|
| News from September Feb. & March (part I) |
March (part II) |
April |
May |
June |
July |
August October | November | December | Home Latvian envoy feared lost in sewage lagoon September 5, 2000 Dean's keg party opens academic year at Stray U September 12, 2000 Hurricane throws cat into hearse, driver swerves into Stray Lake September 19, 2000 Lobsters escape tank, terrorize nursing home September 26, 2000 The Latvian Consul to Stray Lake, Herb Jones, is believed missing in the sewage lagoon after he failed to show at his office Thursday following a late night consultation with his accountant and secretary, Bubbles Vavoom. "He was reportedly agitated when they left the Tipple Time and we think it may be a double suicide," Stray County Sheriff Legible Thomas reported. "Then again, there was no cash in the safe at the consulate and the bank account has been cleaned out, so maybe they just took off for a weekend at the gambling casino in Loomisville. If they turn up losers, I guess they'll be back in a few days to sell more Latvian arts and crafts." Herb opened the Latvian consulate early last May, saying his government had heard of Stray Lake and its "friendly natives." He said he was instructed to sell handmade Latvian arts and crafts in an effort "to create a bridge of understanding and cash flow between our countries." There was some early skepticism when the Latvian arts and crafts were all stamped "Made in Idaho," but Herb quickly explained Idaho was a Latvian province. Stray Lake High geography teacher Bernice Blackhat disputed this, recalling she had never heard of a Latvian province by that name. Herb explained that Idaho, Latvia, had been created after the tumble of communism in his country, and Bernice had to concede the point since Stray Lake High geography texts all predate WW II. Still, she wondered why Latvian arts and crafts consisted largely of rubber tomahawks. Herb said the tomahawk was actually a Latvian invention brought to North America by explorer Eric the Bad Navigator in 1064 BC. According to Herb, Eric stuck out from Latvia for Greece, took a wrong turn, and landed a few months later in Key West. He claimed the place for Latvia, then struck inland, making license agreements allowing natives as far north as Saskatchewan to reproduce the tomahawk. Stray Lake U anthropology professor T. Demerit Vague said he had never heard of such an event but was willing to discuss it if Herb was buying. This being a mute point with Herb missing, Demo ordered his own drink, charged it to Stray U, and turned his attention back to mud wrestling on the television. Lej said his people were dragging the sewage lagoon but it was rough going on account of corrosion to the nets and a general aura of stench. He said he was sending for some wet, mangy dogs to give his people some relief, and had told the draggers to stand down until the dogs got within smelling distance. Most stood down at the Tipple Time, where head dragger Tupelo Schwartz said he thought the whole effort was a waste because "any fool knows Herb Jones is not from Latvia or any other stinking little country in Asia. He graduated six years ago from Loomisville Manual Technical High and Nursing Academy and has been doing everything but working ever since. I ought to know because he is my brother-in-law." Lej said he was not aware Herb was a local boy but would look into the mater, "especially if we can find fingerprints." "Check the waitresses here," Tupelo suggested just before one of them smacked him over the head with a serving tray. Just then, Bubbles Vavoom and a bearded stranger entered the bar and sidled onto a couple of stools. Lej did some sidling of his own and asked Bubbles why she had not been ingested by the sewage lagoon bacteria with Herb. Bubbles seemed a bit perplexed (nothing out of the ordinary there) but finally had a light come on and told Lej she had left Herb in the parking lot last Wednesday night when he suggested they go to Idaho to check on a shipment of tomahawks. "How dumb do I look?" she asked. There being only drooling in answer she continued, "I heard there is a hair spray shortage in Idaho, so I slapped him real hard and told him I quit. The last I saw of him he was getting into a taxi for Idaho. Oh, I would like to introduce my new boss, Alphonse T. Quiqly, the Estonian Consul to Stray Lake. The Estonians make coonskin caps in Idaho." The fall semester at Stray Lake U opened last week with the usual round of academics, including a protest march, a keg party at the dean's residence, and the toppling of the statue of school founder Horatio Q. LeBlonde. "God I love college!" freshman Wermer Laughner reported. "It wasn't everything the recruiter promised, of course, but I suppose the keg party at the president's house will be held next week." President Dufoise Trolleyhauler said he feared the annual bash at the presidential residence would have to be relocated this year. "My secretary, the enchanting Trixie Woozlebloom, who you will remember now lives in the presidential residence to be closer to me, er, to her work, has been troubled with headaches," Dufoise explained. "I do not think crowds of drunken college boys would help the situation. I know it wouldn't help the carpets, and the plumbing would probably suffer also. I believe the annual President's Bash will be held this year at the Tipple Time." "God I love college!" Wermer agreed. "The president of the place is going to take us drinking? I'm not old enough to be in a bar! This is so cool! Wait until I tell my parents!" "I think the freshmen counselors