All Entries in the "Fractured Opinion" Category
High Altitude Bouquet
Uncompahgre colors way up here! Ground artifacts make a fine forest centerpiece up above Elk Meadows near Ridgway. Photo by Delinda Austin
Power Shut Off at House
(Warshington — Foggy Bottom Gazette — August 26, 2016))
The Aaron Burr Nuclear Power Plant has apparently discontinued electrical service to the United States Senate due to what it calls failure to address overdue notices. The action was taken this morning prior to the day’s business.
The news was received by an empty chamber in that none of the elected officials had opted to show up for work again. Most were either at lunch with lobbyists or back in their districts campaigning and strengthening constituencies.
“We sent them three warnings but I guess no one is ever there to pick up the mail much less write a check,” said Myrna Huphhousen, a former aide-de-camp of Herbert Hoover, who has been employed by the power company since 1930. “I’ve had years of experience dealing with these teflon deadbeats. Let them all filibuster in the dark!”
Congresspersons contacted were not aware of the shut-off since none had been at their desks since February. One said he expected to be back soon, while another calmed fears of an empty podium saying assorted lobbyists were keeping an eye on things.
“We don’t have time to keep up with petty notices and letters from our constituents, argued Oral Noise (Unitarian-CA) who had stumbled into the House billiard room in search of another bottle of Cuban rum. “But I can assure you that the check is in the mail.”
Another honorable member of the governing unit, Kleen “Dirty” Cavanaugh, a 98-year-old incumbent representing the Missoula Flood Plain blames the shut-off on Confederate sympathizers from down along Jefferson Davis Highway.
“We had trouble with those same kinda people out here only they wore feathers,” he smiled while aides, reporters and lobbyists fussed over him, waiting for him to drop dead and vacate the seat.
“Just wait for those jaybirds to come requesting a rate hike,” he quacked. “I could buy them and turn them into a nuclear feed lot.”
The status is not expected to affect lifetime pensions, lifetime health insurance or regular limo use, privileges covered by the taxpayer. One pro-weapons group has petitioned to present movies in the now darkened rooms while the Israeli Embassy has offered the use of a secondary auditorium at its complex, but only Republicans were invited.
Otherwise all pressing business, especially matters of national security, will be conducted at Big Mable’s Gravy Train on Pennsylvania Avenue until the lights come back on. Municipal scraping crews have taken the lull as an opportunity to remove chewing gum stuck to the bottom of Congressional seats as far back as the Gadsden Purchase.
– Melvin Toole
“Go ahead, blow yourself up with the propane stove. What can we do? Why should we get involved? We can get lots more tourists where you came from. They bring them here right to the plaza every day on the bus.”
– Cardinal Mendoza, pious brandy maker, when asked for directions on how to operate an ancient cook stove, Grazalema, Spain, April 8, 2016
Amnesty Day
No more hoarding, no more whispers in the hall. Bring back scissors, pens and paperclips!
Local Woman Loses Battle With Cat Over Lizard Torture
(El Jebel — August 18, 2016)
A local woman, who wishes to remain inanimate, has tragically lost her courageous battle with local cat, Fluffy, over Fluffy’s alleged use of recreational lizard torture at the women’s residence, each summer since 2009.
The local woman, identified only as a living female who resides somewhere people would gossip about, has announced that she will immediately give up her seven-year battle with Fluffy over what she has called the Cat’s “annual insanely macabre practice of outright lizard torture in order to help pass the hours during those lazy, hazy days of summer.”
Answering reporter’s questions, the local woman, who was fully clothed prior to the announcement, said this:
“I give up. This is ridiculous. That cat is playing me as a fool. Last year it just kept chewing off little parts of the lizard’s tail. One night, the Cat begged me to let its little lizard friend Larry sleep-over. Larry’s tail was already noticeably shorter than it should have been, but I relented. The next morning I found that Larry had less than half of his tail left. Still, the Cat pleaded. ‘Oh, please? Can’t my little friend Larry sleep over tonight? Look! He loves me!
“Sure, I knew that part of the Cat’s story just didn’t ring true. I could plainly see that the Cat’s little pal Larry was getting smaller each night. Larry’s eyes weren’t so bright as the fence lizard picture in the little golden book of animals nobody cares about. Still, I looked at Fluffy, knowing Larry seemed to be the Cat’s only friend, and I let Larry sleep over.”
“Next morning, Larry had no tail left at all and was lying upside down next to the Cat on the sofa. The Cat broke the uncomfortable silence with, ‘Me and Larry were wondering what’s for breakfast?’
“I picked up Larry’s short, dazed body and I removed him to an undisclosed safe house where he had everything he needed to recover and start a new life.
Next morning I found Larry on the floor in the kitchen, no tail and his head and legs were missing. The Cat sat on the kitchen table and cleaned its feet on my placemat. Then it said, ‘wasn’t The Godfather a great movie?’
“That was last year. It’s started again this year with a new lizard. I’m no match for that Cat. I know that now. I just wish I had learned this lesson a long time ago.”
