Many years ago, before the kids were born, I had a notion that I was going to write a comic novel about a small southern town, and the novel would be written in the form of letters. I didn't get very far: only three letters and only one of those completed. This is the letter that I did finish, and I only have one printed copy of it. I'm rather fond of this piece, so I thought it might be a good idea to try and preserve it online in case another Rapture comes and somebody loots my house and steals all my old humor writing.
Willard M. Eckert
Cell 14
County Jail
Putnam, MS 44302
Albert P. Snodgrass, Esq.
Not Sure Exactly
Putnam, MS 44302
Dear Sir,
You will be receiving this missive via Sherrif Harlan Agglethorpe who says he will see you this evening at the Red Star for your weekly Poker Night. He also says that his phone is broken and can only take incoming signals, so I will have to pen my complaints instead of being allowed my God-given right to one phone call. I pointed out that there is a pay phone directly across the street at the Dunkin' Donuts, but he claims I cannot be let out of my cell as I might terrorize the citizenry.
Seeing as how you so ably represented my after that crazy truck driver careened down Highway 94 in reverse and plowed into the front of my Chevrolet Caprice and forced me to guzzle copious amounts of Mad Dog 20/20 to cover up his crime, I feel I must put you on retainer again as I have been unjustly accused of sexual harassment. If anybody here has been harassed, it's me and I demand justice. The woman in question claims that I have been stalking her when in reality she's the one that's been stalking me. Every day, when I drive the scenic route to work on US 47 north to the new bypass in Farmdale over to Route 73 and back south, I always stop at the WaWa on Lincoln Ave, and every day, without fail, that woman is there, standing behind the counter, acting like she works there. The sheriff has pointed out that there is another convenience store just two blocks from my house and practically next door to my place of employment, but I responded that it is clearly stated in the Constitution that a man has every right to purchase his morning Yoo Hoo at the WaWa of his choice and that none may deprive him of this right without due process.
Anyway, not only has this woman connived to place herself in my vicinity every day, she has also forced me to stare at her young, nubile body in a lascivious manner by dressing provocatively in big, baggy sweaters and heavy down overcoats. The sheriff—who, by the way, I have noticed is not terribly bright—seemed to think that less clothing is more alluring than a lot, but I countered with the argument that a Christmas present is more likely to be shaken if it's well wrapped. That seemed to shut him up for a time. Anyway, if she didn't want me to leer at her breasts she should have just popped them out and set them on the counter next to the beef jerky. What's obvious doesn't require attention, am I right? But that huge overcoat forced me to undress her with my eyes, and, frankly, I felt violated.
So, I went to her house that evening, despite the fact that she lives nearly forty miles away, intending to speak with her about the situation so as not to get the authorities involved. I figure young people deserve every chance to turn over a new leaf, since I know how the label of "pervert" can ruin an otherwise saintly reputation. She must have known I was coming since it was nearly midnight and all the lights in the house were off, forcing me to look in the windows to find her. And when I did find her, where do you think she was? In bed! Pretending to be asleep! The sheriff, who is really getting on my nerves, claims that her being in bed and asleep signifies that she was not expecting any company, but he is obviously unversed in the subterfuges of the sexually obsessed. I pointed out to him that the figure of a reclining nude is a classic erotic symbol and he tried to argue that she was fully dressed in a t-shirt and sweatpants, so I had to drag his feeble mind back to the Christmas gift metaphor.
At any rate, her evil powers of seduction began to work on me as I stood on the air conditioning unit outside her bedroom window, and though she claims I made a "moaning noise" and woke her up, I was fully aware that she was faking somnolence and so made no attempt to be quiet.
This brings me to the last charge made against me, which I most emphatically deny: I did not expose myself any any way that she could have seen clearly. The only indecent exposure I am aware of is right here in this jail cell where the toilet is right out in the open and my cell mate appears to be suffering from a bladder infection.
I firmly believe this whole matter can be cleared up in a brief chat with Judge Entwhistle, who, the sheriff informs me, will also be in attendance st your poker game. The judge is a wise man and well aware of the forces which so often conspire against me to ruin my good name.
