SKIING NOT IN BIBLE SAYS LAKE CITY WOMAN

And cows should never wear underwear

(Montrose — Rapture Tails, Scores and Schedules — February 13, 2016)

The sport of skiing is not mentioned so much as once in the Judeo-Christian Bible says a Lake City cleric who often parades around as the conscience of Hinsdale County.

According to Freida Markfore the Holy Writ makes no reference to skiing and therefore the entire modus operandi should be avoided by the god-fearing righteous.

“If the good Lord wanted man to slide down mountains he would have created him with edges on his feet and included poles with the “beginner package.” He would have also made snow fall in the Holy Land,” she mused.

“The gates of Paradise will never open for a snow plow stop or a telemark turn,” she forecast. “And the snow conditions in hell are not expected to improve in the near eternity.”

Markfore, who sometimes goes by the alias Luella Persimmons, frowned when it was suggested that skiing, associated with Nordic lifestyles and perhaps Viking gods did not jive with the everyday pursuits of the Semitics in Asia Minor.

“I’m not talking about no miners,” she shot back vehemently. “Most of them are well on their way to hell in a hand basket and don’t even know it.”

– Warren of Wexley

Lip Reading Offered by Motor Vehicle

(Montrose Language Lab – February 11, 2016)

A free lip-reading seminar is slated for late November, compliments of the Colorado Division of Motor Vehicles. The course has been streamlined from last year, concentrating on senior drivers, teens and those in need of anger management therapy.

The course, conducted for all drivers, is expected to “better the communications between easily irritated motorists and those with less than perfect hearing” according to Melvin O’Toole, Executive Director of Sociology and Downright Ignorant Behavior at nearby Pea Green Academy.

“The offering will concentrate on the 20 most common phrases of frustration associated with bad driving habits,” quipped O’Toole, “so that even with air-conditioning on, and in winter with the windows rolled up, clear communication of distinct concepts and suggested ideas will flow.”

O’Toole did not touch on complaints that many local drivers are dozing off at the wheel or exhibiting a trance akin to heavy television users. Traffic noise, vehicle vibration or even the radio lulls them to sleep when it usually keeps other drivers alert.

“They are somewhere else than in the driver’s seat,” said O’Toole. “It’s a wonder they make it to the grocery and back.”

Mass transit, recently available in the city, was expected to relive this chronic problem or at least discourage driving at prime times. Unfortunately suspect operators often forget about this option, after locating their keys and backing into the garage door or a potted plant in the yard.

Persons over 75 will receive a companion print version of the class so as to insure they do not miss clever, innovative vulgarities hurled at them by motorists wishing to adhere to the speed limit and reach their destination before nightfall.

– Attila Diggins

The Tarzan and Jane Dialogues

Once again brought to you in 1950’s black and white television style by the Farmer’s Friend, O’Hara’s Foot Powder and Dehorning Ointment. If you’ve got it we’ve got the cure. Guaranteed to work quickly or we pay the funeral bills, and that’s a promise from O’Hara’s. A trusted friend since at least yesterday morning.

THE ORIGINS OF UNGOWA

The scene: A treehouse in East Africa  –  February 11, 2016

Tarzan: Ungowa! Ungowa! See Jane, lion just need little convincing. Things be peaceful now.
Jane: Amazing, Tarzan. I’ve never seen anything like it. What’s the secret? Is it your body language? Is it your loincloth? Is it that word…what is it? Foongowa?
Tarzan: Ungowa, Jane. But don’t ever say unless lion out of hand.
Jane: But I’ve heard you say it to the elephants, the zebras, even Cheetah.
Tarzan: Jane mistaken.
Jane: Tarzan, I’m not mistaken. Lord knows there’s not much to occupy my time up in this tree house. I don’t miss major developments like this. I don’t miss the banana harvest, the spring rains, the migration of the rhinos, the spear ceremony with the Tamurundis…
Tarzan: Tarzan get picture, Jane.
Jane: So what does Ungowa mean exactly, dear?
Tarzan: Ungowa mean…Get back!
Jane: Get back? I hardly think so. Level with me, Tarzan. I want to know about the origin of Ungowa!
Tarzan: Ungowa, Jane!
Jane: That’s not amusing. Now tell me or you sleep on the couch.
Tarzan: We not have couch.
Jane: It’s just an expression. Why won’t you tell me about Ungowa?
Tarzan: Tarzan not know about Ungowa. Ungowa just word. Ungowa something make lions and elephants listen to skinny ape man, not trample, eat him.
Jane: You mean to say you just say Ungowa and you don’t know what it means, where it comes from or how it became part of the language?
Tarzan: It slang. Jane understand?
Jane: So you’re telling me you don’t know what it means or why it has come into favor?
Tarzan: That just way it is.
Jane: The magic word for any situation. Too much. Oh well, I guess there’s nothing to do now but eat your lentil soup.
Tarzan: Lentil soup again! Ungowa! Tarzan calling out for pizza!

THE END

Feds Approve Air Utility

(Denver — Brown Cloud Jogger Review — January 29 , 2016)

The Federal Utility Commission Kakistocracy* has tentatively agreed to allow unnamed interests to begin monitoring oxygen use in three mountain states in order to more clearly determine its fair market value. The preliminary assessment, classified as Top Secret by the government, is to be based on pounds of air pressure per cubic ratio of atmosphere to lung output.

The small, repeated measurements are to be called “breaths” or might actually be identified as gasps, pants, gulps or kilowatts by the same Federal Utility Commission Kakistocracy.

Executive appointees of the new agency, former Congressmen turned lobbyists insist that it is high time that oxygen consumers shared the cost of the air that they breathe. The say that breathing is a privilege, and not one guaranteed by the Constitution.

