Gerald's Pillow

"Ma'am, I will have to kindly ask you to please put some shoes on your feet."  Mrs. Stella Jean Hunsucker (that would be Peasy Lou Hunsucker's grandmother; you know Peasy Lou, of course),  was clearly annoyed at the young woman in the jewelled headdress who had just that very moment walked into her dry-goods store.

The young woman was definitely not from Putnam County - in fact, her type had never been seen before nor has it been seen since in these parts.  I suppose there was the time that we had tour through our placid acres that vile and most wretched Mr. Havercroft, the ironmonger, but he was not the least bit captivating - only maddening.  No, the young barefoot lady was in a league of her own, as it were.

Mrs. Hunsucker might not have forgiven nor forgotten the rather unexpectedly discalced maiden in her dry-goods store, but the entire county will perhaps never forget the wonderfully-choreographed performance that she gave for a special public meeting of the ladies of the Eastern Star, wherein the maiden presented an interpretation of Egyptian mythology through the medium of dance and Miss Vidalia Sue Hornbeam (later Mrs. Vidalia Sue Grabbethorn - you know, Elsa Mae Grabbethorn's mother) served the finest sweet tea and cornbread that had ever been offered at the Eastern Star.  My, it was the evening, to be sure.

All the county look fondly on the sweetness of that memory - all the county and their pleasant, dying memory of so many years ago...save for the bitter acid in the mouth of Vidalia Sue.  For while the barefoot maiden danced and stole the hearts of so many who watched with wonderment at the meeting of the Eastern Star, she also stole the heart of Gerald Pickering, to whom Vidalia Sue was betrothed.  She danced into Putnam County, danced into his heart, and danced him away...back up north somewhere, some said to New Jersey.  She was rebounding at the time from a failed marriage and had never been a bird to be tamed, anyway - leastways  by that starry-eyed son of a pea-picker, Gerald Pickering.  He was never to return to Putnam County and within the season his broken life and his broken heart were washed up...washed up like broken bottles on the Jersey shore and Vidalia Sue (though crushed) went on with her life.

You would wonder if either Elsa Mae or Peasy Lou will be at the special presentation at the Eastern Star on the 21st of next month, wouldn't you?  We will have to wait and see.

(Reference Link)

Jackpot

"Never once did I care to know what that pea-picker's brother was thinking.  I told you before all about that pea-picker and the things that he did, so I rightly do not have to digress and share any further thoughts about him, now, do I?  Of course not, honey child.  You just sit right there and sip that sweet tea that Mister Packy brought you.  He did not bring you any sweet tea?  Dreadful!

Mr. Packy! Please bring our guest a sweet tea...and be swift about it!

I do apologize, honey child.

Now then.  Where was I ?  Oh yes, I was sharing thoughts about the pea-picker's brother.  Well, I do guarantee that the day that the pea-picker was released from the county pen, his brother was bound and determined to fill his brother's cell, as it were.  The only thing he wanted to do...the only thing he had any stomach for...damn, the only thing he had any heart for was seeing to committing a crime so as to keep up the family business and the name, you might say.  So he went out and bought a length of chain and a shotgun that very day.

Sweet heavens, but that pea-picker's brother had breath that smelled like fecal matter.  It smelled so very much like a septic tank that no one ever felt fit to argue with him - they would take one whiff and let him have his way.  So it was that he managed to borrow Old Man Donovan's pickup truck and cover with the story that he was going morel hunting in the dark and needed some way to carry a few friends.  Dumber-than-dirt Donovan let him have it - partly because he believed the story and partly because he didn't want to stand face to face with that bowel stench.

The boy waited until nightfall and closing time for that gas station down at the crossroads.  He pulled Old Man Donovan's truck right up to the place, put one well-placed shotgun blast through the glass doors, reached through and turned the lock.  In he strolled, exhaling a great breath reeking of rectum.