Anxiously awaiting jurisprudence,
Willard
Monday, May 23, 2011
Monday, May 2, 2011
Area Woman Claims Son-in-Law Not Ohioan, Possibly Born in a Barn
Retired real estate agent and occasional gardener Alice Lindstrom said Wednesday that she hopes questions about her son-in-law’s birth certificate will be cleared up “quickly and voluntarily.” Speaking to reporters from her sunporch, which, she emphasized, her son-in-law had not yet painted as he promised before marrying her daughter, Lindstrom said that lingering doubts about Alex McCann’s birthplace and citizenship have placed a great deal of strain on her family. “It is very difficult to watch someone volunteer to rinse the Sunday dinner dishes and load them in the dishwasher before he goes home to do God knows what to my daughter—all the while not knowing if he was truly born in Akron, Ohio as he claims.”
Lindstrom said that she did not, as some have suggested, make up the issue in order to alienate her son-in-law from her daughter’s affections. “I wish I didn’t have to do this,” she said. “I didn’t want all of this to happen, but it fell in my lap and I couldn’t just ignore it, could I?” Lindstrom said that her doubts about McCann’s origins began when her neighbor Essie Powell commented shortly after McCann’s engagement to Lindstrom’s daughter that McCann seemed like “such a nice boy, like Jerry Seinfeld or Jeremy Piven.” Lindstrom said she pointed out that McCann is an Irish name—or maybe Scots, she couldn’t be sure—but that the exchange left her wondering why someone of supposedly Celtic origins had dark hair and good teeth. “I mean, aren’t they all supposed to be redheads? And drinkers?”
Lindstrom told reporters that repeated verbal and written requests for McCann to produce an original birth certificate have been met with eye rolls, sighs, and patronizing hand pats.
When confronted with the fact that a birth certificate must have been produced and verified in order for McCann and his wife to have obtained a marriage license, Lindstrom replied, “It could have been a birth certificate from Guam! Those people don’t care. They’re public servants. And no one in the City Clerk’s office can remember even seeing a birth certificate for Alexander McCann. At least not when I called last Tuesday.”
A recent poll of Lindstrom’s book club and quilt guild show nearly 57% of respondents either do not believe or have serious doubts that McCann is not a member of some sort of unsavory ethnic group. Critics of this poll claim that the results are skewed due to the large number of respondents who erroneously consider “Democrat” and “Unitarian” to be ethnic groups.
“The question that I and several members of the Junior League are asking is: why would this man be so reluctant to hand over his birth certificate unless he had something to hide?” Lindstrom said. “I have people on the ground in Akron, and what they are reporting is very disturbing. Apparently, someone has bribed or intimidated the personnel at all four major Akron hospitals so we cannot access any patient records that could prove or disprove that an Alexander McCann was born on October 17th, 1984. They keep spouting off some nonsense about privacy laws. Everybody knows there’s no such thing. This is America!”
Linsdtrom’s daughter, Marietta McCann, told WKSL News the entire controversy erupted after Lindstrom walked in on the McCanns during an intimate moment. “I grew up with my mother telling me I should never bother to have sex because I’d never enjoy it anyway. And let me tell you, what Alex was doing? I was enjoying. A lot. But I had to stop enjoying it to scrape my mother off the floor and put cold compresses on her head. Ever since then she’s been trying to convince me that nice boys from Ohio don’t do things like that with their mouths and so he must really be Guatemalan or something.”
Alexander McCann could not be reached for comment, but did release a statement in which he pledged to paint the sunporch before Mother’s Day and noted that Friday evening after 7 p.m. would be an inconvenient time for Lindstrom to “pop over” as he and Mrs. McCann have several “unsavory ethnic activities planned.”