missed this boy," Dufoise explained. "We will rectify the situation immediately. Trixie, call the head cheerleader and tell her Mr. Laughner here needs some reprogramming, especially about the way he communicates with his parents." "I've got a headache," Trixie whined. "Why can't you call? Do I have to do everything around here? And why can't this cute young thing rub my neck?" "If I study hard, can I have a secretary like that?" Homer wondered. "God I love college!" "Look, you seem to be a bright boy, go find the head cheerleader yourself, and tell her Big Snobbism sent you," Dufoise counseled the freshman. "God I love college!" The protest march this year concerned a lack of things to protest. It began and ended at the Tipple Time and was lead by Stew Hijacker, a 40th-year student at the College of Animal Husbandry. Stew said, "It's just not like the old days. Back then, there was stuff everywhere that wanted protesting - the lack of sanitary facilities in the men's restrooms, the steak that was not cooked to your specifications, the length of the grass, and the wars and civil rights stuff, which I personally never got worked up about. But these days, it's hard to find a blade of grass out of place. In fact, it's hard to find grass. Hey! There we go! Hey, guys, form up at the Tipple Time, hit the carryout, and grab your placards!" Dufoise rubbed Trioxide's neck as he watched the students dashing off for a protest march and became philosophical. "Does he have to do that while he's rubbing my neck?" Trixie wondered. "Shut up," Dufoise counseled her. "And gosh, that takes me back. It seems like just last night I was overturning the statue of Stray U founder Horatio Q. LeBlonde. Where has the time gone?" "Nowhere," Trixie explained. "You wandered in about three this morning with a couple of cheerleaders and replayed their video of you pulling on the ropes with rest of that drunken mob. But don't worry, I got the video before the girls left." "Trixie, you're everything a secretary should be," Dufoise told her. "And I sent it to my aunt in St. Paul," Trixie explained. "God I love college!" Dufoise admitted. Hurricane throws cat into hearse, driver swerves into Stray Lake By Wilma Whipstittle Signal-Gazette Staff Writer The miniature hurricane which blew up in beautiful Stray Lake last Thursday left little damage in its wake, but did completely disrupt the funeral procession of Hodak Brown when the wind flung Charlie Grimm's cat, Lowboy, through the window of the Plantum Mortuary hearse and caused driver Ernie Glast to swerve into the lake. "I guess it's lucky Hodak's family was interring him on the cheap, because that packing crate they had us use floated a whole lot better than our regular caskets would," Plantum Head Mortician and owner Lapoliton Plantum mused. "If Hodak had been wearing one of those sheet metal jobs, we might have had to bring in divers, or maybe had a burial at sea ceremony." Hodak's niece, Joyella Pinbottom, said she was horrified by the turn of events and planned to sue Plantum "for all the mental anguish and grief they have caused me and my family. I also expect they will completely restart the funeral proceedings, beginning with the wake. I can't stand any more of my stinking family without a few drinks." "I am not sure we can do that," Lapoliton told this reporter. "After all, I have a hearse at the bottom of beautiful Stray Lake, including $14.95 worth of used flowers. Then there was hiring the boat to haul in Hodak and Ernie, and also the damage to the boat when it ran into the packing cr ... er, the casket. I guess it is a good thing embalming fluid is lighter than water, which probably explains why Ernie never drowns when he falls into the lake on his way home from work. I knew that stuff was disappearing faster then we pumped it into the dearly departed." "What about my wake?" demanded Joyella. "These pinheads are getting on my nerves pretty bad. Are we gonna lay Uncle Hodak out again and do some shooters, or do I call attorney Bumbles Hatrack?" Lapoliton allowed he would stand a few rounds at the Tipple Time if Joyella would settle for picking up the services at Stray Lake Memorial Gardens and Lawn Bowling. Joyella agreed to at least negotiate the point until Lapoliton stopped buying. Charlie was a little put off about Lowboy, who has not been seen since he went into the lake wrapped around Ernie's face. "No disrespect, but that old lecher Hodak was already dead," Charlie explained. "Here I am left to wonder whether Lowboy made it out in time, or whether they'll find him in the wreckage of that hearse. If they do, I claim salvage rights. We're not gonna have another court fight like they did over the Titanic." Ernie said he had not seen Lowboy since the cat released him as they sank, but allowed Charlie could have all the cat salvage he wanted. Ernie added he is looking for another line of work, preferably as an embalming fluid salesman. Stray County Sheriff Legible Thomas reported the hurricane sprang up suddenly on the west side of the lake, near the Stray Lake U College of Animal Husbandry. It skirted northeast, then doubled back across Homely Jones Island "I thought they were just doing gene manipulating experiments over there," Lej reported. "If they've started fooling with the weather, I will have to arrest them for ... well, there must be something. We just can't have a hurricane rolling over the lake every few minutes. What would that do to the tourist trade?" "Probably give it a big boost," Charlie decided. "He ought to be looking for my cat, not worrying