The pea-picker's brother looped that length of chain right around the ATM that was inside, secured it, and then secured the other end to the hitch on Donovan's truck.  He hopped back in and gunned that mother.  That old ATM busted free of where it was, busted through the doors and came skittering right out next to a pump.  That pea-picker's brother was just a-dreaming of all the meth he could buy with all the money in that ATM, and he knew with that much meth that he would find himself a little lady outside the Wal-Mart.  You know what I mean.  He wasn't gonna' be lonely, if you know what I mean and I certainly believe you do.  Ladies love a man with that much meth, even if he has breath that reeks of a diseased colon.

Well, honey child, having freed the ATM from its moorings, the damned fool didn't know what to do, and when the Sheriff arrived he was still trying to wrestle the whole thing into the back of Donovan's pick-up truck.  Sheriff Morgan laughed so hard that he pissed himself and forgot to handcuff the poor bastard.

It was either the laughing or the pea-picker's brother's breath that made him forget. I am inclined to believe that it was his breath, honey child.  I guess every cloud really does have a silver lining.

The Andrews Writing Desk!

Thank you to Miss Hazel Foster, who recently featured Mr. Andrews' writing space in her search for the Ultimate Writing Desk.  Just click right here and find yourself magically transported to the article!

Please go and check out her entire website to see other great writing desks and read her fiction - it really is first-rate.

Mr. Andrews has been travelling the past few days and most likely will be back in full swing tomorrow.  Thank you for your patience and your continued support.

Mr. Linus G. Janikowski,

General Manager, "A Martini and a Pen"

Personal Secretary to Mr. Andrews

Barrels Found in Field

by Respite Welk of the Pultenham County Recorder

Four empty barrels that had previously contained a potentially explosive substance were found Friday morning in a field owned by Mr. Cletus Ford of Owen Township, according to Pultenham County Sheriff Cecil Morgan. The barrels appear to have been empty when abandoned, giving rise to questions concerning the whereabouts of the chemical.

Mr. Ford noticed the empty barrels while working behind his chicken coop and, after inspecting the barrels himself, decided to call the authorities. “I thought maybe they'd have something in them,” said Mr. Ford. “I was hoping for some liquor or maybe pesticide, but I don't got that kind of luck.”

Sheriff Morgan has said that he will conduct a thorough investigation throughout the county in hope of finding the source of the barrels as well as the person or persons responsible for discarding the barrels on private property. “This kind of gall-darned shenanigan is a class three misdemeanor, and I'm gonna nail the c**k-sucker who done it,” said Sheriff Morgan in a prepared statement this afternoon

Anyone with information regarding the barrels should contact Pultenham County Sheriff Cecil Morgan immediately.

It's Just a Toe. It Ain't Proof.

"When I said that Daddy was a flagpole sitter, I s'pose most of you didn't really believe me.  They ain't so many flagpole sitters nowadays - not the way they used to be.  'Course, I s'pose they ain't as many flagpoles as they used to be, neither.  After the war people stopped puttin' up flagpoles the way they used to.

But Daddy, he would get out there and sit 'top them flagpoles like the best of 'em.  He was once helpin' out and doin' a flagpole sit for that new department store over in Cotton City - a long, long time ago, as that store  ain't there no more - and a man from some government agency asked Daddy to come and talk to him when he got down from that flagpole.  Daddy warn't too much inna'rested in talking to no man from the government, but he said he would, and that was that.  The man got on his way in a big, black government car and Daddy got back to his sittin'.

