Author Archive for M. Toole
Local Border Collie Bound for Cambridge
(Ridgway) A overachiever border collie named Rusty has been awarded the prestigious (Leonard) Campbell Fellowship for study at Cambridge University near London. The grant/scholarship pays for every facet of the canine’s education including housing, food and materials with a monthly stipend of $600 for travel on the European continent. He is also recipient of the Phi Dog Phi Award for academic excellence and the Pavlov Prize for athleticism.
Rusty’s field of study/expertise will be Psycho-Primal Anthropology with emphasis on The Human Food Chain.
Although exhibiting some mixed feelings about leaving his pastoral life on the Haywire Ranch at Cow Creek Rusty has readily accepted the offer to study abroad. He will finish the curriculum in three years and spend summers in Colorado. Upon graduation his options most likely run from a professorship to clinical research to herding livestock.
A film about his experience is in the works.
Rusty relaxing in Cork City after accepting a scholarship to Cambridge
“He’s smarter than anyone in our family,” said Jed Pinwheel, Rusty’s sponsor and father figure. “That dog new how to count all of the chickens before and after they thought to hatch. His hunger for knowledge put him paws and tails above the rest of the cow dogs around here. He was focused. That boy was always focused.”
Rusty, a eunuch in his own right, is not the first four-legged creature to attend Cambridge. A common British house cat, named Criseyde, with an IQ off the charts studied here in the 60s only to withdraw from classes due to an unexpected pregnancy. She currently lives in Akron.
Meanwhile back at the ranch cowboys scurry to find a replacement for Rusty.
“It will take three dogs to do the work of this guy,” said Colona Slim, a 112-year-old wrangler who’s still in the saddle. “Just as soon as he got them sheep or cows in a circle he’d commence to sticking his nose into a book. Smart sombitch.”
A going away party has been scheduled for Tuesday on Ridgway Hill. No children or alcohol please
–Dag Katz
Potholes Gobble Up Seasonal Victim
Gaping potholes on local highways have consumed 15 victims since the snow melt, according to Harvey Birdseed, Director of Pavement for the Western Slope. Among the persons lost are Alvin Gatt, 59, of Gunnison; Thelrod Hinkleman, 67, of Delta and Cyril Fern, 40, of Telluride.
Princess Irm Peawit of Montrose and Myrna Myrth of Ridgway Mountain Village are feared missing as they have not shown up at bingo or their designated feeding stations since early Tuesday.
The other victims are out-of-staters and of no concern to this website. Each year hundreds of deaths are caused by potholes, small, aggressive parasites that live deep down in the pavement. Each spring they awake from hibernation, dazed and angry and in search of a good meal.
The Highway Department has been innovative in attempts to control the melee, including blowing away pieces of its own highway (as on Route 50 between Montrose and Gunnison) to rid the state of these injustices. Success has been limited. The “patch jobs” only last through fall or until the relentless potholes resurface in the spring.
“Cracks in bridges are something altogether,” said Birdseed. “That’d be under “failing infrastructure”.
-Small Mouth Bess
Say Hey Kid Passes
One of the greats passes at 93
Montrose Animal Control ampliará sus funciones
(Mack) La ciudad de Montrose ha anunciado planes para atacar a sus oficiales de control animal contra personas malas y enojadas, así como contra perros sueltos, este verano. La medida se ha tomado mientras el municipio maniobra para conseguir una mayor parte del pastel turístico. No estaba claro si se tomarían medidas para erradicar serpientes, zorrillos o marmotas agresivas en esta elevación.
“Si alguna vez vamos a ser un destino turístico, como todas las demás ciudades que nos rodean, tendremos que hacer algunos sacrificios”, dijo Mel Toole, innovador del plan. “Claro, vamos a molestar a algunas personas de mala reputación y pisar algunos dedos de los pies, pero todo es por el bien de la ganancia monetaria, ¡así que está bien!”
Tool continuó diciendo que los visitantes de otros estados y localidades no querían ver mucha gentuza deambulando por las calles, especialmente a media tarde. Un toque de queda inverso actual permite que las personas con “discapacidades faciales” salgan a la superficie después del anochecer y circulen libremente hasta el amanecer.
“Claro, la decisión sobre a quién molestar depende de cada agente de la ley, pero ¿qué más hay de nuevo?” Herramienta (Tool, aka Toole) explicada. “Si este plan tiene éxito, podríamos considerar ampliarlo para incluir mascotas ruidosas y personas con malas actitudes”.
Según una política anterior, los turistas podían quejarse de personas poco atractivas o ligeramente extrañas que paseaban por las modernas avenidas de la ciudad, pero en realidad nunca se hacía nada al respecto.
“Solíamos arrastrar cochecitos ilícitos a los adobes después de repetidas quejas, pero regresaban a la ciudad antes de que oscureciera”, se encogió de hombros. “Con mi nueva norma ahora podemos retener a los transgresores por hasta seis meses sin siquiera un simulacro de juicio”.
Hasta ahora ha habido poco revuelo por la nueva ordenanza, aunque algunas quejas han surgido, precisamente, de la comunidad empresarial. Varias industrias de talleres clandestinos han amenazado con presentar demandas quejándose de una fuerza laboral que pronto se agotará, mientras que un salón de belleza afirmó que la nueva ley sería el golpe final a una industria que ya es altamente competitiva aquí.
