Toilet Seat Shortages “Chronic” in Forests

(Ouray) The lack of toilet seats in the National Forests this year has reached chronic proportions and may be linked to a revenge motive on the part of government agencies says a recently released report in Flusher’s Digest.

The independently published piece claims that the USFS and other federal agencies has dropped the number of prescribed toilets in our national forests to punish persons opposed to fees on public lands over the past few summers.

In one such destination, Yankee Boy Basin, new toilet seats are almost unheard of while luxuries like toilet tissue and air fresheners remain on a first-come, first served capacity, with even the most basic supplies exhausted by mid-week. While many campers bring their own waste facilities the more traditional visitor often relies on porta-johns or other privies to conduct constitutional business in the woods.

According to a story in the Ouray County paper, the scenario has become a “squishy” one with hordes of campers being forced to use the great outdoors as their latrine. While this practice is popular with other mammals humans tend to congregate in designated camp grounds and use nearby land as their dumping grounds.

“Bears and mountain lions often cover 50 square miles per day hunting and staying away from people,” said a spokesman for Poop Jumpers, a local recreational association that is responsible for waste management among other things. “It’s easy to see why they aren’t the problem. Sure, we’re talking organic but the impact is caused by congestion not substance.”

According to the Department of Public Sanitation, a wing of the Homeland Security Agency, the magazine’s accusations are false and there is no revenge motive for the termination of federal funding.

“People who were against the fees will just have to stand in line a little longer or provide for their own comforts,” said Roy Thistledown, a campsite host and former CIA operative from Spar City. “We had the same problem all along the Alpine Loop until we started handing out little pooper scoopers compliments of the local chambers of commerce.”

The article continued saying campsite fees were up three dollars from last year. Whether that increase was enough to build more facilities was unclear at press time. Alluding to a presumably federally generated pamphlet advising campers how to dig a cat hole, the paper went on to describe just how to cover and disguise the aperture.

“People in emerging societies solve these kinds of problems by charging a small fee at the entrance to restrooms,” said one camper who has lived illegally in the Uncompahgre for 25 years. “Often the fee, collected by an otherwise unemployed person, includes tissue and a splash of down under water.

Despite the failures often common to other functions of government there this potty policy seems to have merit.

“I cannot speak for the outlying areas or for jungle redoubts, said the squatter, “since the media continually warns us they are populated by bandits and terrorists and are not safe for deep-seated human habitation.”

When contacted yesterday one state sanitation official agreed to look into the matter.

Criticized for running a feature piece on such a sensitive subject right on the front page an unreliable source at the local paper said that the story needed to be told.

“In addition, they added, “the piece provoked more reader response than coverage of the week’s city council meeting and the Republican state convention combined.

A follow-up/sequel is planned for December.

– Susie Compost

Hunters Wipe Out Tree Venison

(Gunnison) Rifle hunters have virtually wiped out the state’s last remnants of organic tree venison according to information released by the Colorado Division of Still-life. The tiny, often transparent herd mammal, known for its curious behavior of living in trees, has been endangered for the past decade but, since most of the populace doubted the very existence of the species, that sad plight has never been publicized.

“No state congressman in his right mind is going to vote to protect what is perceived as a fictitious species,” said Marvin Ballotte, former Aurora exterminator turned political analyst in October. “It would be political suicide on the scale of Dick Lamm’s euthanasia speech in 1983 or Bill Owen’s the whole place is on fire comment in the early part of the century . For all the hype during summer tourist season you don’t see legislators calling for a boycott on jackalope season or protection for snow snakes. It would be like granting Yosemite Sam a stay of execution on death row.”

Besides the odd living arrangement, a classic branch-canopy habitation combined with ground foraging usually reserved for primates, birds and insects, the tree deer are territorial, lustful and can be ferocious when cornered. This may account for the lack of public support if and when their numbers are threatened.