“That bothersome old faded antique of Deist thinking only talks about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” quipped Terry Tocksicke, former drill instructor at Three Mile Island and head of the Obama Administration’s task force on air quality and regulation.

After downing a lavish lunch of live Lucerne lobster in aerated, mulched hydrocarbon sauce, the commission was treated to a troupe of exotic monkey trapeze artists dressed in tiny hats and iron lungs, compliments of Confront Range Oxygen, a corporation bidding on the right to charge residents and visitors for air in Colorado.

“The less oxygen the more per unit measure,” said Tocksicke. “We’re looking at other mountain states too where the elevation is higher. That’s where the real profits will fall. Look, one of the monkeys has fallen under the weight of the heavy breathing apparatus! Look!”

The Public Utilities Commission, a sister agency, not to be confused with the existing kakistocracy, maintains the final say in the quantum mechanics of breathing and system flatulence encompassing radiation levels, momentum and electric charge. A milestone decision is expected when it returns from a fact-finding mission on Slumgullion Pass this weekend.

The novice flatlanders left Ouray last week in hopes of arriving at the gold fields of Creede before the snows are too deep for travel. Authorities here say they have lost contact with the small party.

“Frankly I’m concerned,” whined Tocksicke. “The planning was inadequate and the leader of the expedition was shiftless…a beady-eyed man named Thacker or Placker something…”

Gov’ment officials say they have no choice but to charge for air.

“Between the wars, the election campaigns, the Congressional benefits, interest on loans, the tax breaks for oil companies, the mindless expenditures on police, military aid to right-wing dictatorships, the mismanagement of resources, and the growing number of people on public assistance we’re broke,” said a Congressman from his charcoal black limousine.

The commissions and other desperate camp followers say they expect great public outcry at first but feel that the situation will calm down as soon as people turn their televisions on and drift into hot dog space.

“The small fee will not be noticeable at first and completely voluntary. Later, when the program is fully implemented the fee will become mandatory with generous consideration extended for preliminary cooperation in the form of retroactive clauses and debt brackets.

The United States currently imports some 45% of its oxygen from the Hindu Kush and the Peruvian Andes. A dramatic increase in domestic production of oxygen is on the drawing board as part of an expanded energy policy.

“We’ll get back to you when we know more,” said Tocksicke.

– Helen Waite

*For those too busy to use a dictionary a kakisocracy is government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens.   (From Greek word kakisnos (worst + CRACY)

Crested Butte Abuse Center Shut

(Crested Butte, CO  —  From Tales of Paradise Lost  —  January 25, 2015)

The Gothic Substance Abuse Clinic at Totem Pole Park has been closed until further notice according to on-premise physicians here. The facility, opened in 1984, had hoped to attract wealthy drug and alcohol abusers to the town to beef up the off-season economy. The concept failed.

Instead a slew of needy addicts show up between December and March and again in July and August.

“We are far too busy with the unbalanced tourist and the whacky transient to deal with the demand during peak times,” said Melanie Mercury, a psychiatric nurse specializing in substance abuse who, according to co-workers, makes “a knockdown martini when the spirit moves her.”

Mercury holds down 14 other part-time jobs when the tourists are here and says that besides that most addicts are poor tippers.

The Board of Directors at GSACTPP plan a media blitz of major markets in an attempt to educate the populace as to the best times to visit the town. No one was available for further comment since they were all in meetings with themselves.

“We have had complete recoveries in just a few short months,” beamed Mercury.

Other patients don’t do so well despite behavior modification and time spent in stark, spartan cells that they call home. Opportunity for simulated life experience as well as on-the-job training exists on every corner.”

– Tommy Middlefinger

Global Flatulence Threat Undressed

Delta, CO  —  Colorado Bovine Extension Report  —  January 24, 2016

Flatulent cattle are among the earth’s largest contributor to the greenhouse gas quagmire, releasing millions of elastic tons of methane each year.

But Stefan D. Johnson, hyper-physics professor at Colorado Polygamy, thinks he may have found a way to stem the 200 to 400 mega-liters a day that flows from the digestive system of the average field bovine. By comparison a carnivorous person gives off about a liter per day, contributing more to the discomfort of those nearby than to global warming trends.

The world’s cattle, via the gastrointestinal frenzy created by digestive microbes, produced as much as 50 million metric tons of methane each year. Other major producers include sheep, goats, camels, llamas, deer, elk, caribou, oxen, yaks, water buffalo and marmots*.

The methane rises and is converted to carbon dioxide, which acts to prevent solar heat from reflecting back to space, trapping it in the earth’s atmosphere.

Johnson believes that the microbes’ methane production might be slowed by as much as 25% by the addition of antibiotic feed additives that act against certain types of negative bacteria, thereby lessening the impact by up to 37%, without distracting the animals from their business at hand.

In related developments, researchers at the prestigious University of Downtown Delta, confirm that they have taken delivery of a massive shipment of industrial corks for use in shadow agricultural experiments in Roubideau Canyon. Most agree that the installation of the apparatus could significantly reduce leaks, at least within the domestic population.

“The spongy plugs conform to the shape of the focus target, if you catch my drift,” said Johnson who is reportedly developing a machine to do perform more tedious, close-up stages of the operation.

The University of Downtown Delta has received a grant of an estimated $550,000, to insure that all cows understand these procedures and how a little inconvenience now could save a lot of trouble down the road. Rare explosions, noted in an expanded study in Switzerland, will be dealt with quickly and humanely. Counselors are on out in the pasture already ready to reassure any beasts that want to talk.

*Gassy marmots often produce enough methane gas to keep other rodents from squatting in their holes or predators from nosing around for long.

– Maribelle Dipthongue