Okay, Who's Got a Stamp?

Dear Mr. McCorkle,

Thank you first of all for submitting your proposal, and your patience while the committee deliberated. We can appreciate your desire to bring this matter to a conclusion, especially with the people in the house wounded to various degress, slowly going insane with fear, and your very life possibly at risk. What we did was analyze situations similar to yours as depicted in thirty years' worth of horror films, true first person anecdotes, and floorplans of various crawlspaces around the world to compile a database from which experts in the field of crawlspace investigation drew up a statistical profile of the results of past moments when someone decided to track a mysterious thumping sound up there. We're sorry to say that the numbers are not indicative of a pleasant outcome to your specific scenario. Three different computer simulations suggest there is a 94 percent chance that the lifting of the board which will reveal the heretofore unknown area above your ceiling will result in the ghoulish death by supernatural forces of every remaining person in your household within sixty minutes, with a 22 percent chance that you and your family will have your bodies turned inside out (see Data Table F-4). While this may happen anyway, our data shows that if you refrain from the slightest peek into the crawlspace, you will at least have made the phantasmagorical terrors above you do some legwork to track you down before having their accursed way with the souls of you and yours. In the haunted house field, we call this a "Lose-lose" situation and recommend that the priest within your group---whose recent attempted exorcism of the child's doll you mentioned in your cover letter is most likely responsible for the demonic orgy of horror you are currently ensnared in, if Graph A-3 is accurate to within even four percentage points---administer last rites to all as you cower in the northeast corner of the basement. Please note for the future that advance knowledge of a spooky crawlspace within your home provides a twenty percent increase in survival chances against vengeful ghosts, though our guidelines still suggest that living on a single level, without stairs, and vacating your house every night when the sun goes down are still the surest ways to avoid the costly unpleasantness of a mind-ripping, throat-clawing fatal haunting.

Happy Holidays from Ellsworth Haunting Solutions! Please confirm your billing address below and use the prepaid envelope to send payment, making sure to write your phone number on your check.

Sincerely,
The Staff

The Descent

I suppose things could be worse---well, maybe they couldn’t be worse. In fact, if you want to call a chicken a chicken, this is probably the absolute lowest point that can realistically be reached. I guess what I’m not seeing is how we got to this point. When I originally suggested temporarily adding a thirty-second flavor to Baskin Robbins’ lineup as part of a new marketing campaign (“We’re busting out all over---with flavor!”), I expected a little opposition from some old-timers, sure, but nothing more than that. Honestly, the 77 percent decline in our stock, the dozens of lawsuits, and the necessity for a bankruptcy filing came as a pretty big surprise. That the company would be forced to shut down entirely in only five months’ time? Yeah, that too. But where my imagination seems to be really failing me is taking it from that point to where we are now. I mean, please whiteboard for me how this caused the collapse of the American economy, a doubling of the crime rate, and the forced evacuation of thirteen major cities? And if you have the time---and I know you do, since the unemployment rate somehow stands now at 82 percent---could you please, very slowly, take me through the steps to show me how adding Mocha Ripple to the Baskin Robbins flavor lineup led to packs of wild dogs completely taking over the streets of Detroit, Baltimore, St. Louis, and Providence, heroin addiction skyrocketing, and the President rescinding the Declaration of Independence? It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. When a poll of American citizens reveals that their number one daily concern has changed from “saving for retirement” to “being eaten by another human being,” and the addition of a single tub of ice cream to the display case at a handful of Sacramento-area Baskin Robbins locations is blamed by scholars, the media, and every significant world government as the initial domino that set this whole horrific chain of events in motion, I’m not ashamed to tell you that I’ve completely lost the plot here.

You know what the part that most baffles me is? How all of a sudden, in the midst of a national catastrophe more nightmarish than any in history, ABC is making new episodes of Barney Miller. Not that I’m not grateful, but you’d think now that the airwaves have gone dead with all the signal satellites having been brought down by terrorists, and with the Internet being cut off under martial law, the people in Hollywood would be scavenging for food and a reliable source of heat like everyone else instead of shooting new Barney Millers on scavenged Super-8 film and projecting it in church basements. But hey, any excuse to get Max Gail back in front a camera. You want to go see one tonight after you finish looting that Hanes outlet store? Dietrich arrests the Phillies’ mascot!