“Far too many Coloradans have suffered tree deer trauma especially with scary tales over the campfire during root or rutting season,” explains Ballotte. “There’s really no love lost for the deer, who are considered pests at best and who are said to overpopulate at a frightening pace. They’re as bad as rabbits but rabbits rarely attack livestock or hurl themselves out in front of defenseless minivans. Besides, rabbits are cute and these tree deer are an ugly lot.”

The last herd of tree deer was reportedly spotted by hall-of-fame marmot wrestler, Earl “Boy” Pritchard of Sapinero, an accused eccentric who is not considered dangerous unless agitated.  Pritchard claims he ran across a party of tree deer chewing away in an aspen grove in May.

“The only reason they didn’t attack is that I had camouflaged my torso with a palmetto branch and covered my scent with a bottle of cheap toilet water,” spat Pritchard, “but they was there.”

The fact that the animals were not indigenous to Colorado has not helped to relieve their precarious position either. The deer are thought to have been brought to Colorado from California by Basque fishermen to pick fruit back in the Sixties. The ones who didn’t join hippie communes assimilated into the population and became realtors.

With the absence of these fleshy beasts from the food chain it is not clear what wolves will eat as hors d’ oeuvres or bears will use as live bait come spring. -Suzie Compost

ELK BOY FOUND NEAR BALDWIN

(Gunnison) A verified sighting of the fabled Elk Boy of Ohio Creek has been reported here this week. Late season mushroom hunters from Tulsa not only photographed the skinny creature but allegedly exchanged greetings and then shared their lunch with him. For years hikers and jeep enthusiasts have insisted that they watched elk herds roam the region followed by a struggling young male human who imitated the animals and had even begun to look a bit like a wobbly calf. Many tales tell of aggressive behavior on the part of “bulls” whenever the herd was approached. Normally the animals simply flee.

“We don’t know who the kid is or how he got in with these characters in the first place,” said a county sheriff’s deputy on the scene. “Considering the wear and tear of the wilderness and his sparse diet he doesn’t look too bad. We are currently investigating all reports of missing persons in these mountains for the past twenty years. Hopefully we will stumble into some clue as to his lineage.”

Eyewitnesses gave conflicting reports as to the presence of course, heavy body hair and the emergence of stumpy, spiked horns, common to adolescent elk. They agreed however, that the elk boy seemed quite curious and at ease.

“It’s as if he’s always  known that he was one of us,” said Gwen Two Shoes of Baldwin, a native Ute and avid fly fisherman who claims to have first met the boy in 2009. “We fish together and I bring him stuffed jalapenos which he dearly loves. Otherwise he is content to graze, nibble on berries and scratch himself along the quakey bark like the rest of his herd.”

A spokesman for the local Sociable Services has asked authorities to apprehend the boy so that he can be rehabilitated. They plan to set a trap with a gross of the stuffed jalapenos near his watering hole tomorrow, despite the objections of Two Shoes who has threatened to warn him of the scheme.

“We must save this poor unfortunate from the wilds and allow him to become civilized like us,” said Samantha Meeker, a Bored Again Kokanee Counselor for someone’s county. “Then, somewhere down the road if he survives captivity and pays his fair share of taxes, he can decide for himself which species he wishes to emulate.”

Two Shoes, a direct descendent of a Tablecloth Ute chief, says the plan is atrocious and potentially disastrous.

“One hundred years ago they tried to turn the proud Red man into a farmer when all he wanted to do was to race his horses, hunt and soak in the hot springs. Now that same strain of white folks want to drag this wild elk boy into their world kicking and screaming,” she spat. “What will he do… work as a convenience store clerk or open a trendy boutique? Sociable Services even confiscated the new snowboard that I gave him for his birthday last year and he was just starting to really shred! You should see him hit the Baldwin bumps!”

Two Shoes went on to explain that First Americans never really assimilated to the ways of the European overlord.

“What makes them think a boy raised in the Rockies by an elk herd will take to their silly ways?” she flinched.