Well, Daddy stayed up on that flagpole for a few days, anyhow - I think it was through maybe a three day weekend that the store had a grand opening or a big old sale or something.  Sure, now I remember, it was a big sale.  They had outerwear and toiletry items on sale 'cause of the tornado season coming, and Daddy was sittin' on a special made-up pole that they could make sway when they wanted to.  They would pipe a sound effect over a phonograph and sway the pole and Daddy would let out a fake holler.  People would gasp and one lady even fainted.  When that happened, Daddy laughed so hard that he dropped the basket of fried chicken that Momma' had sent up to him (Momma, you recall, raised chickens for the State, and chicken was king at the dinner table in our house.  Maybe it is in yours, too.).  That danged old fried chicken just came showerin' down on the people comin' outta' the department store.  Colonel Murphee got hit on the shoulder with a breast and it left a big ol' greasy spot on his fine white suit.  He was mad, but he got over it.

On the day that Daddy came down, that man from the government was back, and I stood far away while he and Daddy talked.  I saw him show some pictures to Daddy, Daddy shouted something at the man, jabbed his finger into the man's breastbone, spit on the ground and shoved past him.  That man just got back in his big, black government car and drove off.  Daddy walked back to where I was waiting and gave me a hint of a smile.

"Lets go, son," he said, "we got the whole world waitin' for us."

On the Rocks

 My wife and my brother and I enjoyed a nice round of cocktails at Manny's the other day.  Michelle looked out the window and noticed some large, painted letters on the side of a building.  "What's 'Bagro'?" she asked.

"A wine distributor on 39th," I told her.

Pat drained the rest of his scotch.  "It's underneath the Missouri."

"Underneath the Missouri?"  we asked in unison.

"Uh huh," he said, "pretty much all of 39th is under that Battleship...the USS Missouri.  You remember, Dad used to talk about it. They have it hanging up there.  Kinda' like a museum."

"I thought the Missouri was in Hawaii or somewhere," asked Michelle, "what's it doing here?"

"Well, like I said, it's some kind of museum.  They have the whole thing hoisted in the air with mammoth cranes and hanging over the city.  I'm surprised you missed it on your way over.  You wanna' go see it?"

This was too good to be true, so Michelle and I naturally took Pat up on his offer.  We paid for our drinks, headed outside and made our way to the escalator that ascended heavenward on 39th.  Tickets were a little unreasonable, but my brother is an architect in the city and knows the right folks. He pulled a couple of strings and we were headed up to the Missouri - with free drink coupons in our fists, no less.

On deck, almost 890 feet in the air (3 feet higher than the Mighty Mo is long), we were treated to a wonderful sight. Her beautiful 16-inch guns were decorated with red and white stripes, giving them the appearance of candy canes.

"All I want to do is wrap my arms around those guns," I cried, overcome by the moment.  Tears filled my eyes.

"Well, I think your wish might come true," said Pat, motioning toward the nearest gun turret and a sign that read "Line up here to wrap your arms around a gun barrel."

We were headed over in a rush of adrenalin when the music began.  Accordion-playing USO veterans came out of the gun turret's hatch and cordoned off the area with a swaying chorus line.  Elderly women in over-sized Uncle Sam costumes began a slow, shuffling dance and sang in one raspy voice,

"All I ever wanted to do
was watch old women dance
and wrap their arms around
the mighty, mighty guns
of the Mighty, Mighty Mo."

We could not break through their tight, accordionated defensive line in a frontal assault, nor could we find a way of flanking this group of octegenarians.  Michelle suggested distracting them with the bourbon in my hip flask, but I knew I would need it later and decided against such an option.  Dejected, we turned away and headed back down the escalator.  We did not even have the desire to redeem our free drink coupons.  It was proving to be a long, silent trip back down to the street, until Pat's face lit up and he turned to us.

"Hey, I've got an idea - they have the USS Iowa hanging up over some park just east of here...whaddya' say? Drinks are on me!"

A Very Unique Overcoat

“Well that sure is a strange overcoat, Peasy Lou.” Elsa Mae studied her friend inquisitively, giving her the requisite up-and-down glance. “Now I wonder where you might have picked up such a thing? Was it from Belcher's over in Cotton City? They have the most unusual things, you know.”

It was a hot day, and it did not seem right for Peasy Lou to be wearing such an outer garment. A shawl would have sufficed, or at most a light cardigan. Certainly nothing of this sort.

