Author Archive for M. Toole
SOAP OPERA SYNOPSIS
By Brittany Celebe
Daytime dramas or soap operas in honor of longtime commercial sponsors) can be seen in fifty countries across the globe. Faithful fans
number in the millions, often skipping work and family responsibilities to follow their favorites and watch as the bad guys get their just dessert.
Sometimes rural viewing is not all that easy. Little things like avalanches, frigid temperatures, empty cupboard syndrome and fires and floods can not only interrupt lives but can play havoc with afternoon television reception. It is with this in mind that we have prepared a synopsis of what is going down on the screen. Missing an episode is a little like missing your birth control pills (not paid for by employers) or your Viagra (paid for by employers). Just miss one and it can foul up the whole month.
(Note: Some shows are current while others are classics from years gone by)
“The Young and the Worthless”
Troy is still seeing Angie who is recovering from a tedious surgery to remove her from her Siamese twin brother, LeRoy, who is chronically depressed over his failure to pass the television tech exam. He is hitting the bottle. Frank, Dr Bigelow’s attorney, continues to step out with Bigelow’s wife, Betty. Betty has quelled rumors that she is seeing LeRoy. Sherry’s divorce from Henry is not yet finalized because of a slight technicality over the possession of the couple’s James Brown records.
“Love and Money”
The return of Pamela’s father, believed to have been lost during a walrus hunt in Greenland, has prompted curious behavior in the town of Shady Corners. The girl’s mother, Pearl, who was legally separated, had embraced polygamy and married the offensive line of the Buffalo Bills. Isn’t it enough that these privileged, albeit tumultuous lives are intertwined in idleness and receivership? And now Pam’s father might not make the play-offs! Tess has left town with Delbert G., a clever ear and throat man. She will be a long way from Covington, Kentucky by nightfall. The annual onion festival reignites aromas long since muddled. What about Delbert’s love child and his fondness for her dancing instructor?
“Search For Yesterday”
With the announcement that Judith is indeed pregnant, half of the male population of Fruitcake Grove leave town. Allen has run into more medical problems prior to his operation when it is discovered that he has ice water instead of blood running through his Mohawk veins. Meanwhile Joan has filed for a divorce from her eighth husband, Harry, who was filmed in a Flemme Springs motel room with the Escucha al Monte cheerleading squad.
“As the Stomach Turns”
Gail is wrongly accused and arrested after he twin sister Margot robs a local pornography shop while assaulting the local rugby team. Her simultaneous acts of bipolar schizophrenia win Psychic Booth honorable mention at the Marigold County Fair. Lou’s lost son returns after a year in Trinidad and begins a co-dependent fling with Jack Iron, a local rummy and proprietor of the local sugar refinery. Joe leaves Debbie for Stephanie, Phil leaves Audrey for Debbie, Ted leaves Julie for the last time.
“The Guiding Blight”
Everyone in Honkeyville is shocked when Trapper Jeanie trades her illegitimate stock brokerage for a new snowmobile. Malbec Marlene confronts Scary Larry who drunkenly told Little Edward she was frigid contending that beyond all doubt she was not frigid with Canadian Art or Benjamin the Salami. Warren attempts suicide by jumping off his sofa in front of household pets. It will be his last act of defiance and he will be removed from the program’s cast in a painful and humiliating manner.
Blue Mesa Mermaids Tough Lot
(Gunnison) The local year-round mermaid population is composed of some “rough and ready gals” according to boatmen and nautical observers here. Not only do they co-exist, eluding bothersome fishermen and hungry Mackinaw, but they handily survive the brutal winters on these stark, windy shores.
Unlike the more “wimpy species” that inhabit the Ridgway Reservoir, Lake San Cristobal and Miramonte the Blue Mesa Mermaids exist in a tightly controlled symbiotic society where group survival is paramount.
The aquatic humanoid sirens of the sea do exist, although are generally salt water creatures according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration . How this colony of fresh water mermaids evolved is a mystery still unsolved.
The expanding colony has been part of the ecosystem since 1966 when the dam project was completed. Mermaids here refrain from eating meat, staying up late and cavorting with humans, especially the male variety.
“These ladies don’t even socialize with the fish much less talk to men,” said a marine biologist on loan from the Rocky Mountain Biological Weapons Laboratory in nearby Gothic. “Despite what may appear to constitute a major frustration in the onset, most mermaids say thy live simpler lives without social entanglements.
“Most men are hopeless bores interested only in the kitchen and the bedroom,” said Sarah Finne, a human who has lived with the mermaids for 20 years. “These ladies rarely produce offspring so the colony relies on recruits from other groups and an occasional human. The transformation is a tedious process and most times it ends in disaster. I have lived here for two decades and I am just now beginning to grow a tail and breath properly.”