“Quejarse de este nuevo plan es nada menos que confesar su implicación como delincuente de primer grado”, afirmó Tool con franqueza. “Oye, no hacemos excepciones”, enfatizó, curvando su inexistente labio superior y haciendo clic con fuerza en el talón de sus botas de soldado de asalto relucientes. “Ya se han puesto en peligro varios intereses tanto del sector público como del privado, ya que ni siquiera las personas dedicadas aquí en la fuente de energía municipal están libre de reproches”.
Ya se han cerrado indefinidamente un establecimiento local de electrodomésticos y un periódico local, el San Juan Horseshoe, por violaciones flagrantes. Se advierte a los comerciantes que el personal de control de animales, curtido en la batalla, estará disponible después del fin de semana del Día de los Caídos.
-Herradura de Cachemira
Recycling Plan to Include Crabs
(Gunnison) In what has been called a progressive plan to encourage further recycling, leaders here have included cranky residents in a future blueprint for rubbish removal and general sanitation. Starting this summer refuse engineers will begin picking up recycled persons who have clearly exhibited negative, whinny and destructive behavior as defined by their peers.
According to the master plan the city will not go trolling for malcontents but rather will rely on residents to identify and isolate these people by leaving them on the sidewalk with their garbage and traditional recyclables. Once pegged as a chronic crab and continual menace to the positive flow of energy that person will be hauled off to an unspecified locale to get help.
“I myself “removed” after a series of tantrums and sullen behavior one winter back in Whitefish, Montana,” confessed Byron Ivanhoe, the recognized architect of the Gunnison plan who holds a doctorate in urban planning from Cal Polygamy. “Whitefish, a pioneer in recycling philosophy, sent me to a sanitarium in Belize, where I got help. It was then that I realized light deficiency and continued cold weather didn’t agree with me so I relocated to the banana belt, found a parasitic position, bought a fly rod and began paying back my debt to society.”
Cutting his teeth on recycling back in the Midwest, where entire towns often had to be recycled, Ivanhoe was quick to point out that most people in Colorado are perfectly adjusted and environment and will never need to be recycled.
“Sure in the middle of winter our workload might be higher but then with the coming of the warmer weather we expect very little activity unless we get some unhappy arrival, testy transient or crabby drop-in,” explained Ivanhoe. “All I can say is that our teams receive the latest training and the designated crab had better stay clear of pickup spots on trash day.”
If you live within the confines of the city of Gunnison and you would like to recycle a crabby neighbor or family member simply put them out the night before the scheduled pickup. Persons from outside the city are not eligible for this service. Anyone caught attempting to recycle emotional baggage or toxic materials will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
-Dag Katz
“Just looking for one more enchanted evening before I go down.”
– General Kashmir Horseshoe, 102, prior to the crossing and scaling of Belmont Citadel Birth Canal , March 7, 2024
French Leaders Refuse Onion Demands Again
(Paris) Public service worker onions remain out of strike today as French President Emmanuel Macron refuses to bend on a new roster of demands. After an emergency session of the cabinet late last night, the liberal government pledged “not to blink in the face of the growing pungency” that threatens to touch the very fabric, the culinary life of everyone in the country.
“Just imagine our salads and sauces,’ said Chef Antoine Gendarme, of Sabat’s Cafe here. “What will we do when the reserves run out and they are calling for French onion soup? This walkout is not just a problem for France but for the world. The onion is the heart of all classic cuisine be it in Mexico, Thailand, Italy or Peru.”
Most in the know fear that once the damage has been done it will be virtually impossible to return to the old days when the entire globe looked to the French for culinary direction and purpose.
“Who will take over if the France falls?” asked the chef. “That is an interesting question considering growing onion anger is not merely a reality in Europe.”
Kitchens the world over have expressed concern that the renegade onions may be joined by radical celery, rogue tomatoes, revolutionary garlic and even some minced anarchists posing as innocent rutabaga, but in actuality belonging to the fruit and nut family. They agree that if the situation worsens no one will be able to function at the business end of a Provencal kitchen.
“We still have our bread, our cheeses and our vineyards but somehow it has all lost its luster in the face of the strike,” said a French dairy farmer who has grown a garden since the days of Charles DeGaulle. “Sure I’ve had a few minor confrontations with sketchy vegetables and a few bean strains here and there but for the most part it’s been symbiotic: I plant them in rich soil in with just the right amount of sun then water them and they provide sustenance and often time decoration at my table.”
Some within the expanded food industry secretly support the onions while others are waiting until the harvest to decide on what measures are most logical.
“I’m half Irish and half Cajun said Meghan, sommelier from Bethesda, Maryland. “Part of me reaches out to the French, the other says give me a another Guinness with those fish and chips. If we recant here and capitulate every time some vegetable raises his voice what kind of message are we sending to the younger sprouts and seedlings?” she pressed.
Meanwhile striking onions continue to hold a daily vigil in front of government offices demanding subsidized storage and more comfortable transport to market. All the rolling back and forth and the peeling has officials at wit’s end…and the odor…!”
Talks broke down again yesterday after police, crying Scallions! Devoyers salassants! arrived on the scene with a large industrial slicer/guillotine disguised as a giant snail. Not to be intimidated by fleeting logic, members of the Public Service Union and the ministry accused each other of bad breath. Shallots stayed home in protest. Tears fell on both sides of the cutting board.
Despite official fears of a lengthy strike that could cripple Bastille Day celebrations, the groups then disbanded so as to eat dinner before going out to turn over cars and burn them in the streets of Paris, no easy feat for tubular chives and flavonoids.
– Sir Otis of Liver
“If voting changed anything they’d make it illegal.” – Emma Goldman