“Now I wonder, Peasy Lou, darling, is that real or synthetic? I knew a woman over in Cotton City who used to have something not unlike that particular overcoat, and she would wear it to civic functions – to ice cream socials and to Eastern Star dinners. Everybody used to stop and stare, but one year we found out that it was synthetic, and the gilding was off the proverbial lily, you might say. Is that how you say that phrase, anyway, Peasy Lou?”

Peasy Lou just stood very still and tried to attune herself to the trickle of sweat running out of her underarm. It tickled ever so gently as it flowed from her armpit and down the side of her abdomen. The tiny, salty rivulet was absorbed by her clothing, so that it never reached her fine, fine overcoat.

“For heaven's sake, Peasy Lou, I do declare! I would purely love to try on that delicious overcoat if you would not mind...I have just never seen such a thing in such lovely condition. As I said, that woman from Cotton City wore one, but I do believe hers was synthetic, and it was getting rather threadbare by the time I knew her. Do you know that woman, Peasy Lou?”

Peasy Lou shook her head.

“Of course, I suppose this particular overcoat of yours probably would not fit me...seeing as I have a, well, how shall we say...oh, Peasy Lou, I think you know what I mean...you know, a more well-developed, well...a better, umm, I am more amply endowed with...a...well, I think you know what I mean.”

“You've got broader shoulders, you behemoth of a mannish amazon war-beast,” replied Peasy Lou, “here,” she said, stripping the human-hair and domestic cat-skin overcoat from her shoulders and handing it to Elsa Mae, “try on the damned coat.”

A Century of Dreams

Sanguine Sanny woke up in a rather marinated state and looked at the mushrooms growing outside his window.  They were red.  More accurately, they were reddish-brown, and Sanguine Sanny was sure that these mushrooms indicated where the little people dance.

The little people. The wee folk.  You know what I mean.  Of course you do.

Sanguine Sanny rolled out of the urine-soaked sheets of his bed and wrapped a tapestry around his naked frame.  He toddled to the window and surveyed the wonderful field and the vast, vast number of reddish-brown mushrooms.  Donning his fez, he walked out into the bright daylight and began meticulously picking mushrooms with a bobby pin.  One by one the mushrooms made their way from the grassy meadow where the little people dance into Sanguine Sanny's salivating mouth.  It was Pavlov all over again, except with no dogs, no bells and no meat powders - only the saliva.

It took only a few minutes for the pain to begin in Sanny's abdomen.  In another minute or two it was excruciating, but Sanny continued his fungal feast.  The bobby pin darted faster and more deftly as he went, and the reddish-brown mushrooms flew down the poor fool's gullet at breakneck speed.  It was only a small voice that made him pause.

"You damned fool," said a wee man in wee bell bottoms, "those'll get you sicker'n a dog."

"Tap, tap," went the bobby pin, and the wee man in bell bottoms fell to the ground unconscious.

Sanguine Sanny vomited a great column of chunky, reddish-brown gastric juice. "No leprechaun with bad fashion sense is gonna' tell me what to eat," he said, wiping his lips.

The Old "Two Finger Shuffle"

Dr. Schiffinger, the albino proctologist with an increasingly-vigorous hand tremor, had hid his tourettes' syndrome for years, but now as he entered the twilight of his career, it was becoming more and more difficult to conceal the symptoms and pass them off as mere eccentricity. There was that time he had been in the middle of administering a digital exam to the congressman's wife. Just as he intended to ask the nurse for more lubricant, he instead cried out “Oaschloch! Oaschloch!” and began pumping his fist quite violently in a most untoward manner. The nurse blanched, shook her head and asked the poor Dr. Schiffinger for clarification. The good doctor shook his own head, came to his senses and mumbled something about horticulture and reached for the lubricant himself. The congressman's wife was never quite the same.

