayor. The mayor remained optimistic after the sampling results were released by pollster Beula Afterthought, noting, "I only threw up once during the debate and I caught it in my Reelect Wertzbrimmer hat. I guess putting the hat back on was kind of a gaff, but I don't think anyone noticed, do you?" "I noticed that the mayor's brain must be the size of a gumball," Third District Councilperson Paul Boxtuttler said. "I'll bet you could put a quarter in his hear, smack him upside of the head, and watch it pop out of his nose." "I suppose that means I can't count on Paul's vote," Leroy mused. ""I'll have to pick up some support among the undecideds." Most voters allowed they were more uninterested than undecided, even after the mayor accused himself of bigamy, drunkenness, and theft in office. "Nobody's perfect," Lou the bartender shrugged. "He always pays his tab here and he is nice to my dog Blue-Green, who sleeps behind the bar when he is not marking wheels in the parking lot." Bar resident Thelma Hindmost looked away from the ball game long enough to ask, "Mayor who? What is he mayor of? Why is he debating himself? And why is my glass empty, Lou? I just had the fried buzzard wings and my mouth is on fire, or maybe Juan left a knife in there again. Am I bloody?" Tipple Time chef Juan de Fuca denied missing any of his knives "including the ones I have thrown at my ex-wives. They are all accounted for, so Thelma must have pustulating gums or some other disgusting disease such as she did when we were dating. No wonder she hangs out at the bar and never gets picked up." "I deny that," Thelma denied. "I did not have pustulating gums when I dated Juan, that began later, and I have had it cured with several wonder drugs. I will now match my gums against Juan's any time he would like to sneak up to my apartment. By the way, is this Wertzbrimmer guy in a dating mood?" Leroy soundly denied wanting to date anyone "let alone someone with pustulating gums. It's bad enough that I've accused myself of being a bigamist." Leroy thought for a second (which is about as long as he can stand), then whirled on himself and cried, "Aha!" This go the attention of three or four TV viewers and Thelma asked, "'Aha!' what?" Leroy thought for another second, the strain of the exercise becoming obvious as he began to drool, and answered, "I dunno. My campaign manager told me to say that." Leroy's campaign manager and sister, Wanda, quickly shoved him into a booth, handed him a drink, and explained, "I believe what the candidate means is that he is deeply concerned for the average American, wants better educational opportunities for all of our young people, will guarantee a balanced budget with strong economic growth and expanded welfare programs, cares to the point of distraction about senior citizens, and would rather not discuss foreign policy lest he slide one of his feet into his flapping mouth." "I had no idea 'Aha!' meant all that," Thelma confided to this reporter. "Of course, I had no idea who Leroy Wertzbrimmer was when I walked into this place, getting most of my daily existence from soap operas and violent talk shows. But I have to say, I remain completely unimpressed and am still wondering who this guy is." Leroy put his best spin on this news, noting, "She's probably not registered and I wouldn't want her to vote anyway. Are you sure she's not registered?" The evening ended with a straw vote in the Tipple Time parking lot, which showed Leroy running well behind write-in candidates Blue-Green the dog and Lucrecia Borgia, a dancer at the gambling casino in Loomisville. "I didn't know Lucrecia was a resident of Stray Lake," Leroy said. "That's another count of bigamy I'll have to accuse myself of in our next debate, but it also might be a vote." "Anybody have a quarter?" asked Paul Boxtuttler." We can either stick it in his ear or call a padded truck. How about two quarters?" The new Charbroil Chop House and Sushi Bar, which opened Friday, closed Saturday night after patrons stampeded from their tables when several noticed their food moving. The ensuing panic brought out the fire department, which for no apparent reason hosed down everyone standing in front of the place. Chop and sushi house owner Bruce Gelding evaluated the situation and said, "We think it was the sushi. I told the fish choppers to smack those things real hard about the head and gills before they sent them out, but it's so hard to get good help, or good fish, for that matter. We had to soak some of that grouper in bleach for two days to get it to smell edible." Earhart Cummings, who reportedly led the charge from the restaurant, told this reporter he had "just lost it when this fish winked at me and started to wriggle away. I mean, I want my food fresh, but not that fresh." His wife, Claudia, did not agree, saying, "He's always been a wimp. He should have smacked the thing with a