Lindstrom said that she did not, as some have suggested, make up the issue in order to alienate her son-in-law from her daughter’s affections. “I wish I didn’t have to do this,” she said. “I didn’t want all of this to happen, but it fell in my lap and I couldn’t just ignore it, could I?” Lindstrom said that her doubts about McCann’s origins began when her neighbor Essie Powell commented shortly after McCann’s engagement to Lindstrom’s daughter that McCann seemed like “such a nice boy, like Jerry Seinfeld or Jeremy Piven.” Lindstrom said she pointed out that McCann is an Irish name—or maybe Scots, she couldn’t be sure—but that the exchange left her wondering why someone of supposedly Celtic origins had dark hair and good teeth. “I mean, aren’t they all supposed to be redheads? And drinkers?”
Lindstrom told reporters that repeated verbal and written requests for McCann to produce an original birth certificate have been met with eye rolls, sighs, and patronizing hand pats.
When confronted with the fact that a birth certificate must have been produced and verified in order for McCann and his wife to have obtained a marriage license, Lindstrom replied, “It could have been a birth certificate from Guam! Those people don’t care. They’re public servants. And no one in the City Clerk’s office can remember even seeing a birth certificate for Alexander McCann. At least not when I called last Tuesday.”
A recent poll of Lindstrom’s book club and quilt guild show nearly 57% of respondents either do not believe or have serious doubts that McCann is not a member of some sort of unsavory ethnic group. Critics of this poll claim that the results are skewed due to the large number of respondents who erroneously consider “Democrat” and “Unitarian” to be ethnic groups.
“The question that I and several members of the Junior League are asking is: why would this man be so reluctant to hand over his birth certificate unless he had something to hide?” Lindstrom said. “I have people on the ground in Akron, and what they are reporting is very disturbing. Apparently, someone has bribed or intimidated the personnel at all four major Akron hospitals so we cannot access any patient records that could prove or disprove that an Alexander McCann was born on October 17th, 1984. They keep spouting off some nonsense about privacy laws. Everybody knows there’s no such thing. This is America!”
Linsdtrom’s daughter, Marietta McCann, told WKSL News the entire controversy erupted after Lindstrom walked in on the McCanns during an intimate moment. “I grew up with my mother telling me I should never bother to have sex because I’d never enjoy it anyway. And let me tell you, what Alex was doing? I was enjoying. A lot. But I had to stop enjoying it to scrape my mother off the floor and put cold compresses on her head. Ever since then she’s been trying to convince me that nice boys from Ohio don’t do things like that with their mouths and so he must really be Guatemalan or something.”
Alexander McCann could not be reached for comment, but did release a statement in which he pledged to paint the sunporch before Mother’s Day and noted that Friday evening after 7 p.m. would be an inconvenient time for Lindstrom to “pop over” as he and Mrs. McCann have several “unsavory ethnic activities planned.”
Monday, April 25, 2011
Filial Arachnophilia
When I was six years old, I wanted a dog. Like generations of six-year-olds before me, I whined and pleaded and cajoled and attempted juvenile bribery (“I’ll let you play with my Stretch Armstrong whenever you want!”), until my father came up with the diabolical idea to let me have a dog if I would stop sucking my thumb. Considering that this was a habit that nothing had so far convinced me to break, not threats or punishments or soft-voiced reasoning, Dad assumed he would not have to go puppy shopping anytime soon. But, upon being told of this offer, I popped my thumb out of my mouth, wiped it on my shirt, and never put it back in. Two weeks later, we had a lhasa apso.
Now I have my own six-year-old daughter and in the grand tradition, she has started her own campaign for a fuzzy creature to call her own. Only, she doesn’t want a dog, or a cat, or even a marginally cute rodent. My precious pumpkin has her heart set on a tarantula.
Specifically, she wants Brachypelma smithi, also known as the Mexican red-kneed tarantula. According to any one of the several dozen tarantula books that I trip over every day, this particular tarantula is very docile, though I have suspicions that “docile” is a relative term among tarantula enthusiasts. Does “docile” really mean gentle and harmless, or only that it won’t incapacitate me with an agonizing neurotoxin when it leaps onto my face and attempts to suck out my brain through my eyeballs? There’s a fine distinction there.