Proctology is nothing to sneeze at – let us be honest about that, shall we? It is the most serious of medical disciplines and the highly-esteemed Dr. Schiffinger knew it. Otto Wilhelm Schiffinger III, M.D., had studied proctology at Vienna's famed Heinprodder Proctological Institute and had immigrated to Putnam County during the war. There being no call for proctologists at the time, the good doctor made his way in the world by serving as a bismarck-filler at the local doughnut emporium. In time, Dr. Schiffinger returned to his craft, and Putnam County was given the services of the finest Viennese proctologist ever to lift a finger, as it were.

The whole of Dr. Schiffinger's world came crashing to the ground one fine spring day, however. It was the day Colonel Murphee, the planter, came in for his semi-annual high colonic. Colonel Murphee, resplendent in his white suit and black string tie, faced each high colonic with great poise and dignity. Each spring and each autumn the Colonel would return to the Heinprodder graduate and keep a stiff upper lip while Dr. Schiffinger plied his craft, but this one fateful day was different than those in seasons past.

Colonel Murphee had been prepped by Dr. Schiffinger's nurse, Miss Penelope, and was waiting patiently in “the position” when Dr. Schiffinger entered the procedure room after having spent a good number of minutes chopping pieces of ice for use in his after-hours cocktail. A full quart of ice chips he had prepared in his office, and the prospect of a frosty libation weighed heavily on his mind - even more heavily than the prospect of the day's last high colonic. Contrary to his usual practice, he still carried his pearl-handled ice pick – a gift from the Countess de Mont-Palatine for “services rendered.” This treasured possession he still twirled absentmindedly as he prepared for the procedure.

The remaining events of that afternoon are the stuff of legend. With the beginning of the flow of water and the sound of a cool, cool trickle, the good doctor felt strangely led out of his body. The Colonel inquired as to the prospects for a dry planting season, and something was triggered deep in the albino proctologist's mind.

“Oaschloch! Oaschloch!”

Hog Quest, in Utero

“I used to belong to that one church...you know the one. It's the church where everybody has a different type of wildlife they specialize in. I specialized in fish.” This was Billy Durbin, the nine-toothed, wild-eyed butt smoker, and he was telling David all about his “church.”

“So while I specialized in fish, there was this woman who did crustaceans, and there was a guy who was a serpent specialist – not like in handling them, though...just in knowing about them. We all just had our specialty. You know that kind of church?”

“Ummm...no,” replied David, “I really have never heard of such a thing. Where was this?”

“Oh, back east,” said Billy Durbin, his nine teeth clacking wildly against one another. “In Massachusetts. Or Maine. Or something like that. They had a law, of course, the state did...there had to be an equal distribution of different types of wildlife. That is, you had to have a crustacean church here, and then a fish church there, and then a serpent church and maybe even a moose church or something like that. You know how that goes?”

“Sure...it sounds kind of like Massachusetts, I guess.” David glanced at his watch, noting that he was getting a little hungry and that Billy Durbin had been holding forth for at least ten minutes regarding the wildlife churches of Massachusetts.

“Yeah...when I had this building...” Billy motioned to the empty store in front of them, “I had it full of aquariums. I was really into studying fish, you know. When I started growing gills I knew that I was getting serious about it, and so did everyone else at church. Then I had an accident.”

“Gills? Accident?”

“Hell yeah. I had the finest gills in Massachusetts or Maine I think. When I sang you could see them flap wide open all pink and fleshy. Boy Scouts used to take field trips just to come and look at my gills. I would sit real quiet like I was dead and then when those Boy Scouts got in real close I would open my eyes, scream and flap my gills at 'em. The Boy Scouts would scream and then I'd take an old seven-iron that I had cut off, and brain one of 'em with it!”

“Brain a Boy Scout?”

“Sure as hell. The scout master didn't like it, but I figured it would give 'em something to talk about back at the scout camp.” Billy Durbin was enjoying this storytelling, and there was frothy saliva clinging to his nine teeth.