plate and ate it. That's what I did to my crab legs, and they were trying to fight back." Stray County Building Inspector and Assistant Sanitarian Josh Jeckle said he was investigating the incident but was unlikely to draw a conclusion because "the evidence crawled away. Some of that fish made it into the storm sewers and a lot more got hauled down by cats. I even have a report that one flying fish was gunned down by Miss Matilda Chuker after it struck her as she was passing on her way to the library. However, I doubt that because it would be the first thing she ever intentionally hit." Gelding said the chop and sushi house was the brainchild of his wife, Galumpa, who had developed a taste for raw fish when she was institutionalized some years ago "She liked to catch the goldfish and take them to her room with her, for snacks," Bruce explained. "The staff was getting suspicious about the empty tanks, but she was discharged before they caught up with her. She hid it from me for years, but I kept smelling raw fish on her breath and finally figured it out. That's when I bought an industrial strength toothbrush and started ordering mouthwash in the 50 gallon barrels." It was tooth brushing that seems to have brought out the fire department, after diners rushed into the Woolenhatter Drug Store to snatch up all the brushes and paste Herb Woolenhatter had on his shelves. They had brushed themselves into such a frenzy by the time fire chief Randy Mossbreath drove by that Randy concluded there had been a horrible chemical spill and called out his department. "Our basic plan for any spill is to flush it into beautiful Stray Lake, where no one will notice it," Randy explained. "I suppose we flushed a lot of live fish from the street into the lake as well, but they will just have to take their chances with the rest of the critters in there. However, I would advise not eating any sushi that washes up in the next couple of weeks. Incidentally, I know something of the dental hygiene of some of that sushi crowd, because my wife, Mable, is Dr. Grindandpull's assistant. I know I will not swim in the lake for several weeks." Mayor Leroy Wertzbrimmer said he was considering introducing a resolution at the next council meeting to ban the sale of sushi in Stray Lake, "if someone will just tell me what sushi is." Informed that sushi is raw fish, the mayor lost his cookies and allowed, "Who in the hell would eat that? I will accuse myself of eating it when we have our next debate, but of course I will also deny it. Raw fish? You're kidding, right? Who eats raw fish? Who eats fish to begin with?" Bruce gelding said he was unsure if the chop and sushi house would reopen under the circumstances. "One of those circumstance is that the chops have been a little active, too," he confided. "Your fish walking out is one thing, but if a bunch of steaks ever break away and get themselves together on the sidewalk, we could have a real problem. I don't think even the fire department could hose down a steer that was quite that irritated." Mayor offers free beer, still loses ground to himself By Wilma Whipstittle Signal-Gazette Staff Writer With the election but a few weeks away, Mayor Leroy Wertzbrimmer held a giant rally at the town square Thursday night in an effort to bolster his fading chances to be returned to office. But an overnight poll by the Signal-Gazette showed the mayor, although running unopposed, was trailing himself by 13 points. The mayor is also still running well behind write-in candidates Blue-Green the dog and Lucrecia Borgia, a dancer at the gambling casino in Loomisville. "All that free beer and I lost a point?" Leroy moaned. "What else can I do?" "He might do it again, maybe bring in some dancing girls, have steak instead of hot dogs," suggested Signal-Gazette Editor and Publisher Corpuscle L. "Corp" Rampmeter, who personally conducted the poll by interviewing himself, this reporter, and several incoherent bums. "Throw in hash browns and garlic bread and I can see his standing rising by two, maybe three points." "That's what he said about the beer and wieners," Leroy reported. "Are you sure he knows what he's doing? I thought it was a really good rally, especially after we ran the stray dogs out of the food and cleaned it up enough to eat. And the crowd loved my speech, don't you think?" The mayor's speech was unusually good for him, possibly because he began by saying, "Before we eat ..." But the microphone failed to pick up "before" and the charge for the food was immediate. The mayor droned on for 40 minutes, never noticing the crowd had deserted him, and by the time he was ready to wrap up his remarks they had returned, full of beer and roach parts and ready to cheer anything, especially Leroy shutting his mouth. "I got a standing ovation," the mayor pointed out. When it was pointed out to the mayor that there were no chairs at the rally