about the weather." Lej reported the storm did little damage to anything except Hodak's funeral and some awnings and lawn chairs. He added that Lowboy was the only apparent casualty, Hodak already being gone, but held out some hope for the cat. "I figure that was life number seven," Lej mused. "That cat is always getting himself into some jam or the other. You remember last year when he got caught in the sausage grinder at the Grimm family reunion? Charlie thought he was a goner then, too, but he showed up a few days later looking like an underfed pig. Come to think of it, that was the hairiest sausage I ever tasted." Only the quick thinking of town marshall Carmella Casey averted disaster last Thursday when a dozen lobsters broke out of their tank at the Day Old Fish Market and invaded the PartyOn Rest Home. "If she hadn't herded those monsters into the sauna, we'd have all been goners,' said shaken resident Gertrude Likely. "I can still see those waving claws, and those eyes ... I'll never eat seafood again." Doc Pandemic examined PartyOn residents and said all were okay, but a little underweight. "And the sauna cooked the lobsters perfectly," he reported. "Come to think of it, a sauna that can cook lobsters might explain that weight loss. I think I'll prescribe a herd of lobster once a week, get a little meat back on those bones." PartyOn dietitian Henrietta Grooler said she would consider lobster, but did not think herding them into the sauna was such a good idea. "Those old men sit in their naked," she observed. "So do those old women. Word will get out, and the lobsters will want to be naked, too, naked lobsters scuttling through the halls. It'll be a scandal that will require a special prosecutor, or at least several boatloads of lobster fishermen." Doc allowed that frozen lobster or even imitation lobster made from fish and fish byproducts would be acceptable. "Just turn down the sauna when you're not cooking with it," he advised. The lobster breakout began when young Garth Pottle, Jr., was cleaning the crustaceans' tank. He evidently left the lid open while he went out back of the store to neck with his girlfriend, Mary Ellen Toomarty, and when she finally kicked him out of her car he returned to find the tank empty. "I panicked," he admitted. "I ran around like a lobster with his head chopped off. All I could think of was that I would get fired and Mary Ellen would not go out with me because I had no money. By the time I calmed down and remembered no one but me would even think of taking her out, the lobsters had evidently cross the town square and were heading for PartyOn." Young Garth set out in pursuit, net and lobster fork in hand, but by the time he spotted the marauding decapods they were marching up the handicap access ramp of the nursing home. "I didn't know old people could move that fast," Garth admitted. "Or scream that loud. My dad always complains about the volume on my speakers. He ought to go over there when those old people are screaming." "Of course we were screaming!" Julius Zwittles explained. "A herd of lobster were attacking us! They were waving their claws. How would you like to have a herd of claw-waving lobsters walking up the steps of your house?" Young Garth was paralyzed by the site of the lobsters and the screaming, but Carmella heard the noise and pulled up in her cruiser. "I thought it was another loud party at the home," she explained. "You get to playing too much swing music for those folks, they just go over the edge. I've made arrests there. But this was something new." Carmella's first try at restoring order was to use her bullhorn to order the lobsters back to the seafood store. When this failed, she ordered PartyOn residents to stop screaming. This also getting things nowhere, she ordered young Garth to herd the lobsters on into the home while she went in the back entrance to steer them toward the sauna. "I had to nab someone in there just last week," she explained. "Disorderly conduct unbecoming a septuagenarian. Guy was sitting around wearing ... never mind what he was wearing. Anyway, I remembered how hot it was, darned near melted my badge and did melt the chocolate bar in my hip pocket. So I figured if I could turn the lobsters that way, all I'd need was a little drawn butter to make my day." Carmella said she picked up some snails from a flowerbed as she ran around the home, then tossed them down the corridor toward the sauna when she saw the lobsters coming. "I also fired my gun in the air and shouted real loud, not that they could hear anything above the old people," she added. "I don't know which tactic turned the tide, but those little red devils made for the sauna and once they were inside I slammed the door shut and turned up the heat. Then I went to the Tipple Time for some butter and beer. When I returned, the lobsters were done to a turn, the emergency was over, and the gluttony began. Those codgers sure eat a lot." In a related development, Carmella reported that Prawline "Fats" Webber, who was reported missing after the great lobster stampede, has turned up. "I guess he must have been in the sauna when I turned up the heat," Carmella explained. "We just overlooked him. Uh, I think they'll be calling him Skinny from now on, though." In another related development, young Garth has gone to work for his father at the Brookdale Worm Academy. "Worms don't stampede," he explained. "And Mary Ellen says she will neck out back of Dad's place, as long as I don't bring any worms out with me." |
| ©2000, Robert A. Markwalter. All rights reserved. |