“Brain a Boy Scout?” David asked again. “You can't go around braining Boy Scouts...you just can't do that...that's against the law.”

“It's OK,” said Billy Durbin, the nine-toothed, wild-eyed butt smoker, “I did it as outreach for the church. Those scouts were for atonement. And I was the high priest of the seven-iron...”

David just stared at Billy, open-mouthed and unbelieving.

Billy Durbin smiled a rather vacant smile, “but then I got religion.”

Please, Father, May I Have Some More Ipecac?

The tiny librarian was serving up heaping bowls of farina from the window that normally saw the returns of non-print items, and if anyone had stopped to think about it, it might not have seemed all that odd.  The farina was hot, bland and roughly the same shade as paper.

"You chilluns want mo' bettuh farinas?  Ize got summa dis' heah turpentines to lay onnit,"  offered the tiny librarian, affecting some sort of unnatural dialect, and holding a tablespoon brimming with turpentine over a child's bowl of farina.  The child shook his head and withdrew with his hot cereal.  Another little waif approached the return window in his place and held out a copy of "True Stories" on DVD.

"Hey! Datsa' nice-a film!  Howsa you like it, my goomba? Hey-hey, mama mia dat David-a Byrne he's a scuppicio crazy man!"  Some sort of Italian accent came out this time, along with a shaker full of sparkly material.  "Howsa you like I put some titanium bits on dat farina? Huh?  Ciao, bella!"

The little waif retreated with the cereal before the titanium graced its surface.

Just then an immigrant Swedish dirt farmer clad in filthy overalls approached the window.  His face was reminiscent of one whose head had caught on fire as a child and whose father attempted to put it out with a rake. He spoke with great determination, "Herro...Meestah Po hea.  You rike anchovy?"

The tiny librarian wept bitter tears and turned the cardstock sign over his head to read "Closed".  Out the door of the library he ran, flinging spoonfuls of farina into the air and blowing kisses to the gingko trees.  As he disappeared past the city limits, a man outside the shoe repair shop on the edge of town distinctly heard him singing the lyrics of "I'll Sponsor Your Procto, Sweet Ida Mae" to the music of "Smoke on the Water."

In the library a little waif reached up to the non-print return window, seeking more of that delectable farina.

A Portent to Many

“I was just thinking of the difference between gin and bourbon, and it didn't have anything to do with taste,” Jack said to me as we made our way down the sidewalk. “I was thinking more about headaches and the lack of headaches and the way that gin makes you smell sweaty but bourbon just makes you smell dirty. You know what I mean, Andrews, old boy?”

I confessed that I had never really gone out of my way to smell others and classify them according to their cocktail preferences, but that I had once tried to smell myself after a three-martini night. “I think I was sweaty smelling for other reasons,” I told him. I left out the details about the club and the Rick Astley-fueled aerobics on the dance floor. Some things are better left to the imagination, I figured.

“Well, bourbon always leaves me smelling dirty. Like I've been sitting on an old oil drum in rural Kentucky after having pulled the engine out of my neighbor's quarter-ton pickup. I can almost hear the coonhounds panting nearby. You know what I mean, Tom?”

“Sure Jack. Let's get some breakfast,” I suggested to my inquisitive friend who was actually looking quite wild-eyed as he described the pickup truck and coonhounds. “You feeling OK?”

“And gin just leaves me sweaty-smelling, like I've been worrying – it's that nervous sweat...not that exercise sweat. Like the sweat that you don't really think you need to shower off but you probably should. And then instead of showering you just shave and rub some more Brylcreem through your hair, thinking that it's gonna' cover the sweaty smell, but it never really does. Have you had that happen?”

“Sure, lots of times, Jack,” I told him, “I use bay rum and Brylcreem to cover sweatiness lots of times...it has nothing to do with gin, though.”