he said, "Well, it could have been a standing hissing and booing, although even the citizens of Stray Lake have better manners than to drink a man's beer and then boo him. I have great faith in the citizens of Stray Lake, in their commitment to democracy and fair play, in their judgement ... do you really think dancing girls and steak will do it?" The Mayor's reelection campaign manager, his sister Wanda, said their campaign could afford a steak and dancing girl rally because their war chest was full thanks to contributions from the gambling casino in Loomisville. "They're afraid he might move over there if he doesn't win," she explained. Asked where they might have gotten such an idea, Wanda smiled and admitted off the record, "I told them. I figured, if they thought he was going to make speeches in Loomisville they'd do anything to keep him here. So we'll do the steak and dancing girls, with hash browns and garlic bread if that is what Corp desires. Heck, I will probably pay myself to be one of the dancing girls in order to hold down expenses and skim money from the campaign." "Well that ends his chances," Corp mused. "I can tell you right now that an overnight poll of Wanda Wertzbrimmer as a dancer is going to mire Leroy somewhere south of ten per cent. Trouble is, even unopposed he will probably force a runoff with himself, or at least with Wanda or the dog, and we'll have to do this all over again." "Really?" asked Leroy. "A whole new campaign? More speeches? Zowwie, what fun!" Third District Councilperson Paul Boxtuttler mused, "I thought they had changed the mayor's medication. Looks to me like we need a little fine-tuning here. Or the old jacket with the long sleeves. Say, Maybe Leroy would like to take up a new career at the gambling casino in Loomisville, maybe as a slot machine. That way, his mouth could be open all the time and people would throw money into it. He would be in heaven and Wanda could stop skimming from the campaign fund." "It has possibilities," Wanda admitted. "Especially if I could moonlight as a dancer." There were no injuries reported Saturday when Tom Quiqly's leaf blower suddenly went into overdrive, but Tom's dog, Rupert, will likely never again sleep easily in the front yard and the Bedlam sisters, Eloise and Carenot, have put their house up for sale. "There we were, knit one purl two, and this dog rifles through the stained glass front door," Eloise explained. "Half an inch right or left, it would have slammed into me or sister, and if we had been any further along with our muffler we'd have shot out the back door with the mongrel. And if that isn't enough, I still have leaves in my girdle. Do you know how that chafes?" This reporter admittedly did not, never having needed a girdle (Ed. note: Hah!), but assured the sisters Tom said it was all accidental. "I do not care, he still filled our house and my girdle with leaves, and we can never sleep easily knowing that sort of person lives next to us," Eloise responded. "What happens when he hauls out his snow blower?" The day began innocently enough, with Tom tossing off a couple of warming libations as he likes to do on fall mornings, then staggering to the garage to fire up the leaf blower which had been recently tuned by his brother-in-law at the Fireball Speed Shop in Loomisville. Tom burped a couple of times, pulled the starter rope, and was blown against the back of the garage. "I thought I'd been arrested," he admitted. "You know, when Carmella slaps those cuffs on you for public intox and slams you up against the car? I tell you, she is one good-looking town marshall. But then I shake my head and figure out it was the leaf blower. So I brace myself against the elm tree, fire that sucker up again, and point it at the nearest pile of leaves." This was apparently the pile Rupert had curled up in, because Signal-Gazette Delivery Engineer Scully Henderson, who was passing on his route, reported that the dog "just sort of shot out of the leaves and through the Bedlam sisters' front door. He had this puzzled look on his face, the dog I mean, kind of like me when I take math tests." Rupert evidently shot between Eloise and Carenot, out the back door, and into a bus loaded with tourists on their way to the gambling casino at Loomisville. A few of the tourists panicked and dived from the bus windows, but most seem only to have laid bets on where Rupert came from, how long he was likely to cower whining under the driver's seat, and how much insurance and punitive damages they were likely to collect from the bus company. Town marshall Carmella Casey had by this time arrived at the scene and reported she found "the Bedlam sisters' house completely full of leaves. I mean, they were coming out of the chimneys. Tom had evidently just lost control of that blower and was spinning from yard to yard. If anyone else had left a front door open, we might