Toole Kicked Upstairs

(Washington) Longtime associate editor at the San Juan Horseshoe, Melvin “Breakfast Meat” Toole, was promoted Thursday although close friends say even he “can read between the lines” as to the paper’s intentions.

Toole himself had little coherent comment. He is supposedly overwhelmed with mindless and unnecessary administrative duties and cannot be contacted for comment.

“Getting kicked upstairs is better than downstairs,” laughed Toole, gesturing toward his groin area, as rabid supporters rallied in the streets below his once lavish, now all but abandoned balcony.

A former high wire legend, the scribe, who once toured with he famous Flying Farcheezies, has a chronic fear of heights, and did not appear on his familiar 14th story precipice. In a letter smuggled out of Horseshoe offices in a baby carriage Toole, 101, said the he sees his reassignment to a 16th story cubby hole as harsh and punitive.

“They are virtually trying to force my retirement but I still have a few good years left,” he whined. “Who will refill the water cooler and keep lead in the electric pencils when I am gone?” he lamented. “Who will call out for Chinese food and write irrelevant quotes on the bathroom walls? Who will decide which cartoons to watch on Saturday mornings?”

Refusing to be driven out of journalism but sitting glumly at his antique waterboard desk Toole said of his superiors: “First I got the cold shoulder then the lukewarm stares, then the pointy-boot.”

The restructuring comes at a difficult time for the newspaper which has just received news that it will be banned from reporting politics here until things warm up.

“That leaves dog shows and county fairs,” said one former proof-reader. “That’s not the stuff of greatness,” she said.

– Billy Mosca