Police Report, 10/26/09

Officer Faceworthy arrived at 400-L McLemon Industrial Park Drive to find three men standing in the parking lot of Business Center Plaza. Each was holding a big metal letter N under no small amount of strain and effort. The first man Office Faceworthy approached was Lemuel Lipps, owner of National Air Compressor Calibrations. Mr. Lipps was holding the N from the sign hanging over Foosball Suppliers of Sodstown, owned by Mr. Ronald Glackney, and threatening to smash it on the pavement. Mr. Glackney, meanwhile, was holding the N from the sign hanging over The Scented Hammocks Warehouse and threatening to smash it on the pavement while Mr. Hamish Valtz, that particular operation’s proprietor, held Mr. Lipps’ N precariously, also in an angry state and making suggestions that he would destroy the N. Each man seemed very serious in their agitation and their intent to smash each other’s Ns if they did not receive an immediate and satisfying resolution to their respective demands. Officer Faceworthy, however, despite lengthy conversations with each man, was unable to pin down exactly what it was each wanted from the other. This tense standoff went on for six and three-quarters hours with other units arriving on the scene every fifteen minutes and hostage negotiators brought in. At 8:13 p.m., Mr. Valtz was seen to knock his own sign’s N from Mr. Glackney’s hands, smashing it on the pavement. When Mr. Glackney and Mr. Lipps witnessed this shocking act, they realized that any man who was insane and dangerous enough to smash his own N was to be mortally feared, and as they trembled, Valtz quickly destroyed the other Ns. He was booked by Officer Faceworthy back at headquarters, his newborn legend riding in his wake of terror. Mr. Glackney and Mr. Lipps briefly grieved for their Ns before vacating their places of business, never to return. While in his holding cell, Mr. Valtz grinned strangely and whispered, “The time of Hamish Valtz has come.” He was fined $50 and released under his own cognizance.

Because Officer Faceworthy worked seven minutes beyond the end of his shift, he is making a formal application for overtime. Due to budget cuts, please ask Officer Faceworthy if he will instead accept a box of six (6) Safeway-brand sugar cones in lieu of pay.

The Fourth Wall Comes Down! Sort of.

A BLOG BONUS: Today’s post features grading notes from Mrs. Robisher, my 8th grade English teacher!

I know the statistics are truly damning---fourteen friends, fourteen comptrollers. (nice vocab!) But I swear, things have just shaken out that way. No one goes through life trying to amass a bunch of comptrollers as friends, but this is what’s (make this ‘what has’) happened, and I make no apologies for it. It’s like (make this ‘as if’) every time I turn around, I’m accidentally staying in the same hotel as a comptrollers’ convention, or I’m at a wedding and somebody says, “Hey, I heard you’re in good with comptrollers; let me introduce you to my nephew, the comptroller”, or my do-nothing agent is sending me on a cattle call to be an extra in yet another movie about comptrollers (Are there really many movies about comptrollers? Research this), and suddenly another one’s sticking to me like glue. I thought I was out of the woods on my vacation and talked sports with the guy who repaired my jet ski, then asked him if he wanted to have a beer and scope out the chicks (Change this to unmarried ladies---this is crude!) since he knew all the good local places to go. So there we are, shooting the bull for a couple of hours, and it turns out he’s from East Whippany, and we decide to hit (Change this to 'attend') a Nets game later in the month, when BAM! he tells me he’s only a mechanic during the summer and the rest of the year he’s a comptroller. Damn! (Delete!) There must be something about me that attracts comptrollers, is all I can say. (What would that be? Needs more detail) I used to have an ombudsman thing going about ten years back, but thank God that faded. (You seem to be losing focus here) I just didn’t know what to talk about with them, even though I knew nine of them. They were pretty much my entire friends group in Shappahannock. In fact, they used to call us The Nine Ombudsmen and Tim. We owned the 117th Street Denny’s, I’ll tell you that. (How is that related to your original thesis?)

What I’d like is to start getting to know some coopers. I could really see myself hanging with people who make wooden barrels, casks, and buckets. Couldn’t you? (Why is that? Insufficient background provided) I’m just trying to avoid another crazy moment like last month when my girlfriend of two years looks at me and says (You have a verb tense problem here!) “Wait…you’re judging what cheese today? I thought you were a comptroller since you never hang out with anyone else. You’ve been a fromager all this time?” Comptroller by association, that’s just great. Do I ever say to her, “Since you know so many cicerones, you must be a cicerone”? (I am not familiar with this term.)