Finne went on to say that most initial recruits are women who are searching for adventure and those rebounding from failed romantic endeavors. Many have had surface relationships and deep water realities do not always coincide. Due in part to survival instincts and and a keen sense of social order, the majority of these recruits don’t make it past the first swim.
Local women are agin reminded that post-snagging season is the most opportune time to approach the Blue Mesa Colony.
“One can view the mermaids lounging on the shore after the hunters have gone home,” said Finne. Sessions run full or half days. I suggest warm clothing and an open mind.” – Popeye Manatee
Last Seduction of Summer
This lovely Victorian lady has spent the last 135 years on the wall behind the bar at the Hotel Victoria in Mañana. This morning she wasn’t there. “It’s quite common for nudes to abandon their post if the vibe isn’t right or if they get a better offer,” said owner Red Sverdveson. “We hope she hasn’t fallen in with one of those artist types.”
Lowering Legal Drinking Age Sticky Fiscal Policy
While most economists agree that dropping the legal drinking age to eleven would help jumpstart the economy, politicians are eyeballing the polls prior to a House vote Tuesday.
After a 90-day study, three independent panels concluded that allowing children to legally partake of alcoholic beverages would bump the tax coffers by billions of dollars in new revenue.
Insiders shouted down proposals from outsiders. People fidgeted in their seats. Coffee was served. Then everyone went home to practice campaigning in the mirror.
Sources on Capital Hill discounted estimates that the new loosening of restrictions would pay off the national debt.
“That’s a lot of money,” laughed one senator.
“Dropping the drinking age to 11 could pay off the national debt in weeks
says a leading TV pop-sociologist, Dr Marvin T. Fogy BFD. “I’ve done the math. Even when dealing with untested control groups we can predict quantitative behavior in a matter of mega-seconds, employing cloud reading in the sky at dusk. If 11 is a little early …maybe 14?”
Meanwhile corporate interests watch the drama unfold knowing that they will not have to change massive marketing plans so as to brainwash a new generation of drinkers.
“Our TV ads have always been aimed at 12-year-olds and not necessarily the brightest of that grouping,” said an industry spokesman. “There’s not much we can do now but sit back and let our lobbyists do their magic.”
Hungry Mountain Men Attack Boar’s Head Truck
(Guston) Desperate, starving mountain men, accustomed to eating roots and berries like the bears,ambushed a Boar’s Head cold cut delivery truck Friday morning devouring its contents in less than an hour.
Furloughed snowplow drivers, arriving on the scene in the first few minutes after the heist, tell a tale of contentment, painting a buckskin-clad throng as peaceful and drowsy after the huge feed. Many of the moccasin men turned enthusiastic backwoods gobblers had eaten clean through the plastic wrapping and packaging foam that had covered the lunchmeat before the primitive dining ordeal.
“They were all sitting in a big circle finishing their plunder of rare roast beef, Black Forest ham an Gouda cheese.,” said one first responder. “They didn’t seem to notice our arrival but when police helicopters began arriving they quickly canned the buffet and dispersed.
The driver of the Boar’s Head truck, Slim Tinkleholland of Delta, was released unharmed.
“This is not the usual modus operandi of these bloodthirsty bands,” said Tinkleholland. “Far too often we find the victims of these sporadic assaults stripped of their belongings, scalped* and left for the wolves and carnivorous marmots. I don’t enjoy making this trek alone especially after dark.”
Rapid bands of rogue marauders enjoy targeting hapless tourists who are robbed and left to the elements, their RVs and autos parted out, their children seized for the burgeoning slave market in Santa Fe. Visitors are encouraged to carry firearms since a shot over the head can be enough to deter an attack. Hollow point ammunition, designed to penetrate the tough deerskin armor preferred by these coonskin assailants is readily available on both sides of the pass. It is recommended by law enforcement agencies.
“A protective poodle or pekingese won’t be of much help in the heat of battle,” said one sheriff’s deputy. “We suggest a heavy arsenal which might include grenades, surface-to-air missiles and even a drone if you got one. Tanks are nice too.
“One might expect these ravenous bumpkins to scurry off at the first sight of modern man but most just say along the roadway gorging themselves,” said one Arizona motorist who filmed most of the exchange before being driven off by a volley of bullets fired by local militia. “They resembled a pride of lions after a kill.”
Sources at the corporate offices of the lunchmeat concern say they have no intention of pressing charges against the usurpers who they say are simply caught up in another time and not entirely to blame for their actions.
“They have no beaver and most of the land is either private or federal which leaves these brave frontiersmen no place to go and nothing much to eat.”
Boar’s head plans to shoot a series of commercials spotlighting the plight of these nomadic mountain men while showcasing a new line of bison salami expected on the shelves by Christmas.
*A European practice taught to the native tribes in North America by French and English trappers.