Such a tragic story, yet not uncommon in our own neighborhoods. The San Juan Horseshoe wishes to thank this local woman for the courage to speak with us about her own personal hell, created by the unassuming Fluffy the Cat.
– Lina Baquer
August 7, 2016
Drone Soup
World Classifine Ads — August 14, 2016
Learn the ancient art of pick pocketing before the holidays. Earn extra Christmas money while out at the mall or on the street after dark. Work three hours a day and put money away each night. Bonded. Alternative Lifestyles Cell block #889, Canon City, CO
Land of the Midnight Sun Counseling is now accepting clients for the winter months. Alaskan sociologists will visit your home or office for slightly extra fee. Get sensitive while you’re at work or asleep. Deal with shortages and Eskimo antics. Large bears not included. Call the Dark Room at the Juneau What. Approved by law enforcement and your mom.
Anger management while you wait. Bring boxing gloves and small beating instrument. Get mad – get beat. Put simple physics to work for you. No marks. Guaranteed results. Comrades in Sweat. Dr Simon Lackluster, Heartbreak Hotel Terrace, Goodenough Gulch.
Will scrape windshields for free until October. Mack the Hack, Gunnison. Specializing in underwater wheelbarrow photography, groundless opinions and quantum foot massage. Saturday mornings only in Sapinero. 140,000 miles without major enzyme malfunction.
Improve tunnel vision without surgery. Dial 17 and hold it.
Company specializing in information services for visiting dignitaries and peace negotiators seeks information on nightlife and entertainment amenities for new brochure on Dayton, Ohio. We have had successful track records in Mogadishu, Paris, Helsinki, Geneva and Camp David. Our guides and packages have drawn praise in Havana, Cairo, Berlin and Toronto. Need help here. Anyone who can provide sufficient information on Dayton will be lavishly rewarded. Diplomat Exchange and Antiques, Political Prisoner Circle, Brooklyn, NY.
Succulent Yucca plant would like to meet others of same persuasion for a fertile, perennial relationship. Well-rooted. No plastic geraniums, gourds, fungi or thallophytic loafers. Blind Box 3, Pinkyville.
Lost: Mustache wax grinder neat Old St. Lazare Station last Thursday morning. If found please contact Claude Monet. Small reward.
Red has three two-tone caribou calves, two females and one male. Great when the snow comes. Even better on lawns and vacant lot maintenance. Lovely temperaments. Mouse broken and registered. See Red at Quezon City Trading Post in Rudy’s Canyon. Could make great polo ponies if they were horses. No snails before noon.
For auction to the highest bidder: Verified 1941 instructor’s manual for the HMS Hood. Also have pilot’s log for the Enola Gay. Serious offers only. Casey Jones, Colona Railroad Yard.
Our donuts aren’t going to the Rio Olympics! They’re staying here at La Zona de Colona Coffee House. Are these really the best tasting donuts in North America? Need you ask? Now open in Colona. Try our Drive-Thru.
Need full-figured man or woman to deliver left-wing newspapers to thin, chronically ill recluses. Jolly Enterprises. Call our 800 number!
Romance columnist needed for Gunnison Times. Must be well versed in logical application of hormones and tangled webs just below the surface. No Irish.
Expert and creative lawn mowing by Earl. Buzzes, spikes, flat tops and cranial work our specialty. Like your hair a little longer? Here’s introducing Peggy Sue on her riding mower. Half-price Tuesdays no longer applicable in Egnar or Cahone. Remember: When the snow falls prices go up!
Will dry dock your backyard barbecue apparatus through the winter. Safe, secure storage. No termites. Extended hours for fall. Charles Gaffe, Charcoal, WY.
Local Man Wins RV Races
(Mañana, CO — Mudhumpers Gazette — August 5, 2016)
Melvin Toole, 77 of 558399733668844 Road here has claimed first prize in the annual Recreational Vehicle Sprint held at the Montrose Water Park. The 2016 Senior Games champion, sporting a 700-foot long Cherokee, 5th Wheel, Stiff Neck Turbo plus One, turned in times of 45.6 and 46.2 barely edging out a husband and wife team from Moline who were disqualified for dirty rigs.
Beth and Walter Whisper of Cedaredge are protesting the decision to award the prize money to Toole. They say they beat his self-contained eunuch, navigated by a pet terrier named Rothschild Broom Hilda, who won the barrel racing and parallel parking competitions paws down the previous afternoon.
Although legally blind, Toole remains instrument rated and plays commercial radio full blast to keep from falling asleep at the wheel. Readers may remember that Toole was disqualified in the 2014 and 2015 races for failure to wear a seatbelt during the proceedings. He was not wearing pants either.
However, due to chronic crowding at local jailhouses, Toole was issued a warning and told to go finish dressing before he returned to town. A tennis enthusiast, the former Big Tire shaman, watches at least 15 hours of television per day and writes to his Congressmen.
– Muriel Armbruster
“A politician doesn’t steal elections. He pays for them.”
– written on the wall in the Congressional Ethics Committee men’s room