have had a real disaster. As it is, we have only to contend with Eloise's girdle and Rupert's severe psychiatric distress. I think Doc Pandemic can handle Rupert, but I would not advise him to tackle that girdle." "Do not worry yourself on that score," Doc told this reporter. "I can have Rupert howling at the moon again in a month, but Eloise is going to have to take care of that chafing herself. I'm afraid of what might happen when she unbuckles that contraption and lets herself go." Eloise said she resented Doc's attitude and would probably go to a specialist in Loomisville to unlace herself. She added that Doc was "just as snotty now as he was when he put gum under my braids in the fourth grade. Sister and I will be well rid of this place and happy to abide in Loomisville where we can play the slots." Tom said he would talk to his brother-in-law before using the leaf blower again, and would probably tune the snow blower himself. "I don't think Rupert has another ride like that in him" he explained. Mayor Leroy Wertzbrimmer took a slim lead over himself into the final week of his reelection campaign after two of his opponents, write-in candidates Blue-Green the dog and Lucrecia Borgia, dropped out of the race. "I need old Blue-Green for hunting season," the candidate's owner, Ralph Gumstock, explained. "How can I shoot things without old Blue-Green by my side? And Lucrecia has also agreed to stay by my side. We fell in love at a joint campaign appearance and will now spend our declining years gunning stuff with old Blue-Green. Of course, Lucrecia will still dance at the gambling casino in Loomisville to support us, but old Blue-Green and I will use those interludes for quality time." Leroy said he was delighted that the dog and the dancer had elected to drop off, but was still worried about himself. "Corp Rampmeter says my lead is but two percentage points," Leroy said. "That's a dead heat, statistically speaking. I'm not quite sure what that means, but I think I'd better worry. That's why we're going ahead with the steak and beer at the Tipple Time this Saturday." The mayor's campaign manager, his sister Wanda, confirmed the steak and beer free-for-all, which she said would include her rendition of the Dance of the Seven Veils. "More like seven whales if she's going to do it," Third District Councilperson Paul Boxtuttler concluded. "If Leroy has any hope of beating himself, he'd better put the jukebox out of order for the night. Heck, I might vote for him if the steak is good. Is he going to have hash browns and garlic bread?" Wanda confirmed bread and browns are on the menu, accompanied by free beer for anyone who looks old enough to vote or expresses a desire to pass for old enough and strike Leroy's name on the punch card. She added that she was deeply insulted by Paul's remark, but in the interests of victory would contract with Lucrecia for the seven veils. After announcing the beer and steak rally, the mayor immediately attacked himself, saying such tactics "smack of neocolonialism and the worst days of bossism. My opponent is clearly saying that your sacred vote is worth nothing more than a juicy steak and a pitcher of cold beer. Hmmm, maybe he's such a doofus after all. I know! We'll form a coalition government." The mayor considered this suggestion but rejected it, allowing "I'm just not going to let myself talk me into that. I don't much like the politics of consensus. I'd rather rule by dictate. I think that's what the people of Stray Lake really want." At the Tipple Time bar, the people of Stray Lake were near unanimity in wanting the campaign to be over. "If the mayor makes one more campaign speech - no, two more, because he always has to rebut himself - I am going to be ill," Magursky Lucas said. "Come to think of it, I will probably be sick even if he comes down with incurable laryngitis. Juan, how long has this fried buzzard been in your freezer?" Heljeanna Montgomery agreed, saying, "I think that bird has a bad case of freezer burn or dry rot. Was that on the bar when we got here or did you order it?" "I thought you ordered it," Magursky told her as they both headed for the necessary rooms. "You can bet my steak will be fresher than that," Leroy announced. "Fresh steak, hash browns, garlic bread, free beer, and a whirlwind campaign blitz will be allow me to hold my slim margin over myself and once again lead the people of Stray Lake to the greatness they so richly deserve. Uh, do you know anywhere I can make some blitzing speeches this week? I get turned down just about everywhere I ask, though Gilhooly Gramartripe did say I could talk to the bacteria over at the sewage lagoon some evening if I brought him a case of long necks." "Something tells me the mayor has an even slimmer grip on reality than he does a lead over himself in the polls," Paul decided. |
| ©2000, Robert A. Markwalter. All rights reserved. |