(You need a stronger ending and perhaps a stronger beginning and middle. Look into a new concept as well, and clean up your to-be verbs. A decent start, worthy of a check-minus.)

Channel 149, Tuesday, 2:15 a.m.

Sometimes when life gets you down, there’s really only one place to turn where you can feel safe, secure, and welcome. It may not be everyone’s favorite place to be, but why not check it out when times get tough? Instead of acting out, consider custody!

People who have been there will tell you about the calm they felt and the sense of relief that came when they checked into custody for a while. It was in custody that they got the time and the quiet to evaluate their choices and maybe even forge a better life. Don’t believe us? Ask your friends who have had a taste of being in custody!

Maybe you know that temporarily confused someone who committed a crime, or simply lost their way to the point where they became a danger to themselves and others. Three out of four people who have been in custody say they think they’ll be in it again at some point---so what are you waiting for? Why go through the embarrassing charade of an arrest when you can come in on your own terms? If you haven’t talked to a law enforcement officer about custody yet, become one of the millions of Americans who have experienced the custody difference. It’s how we keep our country safe---and keep you on your feet!

Paid for by the Circuit Court of Michigan

Custody is not affiliated with physician-assisted suicide

Another Million Dollar Idea Turns Odd

Welcome, dear readers, to a revolutionary new system of rating films. The Soren Narnia Cinematic Color Coordinator tracks each consecutive minute of my movie-watching experience and translates it into a particular color according to how I felt about the movie during that sixty second stretch!

GREEN – The movie’s going over great!
RED – I’m a little confused!
BLUE – Well, at least the movie is making me think!
YELLOW – Uh-oh, I’m not entertained!

This week’s review:
What Women Want starring Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt (127 minutes)


Next week’s review: Hostel 2!

Oh, Oh, It Might Have Been

It was a memorable time while it lasted, I’ll tell you that---a strange, kind of magical feeling that just washed over me one summer day out of the clear blue sky. It hit me just as I was coming out of Seven Eleven with orange Gatorade and sunflower seeds and was sitting down at one of the two white plastic tables that Ammar the morning manager had set out on the sidewalk back in May. At first I couldn’t identify the feeling, and thought for a moment that I was still a little high from the joint I’d done three hours earlier. But then I realized that the moment had simply come, and for six straight minutes, I was finally in the mood to watch Fried Green Tomatoes.

I guess there’s no telling what might have happened if in that moment I had been in a video store or flipping through the channels at home and noticed that Fried Green Tomatoes could be rented on Pay-Per-View for $1.99. The sad fact is, I was at Seven Eleven and in no position to do anything about it. So I tried my best to enjoy the feeling while it lasted, and appreciate it for what it was. How long I had dreamed of the day when I’d find myself in the mood to finally watch Fried Green Tomatoes! And suddenly it was on top of me. I could picture the movie poster in my mind, and for no reason I could put my finger on, I found myself not having anything in particular against Jessica Tandy or Kathy Bates. I remember thinking, “It was kind of a hit when it came out….it might be something to talk about with Grandma…hell, why not?” And then, just as quickly as it had come, the mood to watch Fried Green Tomatoes faded like gossamer on the breeze. I was left with half a gallon of orange Gatorade and a sixteen ounce bag of sunflower seeds and no interest at all in watching that thing. No one had even been around to witness the moment.

Now it’s years later, and sometimes these days I think about those six minutes and I both smile and feel sad at the same time. There might come a day when lightning strikes again, but as I get a little older I feel that life has lost just a little bit of its capacity to amaze, and that brief brush with the directorial work of Jon Avnet (Up Close and Personal, 88 Minutes) just isn’t ever going to be duplicated. If anyone even mentions Fried Green Tomatoes in the course of conversation I tend to tune them out, wondering why anyone would ever want to watch that Mary Stuart Masterson-ridden piece of crap. But late at night, when I’m alone, it kind of feels like a whirlwind summer fling once lifted me up and set me back down again, somewhat wiser than I was before…or did I lose a tiny part of myself forever? I’m reminded of some immortal lines from Robert Frost: “I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence / Two roads diverged in a wood, and I / I took the one less traveled by / and that has made all the difference.” I guess in this case the road less traveled is the one with people who have never watched Fried Green Tomatoes.

It’s not at all like the time I got the urge to get into bowhunting. That was just a big bloody weekend mess, and the mayor still has a little limp because of it, which he’s kind of bitter about. He keeps having my garbage pickup cut off. Can he do that?