Welcome to Forgotonia

Or,

“The epitome of what Tornado Ali hopes to never become.”

Or

….come up with your very own caption and leave it here!

This is (an apparently un-edited) news release which ran in yesterday’s Macomb Journal

Schuyler County Sheriff Don Shieferdecker is warning all Schuyler County residents of the gypsy movement within the next few weeks. According to a press release from Shieferdecker, the gypsies move from the southern states and head north every spring. The gypsy movement from south to north usually occurs during April and May.

During their travels, the gypsies stop at residences and offer home repair, roof repair, yard cleanup, driveway sealing and house painting, among other services. One of their scams is to offer a work service but actually use inferior products at a high price. Residents who are approached by someone other than a local contractor that was called to perform a service should ask to see a driver’s license, get a license plate number and call the Sheriff’s Department at 217-322-4366.

Another scam involves posing as a distressed driver with car problems. According to the press release, past cases show a person stopping in front of a home. The person raises the hood of their car, pours a jug of water over the engine, and then walks to the door of the home to ask to use the telephone to get help. The home resident looks outside, sees the steaming engine, and lets the person into their home to use the phone. While the resident is helping the person find phone numbers, two or more people enter the home and quietly enter the bedroom, carrying out stolen items in a pillowcase. Schieferdecker asks all residents to use caution before opening the door to strangers. Any resident who feels uncomfortable should not open the door and call the Sheriff’s Department at 217-322-4366 for assistance.

I will be meeting C-Nor in Peoria tomorrow night to see the hilarious and delightfully nutty Maria Bamford.

(If you don’t recognize her name, I’m betting you will instantly recognize her face and voice.)

So, in other words, I will be

• driving in the dark to a next-door-to-a-strip-club comedy club,
• on a weeknight,
• to a town an hour-and-a-half-away,
• possibly blowing big bucks on a hotel room afterward so I don’t have to drive back to Forgotonia on a two-laner in the dark.

My priorities are tight, yo.

(But if you are getting older and broker by the day, isn’t laughter an appropriate form of therapy?)

Okay so Hannibal is technically outside “Forgotonia,” but this story from WGEM is so disturbing and funny, I had to post it. From the “Whaaaa?” department:

Multiple arrests made following Hannibal Wing Ding

Posted: Jan 26, 2009 01:44 PM

Updated: Jan 26, 2009 02:47 PM

Wing Ding Arrests

Most Popular Stories more>> Hackers stea local credit card information Pella announces job cuts; asks staff for ‘voluntary reductions’ Economic trickle-down now being felt in Quincy Multiple arrests made following Hannibal Wing Ding Coming Soon: New stores planned in Quincy

Most Watched Videos Hackers steal local credit card information Local soldiers arrive back on America soil A local look at nation layoffs Blagojevich on Today Show Coming Soon: New stores planned for Quincy

First of all, before you read this entry, could you please just remember this very basic but oft-denied fact of life?:

Okay. Now that we have that out of the way:

Thing that can really suck about being from a small town, #149

When you call a plumber to come over because

A) your toilet is clogged again, since freezing temperatures and toilet-flushing-function are apparently somehow related, and your efforts at plunging seem to be making things worse,

B) your washer has water in the bottom and won’t seem to drain out or let you start a new load,

and when the very young and somehow-strangely-familiar-seeming plumber comes over and is standing right in front of you and you look down on the basement floor and see that somehow your washer has come unplugged,

and you realize in that moment that you, effectively, called the plumber to come over and discover that you are totally blond,

and immediately after THAT, when he checks out the toilet and tells you that, [and I quote]:

“It was just a soft plug, that’s all,”

and you realize that “soft plug” is very likely a euphamism,

and he leaves the house and drives away in his white van and you are already reeling from how this 10-minute episode has caused you so much embarrasxment that you are going to need a year’s worth of therapy,

at THAT moment, it dawns on you that the plumber dude, in retrospect, looks a LOT like a kid you once babysat.

That is thing #149.

The other night, I was sitting at the table eating dinner–at 7 p.m. to be exact, and that’s important because it was still bright as day outside–when I heard a scratching at the screen door.

My cat, the divine Ms. Sally O’Mally [who likes to kick and stretch and kick] is constantly using the [nasty-looking] vertical blinds [that I really, really need to clean but don't know how to take down/am too lazy to figure out how to mess with] as scratching posts of sorts, so without looking up from the newspaper I was reading, I swatted in the general direction of the screen door and said, softly, “Knock it off, Sal.”

A few minutes later, it happened again, and again I muttered, “Quit scratching” and did another absent-minded swat.

Finally, the third time, I turned toward the screen door to physically pull the cat off the blinds.

But she wasn’t there.

She was across the room, curled up a chair.

Something was on the other side of the screen door, scratching to get in.