Clearly, I find the thought of having a large, hairy spider hanging around our house somewhat disturbing, so I have tried to come up with credible objections. Since New World tarantulas (those whose origin is in North or South America) are generally not very venomous, I can’t exercise the “no pets that can kill you” rule. We already have several unused aquariums in storage, so I can’t claim that proper housing would be too expensive. I can’t even rely on the good old gross-out. When I showed my daughter a picture of a tarantula molting, she declared that she would save the exuvia and use them in some tarantula-themed craft projects for school. She made it sound so reasonable, I ended up offering to make them little hats.
My final gambit was when I told her about urticating hairs, the barbed fibers that tarantulas somehow hurl at you when they get peeved and that lodge in your skin, nasal passages, or even your cornea. Depending on where they land and how sensitive you are to them, effects can range from a mild irritation to begging the ER doc to gouge out your eyes with a reflex hammer. I have found that when you really want to get a kid to think twice about something, your best bets are the suggestion of either potential pain or a yucky flavor. To a six-year-old, there is little difference between a hypodermic needle and a mouthful of broccoli; both are equally traumatic and just as likely to cause anticipatory hyperventilation.
But I underestimated my sweet muffin’s desire to have a fanged arachnid to love and cherish. After I explained what a tarantula hair in the cornea would feel like, she merely rolled her eyes and said, as though speaking to, well, a six-year-old, “Mom. Gloves. Goggles. The mask thingy from my doctor kit. No big.” She then asked for a cookie to munch on while she read her new book, “The World’s Most Disgusting Creatures.”
So, now I have only one option: to demand something of her in return for granting her heart’s desire. I’ll tell her that, in order to get her red-kneed pet, she will have to stop being so damn precocious. I don’t think we’ll have to go tarantula shopping anytime soon.
Now I have my own six-year-old daughter and in the grand tradition, she has started her own campaign for a fuzzy creature to call her own. Only, she doesn’t want a dog, or a cat, or even a marginally cute rodent. My precious pumpkin has her heart set on a tarantula.
Specifically, she wants Brachypelma smithi, also known as the Mexican red-kneed tarantula. According to any one of the several dozen tarantula books that I trip over every day, this particular tarantula is very docile, though I have suspicions that “docile” is a relative term among tarantula enthusiasts. Does “docile” really mean gentle and harmless, or only that it won’t incapacitate me with an agonizing neurotoxin when it leaps onto my face and attempts to suck out my brain through my eyeballs? There’s a fine distinction there.
Clearly, I find the thought of having a large, hairy spider hanging around our house somewhat disturbing, so I have tried to come up with credible objections. Since New World tarantulas (those whose origin is in North or South America) are generally not very venomous, I can’t exercise the “no pets that can kill you” rule. We already have several unused aquariums in storage, so I can’t claim that proper housing would be too expensive. I can’t even rely on the good old gross-out. When I showed my daughter a picture of a tarantula molting, she declared that she would save the exuvia and use them in some tarantula-themed craft projects for school. She made it sound so reasonable, I ended up offering to make them little hats.
My final gambit was when I told her about urticating hairs, the barbed fibers that tarantulas somehow hurl at you when they get peeved and that lodge in your skin, nasal passages, or even your cornea. Depending on where they land and how sensitive you are to them, effects can range from a mild irritation to begging the ER doc to gouge out your eyes with a reflex hammer. I have found that when you really want to get a kid to think twice about something, your best bets are the suggestion of either potential pain or a yucky flavor. To a six-year-old, there is little difference between a hypodermic needle and a mouthful of broccoli; both are equally traumatic and just as likely to cause anticipatory hyperventilation.
But I underestimated my sweet muffin’s desire to have a fanged arachnid to love and cherish. After I explained what a tarantula hair in the cornea would feel like, she merely rolled her eyes and said, as though speaking to, well, a six-year-old, “Mom. Gloves. Goggles. The mask thingy from my doctor kit. No big.” She then asked for a cookie to munch on while she read her new book, “The World’s Most Disgusting Creatures.”
So, now I have only one option: to demand something of her in return for granting her heart’s desire. I’ll tell her that, in order to get her red-kneed pet, she will have to stop being so damn precocious. I don’t think we’ll have to go tarantula shopping anytime soon.
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