You gotta know news is slow when the most compelling headline of the week reads “Sewer Project Gets Green Light.” Until the seasonals return--God forbid--news is tough sledding. Whatever, here goes a go at sumpin’ from nuttin’………
Speaking of Seasonals--A horrifying thought just came over me. As the leaves fall up north, the senile snowbirds will begin their annual migration south to Florida. Just imagine: Thousands of people who are legally blind and clinically dead taking off down the highways of the eastern seaboard bound by one common goal—to reach Florida in time to save $2 at the “early bird” special then make the Senior Discount Night at the local bingo parlor, all on the same day. I wonder how many animate and inanimate objects will be annihilated in this great human migration south. Whatever, just as the first robin is a harbinger of spring up north, so too is the first new hole in a strip mall wall a harbinger of winter down here and the arrival of the first snowbird.
_____________________________________________________
. . . and a side order of roaches, please--Our local stuff-a-gut restaurant, appropriately called “Stuff-A-Belly Diner,” was closed this week for health reasons. Altho none of the infractions were as horrid as that Chinese restaurant in Kentucky caught serving maggot-infested road kill the other day, it was still pretty disgusting. Hundreds of dead roaches, hundreds of live roaches, rancid grease, workers failing to wash their hands after trips to the can, filthy restrooms, filthy kitchens, filthy employees. . . .
The “chef” at this grease mill, one Todd Gassman (not making that up), promises the hungry public that the roaches will be swept away and that the employees will be introduced to the novel idea of washing their paws after trips to the toilet.
Despite bad press past (the place has been closed before), bad press present and, no doubt, bad press future, some folks just don’t give a rat’s about roaches, food poisoning, epidemics and other such minor matters. Just so long as they get their guts stuffed as cheaply as possible, they will come back again and again. Hmmm? Is that the Third World I see up ahead?
_____________________________________________________
Poetic—Up the bay a bit, local drug addict Donald Robert Costa, 39, was spotted burglarizing a home over on misnamed Worthwhile Road. Don Bob had piled all his loot—TVs, chairs, suitcases--in the front yard but before he could make his getaway he was caught in the act and chased from pillar to post. Eventually the thief, “behaving bizarrely,” was run down, arrested and jugged in the same jug as his intended victim, who was also sitting in stir for, what else? . . . yep, burglary. Who could make this crap up?
_____________________________________________________
How dull?—As mentioned above, news is slow hereabouts. How slow? Well, some booster up at Port Charlotte was caught in a clothing store doing what boosters do best, viz., boosting. In addition to the bed sheets, blue jeans, shoes, socks, and seemingly half the store’s inventory found on her, cops also found—no surprise—meth in her pocket. The fact that such a crime is even reported in the paper is a statement about the lack of news locally. Judging by the length of the article, one might gather that the thief was caught smuggling uranium to Iran rather than busted for boosting and holding some cheap street cheese. As the reporter must surely be aware, half the folks in stores down here, shoppers and shoplifters alike, have dope stashed in some form or another, in their pockets, in their shoes, in their bras, or just in them, period.
_____________________________________________________
Up near Tampa, at Zephyrhills (where Florida gets its best spring water), a deputy sheriff was returning to his car after trying to serve a warrant. At that point, the lovely resident inside the home decided to turn his pit bull loose on the cop. As the ugly meat-grinder ripped his arm to shreds the lawman struggled to reach his service revolver. Finally, the officer was successful and he proceeded forthwith to let some serious sunlight into the cur. The cop is now in the hospital recovering—that is the good news. And the bad? That the dead killing machine’s sweet owner was not also shot dead at the scene—that’s the bad. Whatever, one more PB down . . . only 363 million to go.
_____________________________________________________
Caricature of the Day