Carefully, I approached the door and pulled back the blinds. And there sat the fattest, most complacent looking raccoon staring up at me from the deck.

“Blehhh!” I hollered, completely startled (and, then, afraid the thing had rabies or something, since it was out so early at night and so unafraid to come up so close).

Then again, word on the street—literally, as in, amongst the few neighbors in my little villa—is that an old lady who used to live here until she died a few years ago used to feed raccoons in the neighborhood.

Not to speak ill of the dead or anything, but… thanks, lady.

Anyway, I clapped my hands and stomped and made other idiotic motions, but it still just sat there, looking at me with big dumb eyes.

This little scene repeated itself a few times, and then the fat little beast lumbered away–and then scurried underneath my deck.

Where I’m afraid it is now living.

Before this episode, I’d already been wondering if there wasn’t something furry trying to make a home a little too close to mine.

Twice this spring I found little piles of swirly-looking poop on the deck, and it was right up against the house, so whatever left it there was obviously feeling comfortable.

Then I found a perfectly paw-sized swoop taken out of one of the pots in which I’m attempting to grow tomatoes. (Last year, something—probably this same little booger, who knows) stole the one tomato I was able to successfully grow.)

I wasn’t that concerned about the raccoon taking up residence under my porch until I mentioned it at work and someone said, “You better hope it’s not a female. You don’t want her having babies down there.”

Another person at work suggested that I place mothballs under the deck. Apparently raccoons don’t like the smell any more than we do when we are given the Guest Linens at Grandma’s.

But now I can’t decide what to do.

First of all, the moth balls I have on hand aren’t really moth balls, but little packets of lavender-scented moth-ball-like tablets. Which, frankly, seem a little too expensive to drop between the slats on my deck.

So do I make a Wal-Mart run for actual, cheap-o, stinky mothballs? Or would it be just as expensive, with gas prices, to run to the store for this, when the lavender ones would be just fine? Is the moth ball trick even going to work?

And aside from my own annoyance with errand-running… I suppose the bigger question is, what if some other, dumber animal tries to eat the mothballs? I’m still feeling guilty enough, as it is, about my recent roadkill incident.

And if something died down there, I’d really be screwed.

Word on the street is that the tornado siren went off in Macomb around 6:30 Sunday morning.

I didn’t hear it, and I didn’t notice that this tree in front of my house was uprooted until after the wind had died down. (Nor does this wrap-up of scary weather from today’s PJ star mention anything going on in Macomb, but there was, yo.)

However, I did experience weather-related drama a few hours before, when, late Saturday night, I had to endure the experience of trying to enter my pitch-black home after midnight, using my cell phone to try to illuminate my way into the house.

Thanks to the lack of windows (and the music*) in Digger’s City College Bowl, none of us taking part in the Saturday-night bowling extravaganza had any idea, until opening the door to Adams Street at midnight and being nearly blown away by sheets of rain, lightning, and wind, that anything was going on outside. (Oh, and btw, thanks but no thanks, once again, to the barflies [whoops I mean distinguished gentlemen] who so politely pointed out the opportunity for an impromptu wet-tee shirt-contest.)

(Just a friendly note of advice: past midnight, on a Saturday night, in a town with a University in it, on the last night of the year that students from said University are out celebrating, and after you’ve had a few bowling-pin shaped beers**, is probably not the best time to roll through a non-functioning stoplight being manned by two cops.

Nor is it a convenient time to come to a completely darkened home and have the munchies.

(Now you know).

* You would not believe the catalog of hair-band hits this place possesses (and plays in what seems to be complete earnest). Seriously, until frequenting Digger’s this semester, I had not heard “Where the Down Boys Go” or “When the Children Cry” since, like, 1989.

**

…instead of being envious of those at Coachella [who get to see Prince, M.I.A., Rilo Kiley, everyone who is anyone, etc. etc.] she thinks,

“ugh… I hate to sweat”

when she sees this picture.

…has been defiled???

From a comment-leaver on a previous post:

“A band of Not-so-Merry Pranksters recently defiled the beloved Titty Tree.”

Say it ain’t so, man, say it ain’t so.

I want to know more.

(Or do I?)

[On a related note, as disturbing as this news was to hear, I was, at least, somewhat relieved to hear that said tree does--er, did--exist. For some reason I can't quite name, har har, I have trouble recalling exact details of the times I was there.]

Late Monday evening, on a walk around campus, I encountered a goose that had wandered past the general perimeters of Lake Ruth, where it lives.

It was directly in my path.

I took a couple steps toward it, but it didn’t move. It was only 2 or 3 feet away. The thing was so big it was was practically up to my waist.

It wasn’t backing down.

I glanced over my shoulder toward Adams Street, hoping none of the college kids cruising by would witness what I was about to do.

I turned around and walked in the other direction.

I lost a game of chicken…to a goose.