“I'm not saying it has to do with gin...it's just that too much gin makes me think of that smell,” Jack replied – he was probably making less sense than I was, but I figured that I had an excuse, as I was mad with hunger and thinking only of a plate of bacon and eggs.

“Come on, let's pop in here,” I said, motioning to a small diner tucked into one side of the street. “They have good coffee, I hear.”

We ducked inside and were met by a wall of heat and stink. “There was a chippy in Portsmouth...right under the roadway...made out of corrugated tin...it smelled just like this,” I reminisced aloud. The stink of old grease took the thoughts of coonhounds and oil drums and sweat and gin right out of my head. We sat down at the counter and I ordered up my eggs.

A filthy old sot of a drunk sitting nearby leaned over and exhaled as he looked into my eyes. “You pass the creamer?” he asked. His last drink was still thick on his breath, and his eyes were bloodshot. I passed him the creamer, along with a question of my own.

“You like Rick Astley?”

The Queens of Putnam County: Second Blood, Part One

Of all the strange maladies from which the Crackhouse sisters suffered, none was more debilitating than the chronic sequential nomism that had plagued Lulubelle since her early days as an apprentice phenologist. The disorder began shortly after she accepted employment at the Putnam County Phrenology Clinic, but the ravages did not become apparent until much later in life. Unable to speak of things out of sequential order, her life took unfortunate turns.

There was that time she was asked to view a screening of the fine Sylvester Stallone film “Rambo: First Blood, Part Two,” and she did writhe and shriek throughout. “Second Blood!” she cried without ceasing, “Second Blood! It must be Second Blood!!” Mr. Stallone was later declared the Thespian Laureate of Putnam County, but poor Lulubelle could not bring herself to attend the much-celebrated weekly screenings of the film at the Civic Arts Center.

The sisters' father, Prentiss Michael Crackhouse (known to his daughters as “Daddy”), did one day ask dear Lulubelle to stop at the drugstore on her way home from the phrenology clinic and obtain for him a new bottle of Old Spice. As Lulubelle understood it, this must be considered “New Spice”, and it took nearly three hours at the drugstore before she came home with the desired product. Lulubelle was drenched with sweat, her alpaca shawl in tatters and the reek of Old Spice all about her. Prentiss Michael never again asked his dear, sweet daughter to undertake such an errand.

The tragic crowning of Lulubelle's struggle with the disorder came during the summer the gypsies arrived in Putnam County. While the townsfolk and countryfolk alike did give such a wide berth to the gypsy camp, dear sweet Lulubelle made a point of visiting their trailers nightly and offering free phrenological consultations as a form of charitable outreach. One evening while reading the bumps on the gypsy king's melon-like cranium, the gypsy band struck up a rendition of “Istanbul (not Constantinople)” by Jimmy Kennedy. When the gypsy crooner came to the part about “Old New York” once being “New Amsterdam,” poor Lulubelle grabbed an accordion and used it as a trampoline.

“Old York!! Old York!!” Lulubelle jumped up and down, coaxing an eerie wheeze out of the mangled instrument.

In the morning, the gypsies left Putnam County, and Lulubelle was placed on bed rest. Old Doc McFadden said it was the strangest looking case of the mumps he had ever seen.

Frustration...

...stemming from a blown modem at my home office compelled my wife and I to sit around last night, listen to the Talking Heads and sip martinis.  Actually, it was just me doing the sipping - my dear Michelle stayed stone cold sober. This morning she has driven me down the block a short distance so that I can pirate the nearby church's Wi-Fi signal with my netbook.  What a country!  Whatever the case, I pray that all will be back to normal soon and that I will be up and running with new hardware sometime on Monday.  Keep your fingers crossed, please.

Please Have a Look at Weirdyear...

Very strange stuff at Weirdyear today, in this piece by Mr. Andrews, which first saw the light of day on this site for a brief time.


Toodles,
Mr. Linus G. Janikowski
Business Manager