-Kashmir Horseshoe

Looking south from Silverton

HUNTING HIGHLIGHTS

with Sir Otis of Liver

McDonald, Wendy, Burger King Among Missing in West Elks

(Baldwin) A slew of fast food giants, including Ronald McDonald himself, are still missing in the West Elk Wilderness despite a massive manhunt conducted by local grease gourmets. According to close friends in Montrose the three left that city on Monday intent on setting up a hunting camp prior to opening day. When Wendy failed to return on Thursday to work her regular shift employees called the police.

“There are a lot of very bad people out there who would like to see harm come to brave hype-cartoons like these three,” said an animated window washer over at Kentucky Fried Chicken. “Sure we are in competition but we still respect each other “somewhat”.

One clerk at Taco Bell echoed similar remarks.

“We’ve always had a good working relationship with the other fast food pimps here in the United States and in Grand Junction,” she quipped, “even though Wendy is a pathetic slut and the Burger King is a drunk.”

Meanwhile police express hope as the three are experienced sportsmen.

“We found a clump of red clown hair strung to a small shrub near Coffeepot Creek late last night,” said one searcher. “We don’t know yet if that was meant as some sort of sign or if McDonald was engaged in a struggle.”

The West Elk Wilderness is home to an estimated 2500 hungry black bear who are prone to eat almost anything.

“We sincerely hope the three missing hunters don’t end up as lunch for some fury beast, but that would be ironic, wouldn’t it?” he offered.

DOW BANS BAGPIPES

(Almont) The Colorado Division of Wildlife has outlawed the use of bagpipes in the woods this year due to what it calls an unfair advantage to elk hunters. Saying that the wapiti cannot resist the sounds of the ancient Celtic instruments, DOW officials have threatened to confiscate hunting licenses and fine guilty parties in this regard. Although the practice of calling elk with bagpipes has not become chronic in Colorado, the herd wardens fear that the problem could burgeon overnight and threaten the relative safety of the state’s herds.

This is the second time in as many years that the DOW has stepped in to prohibit questionable symphonic hunting techniques, having banned the use of assault kazoos over 8,000 feet in 2012.

Jones to replace Jackson on $20 bill

(Denver) Labor organizer and “miner’s angel” Mary Harris “Mother” Jones will replace former President Andrew Jackson on the twenty-dollar bill in January. According to sources at the Denver Mint, the decision came down after reviewing the lives and times of both celebrities.

Andrew Jackson was a major voice in the forced removal of more than ten Native American tribes from ancestral homelands, was strong proponent of slavery and a frontline warrior for Manifest Destiny, a philosophy saying white America had the divine right to govern most of North America.

He was a real estate broker with a pistol and canon. One major accomplishment, the “Trail of Tears” in which 40,000 Cherokee perished, set in motion a system of ethnic cleansing extending to Creeks, Choctaw and Seminole. It was simple: he would drive the tribes from their land and buy it for the expanding United States, taking his lucrative commission along the way. He appeared briefly on the Confederate $1000 bill.

Mother Jones, largely affiliated with the United Mine Workers Union, was born in Cork County Ireland. She spent the best part of her life combating child labor practices and raising hell for the rights of workers in Colorado and other Western states.

She was often denounced on the floor of the Senate by anti-labor sentiment as “the grandmother of all agitators”, a title she heartily enjoyed.

In the American Songbook Carl Sandburg suggests that “She’ll be comin’ ‘round the mountain when she comes” refers to Jones and her travels in the Appalachian coal camps to promote the unionization of miners.

Noted critics of the move, still stinging from a decision to change the name of Ronald Regan Washington National Airport to Bob Marley International Airport in April, say it is just a blatant liberal housecleaning and one more example of creeping socialism in this country.

Proponents argue that Jones symbolizes the principles of freedom and democracy by defending the rights of workers while Jackson distorts these truths, displaying the greed and racism that swaggered and sashayed along the Frontier in the 1800s.

The new bills are set for release in early 2011. More on this after we milk the cows, feed the chickens, stable the horses and paint the barn. – H. L. Menoken