This is your Community Bulletin for the week of July 16th, 2016. Hello Sir or Madam, I am important political Delegate from tiny nation of Canada. I need your’re help in impotant diplomatic mater, and have heard you are very quite trusting worthy…
Yep, we all get this. The phishing spam that uses a far-fetched story to weed out the intelligent from the easily duped, that bleeds them for as much money as they have with the promise that they will receive a bigger slice of money for their pains. The story makes the news, and we all console ourselves with lines like “Well, you know what they say, ‘You can’t scam an honest person…'” like it were a magic spell against getting a fast one pulled on you. It consoles us that maybe, just maybe, the poor sap deserved it.
But as another old saying goes, “Thinking yourself more clever than the next guy is the first step to being a dupe.”
Last night’s closed-door City Council meeting was amazingly low key. There were more lawyers than locals in the room, looking over the whole bid process, the bids, local concerns, and subtle nuance of millions of pages worth of property law. It seems that state law allows the Mayor to throw out the bids that fail the stink test with not so much as a “thank you, good day sir.” This was a huge relief to Mayor Amundsen, as this pretty much summed up most of the bids that hit his desk.
Two bids of note, which had been extended by law offices on behalf of unnamed parties, seemed particularly fishy. There were hints of stipulations that would be agreed upon later, or indemnities to be carried by the town, or cart-blanche to certain utilities or city resources. The state officials present found these offers fascinating…in the Elliot Ness sort of way. So, happily, those are off the table too.
“This whole thing has just felt off.” The Mayor said, ” So I am glad we could have a reality check. We were able to throw out many of the offers, some for insane amounts of money, but all with the stipulations that we bought them a road or a tax haven with a hot tub.”
This leaves three offers on his desk, all for less than the lien amount, and definitely less than the 403 Remainder balance, but still reasonable offers. “Not as much money as I think a lot of folks would like to see come out of all this headache, but it would unload a lot of liability for the town and may even bring us interesting new neighbors.”
Big Paul reports that he has been running an experiment this week, and the results are hilarious. A few weeks ago he tore down his old wood-fired hot tub and got himself one of these small two-person whirlpool tubs. He didn’t have a lid for it yet, as the one the dealer sold was heavy as hell almost half the price of the tub, so Paul figured he’d just make his own. Well, the first night he went to use the tub, he found half a fish floating in the water. As there aren’t a lot of fish up on the North Ridge, Paul was suspicious this was a prank of some kind. So, he sat up for a couple of nights and waited to see some teenagers screwing around with him. Instead, he saw a bunch of raccoons climb into the tub. Big Paul said “It’s like they were those Japanese Snow monkeys that you see in National Geographic. They looked so relaxed, I just didn’t have the heart to run em off. But yeah, I went back and bought the lid from the hot tub place. The guy really pantsed me on the price, I’ll tell you, but after all this, if the raccoons can lift the lid on that thing, they deserve to have a soak.”
The raccoons have been far less audacious in their hijinks compared to previous years. Elain Keats says this is probably due to the current level of badger activity. “They are competitors after all, and while it’s not a cornerstone of their diet by any means, a badger would never turn its nose up at eating a young raccoon if it were hungry enough.” Whether the badgers have gotten that hungry remains to be seen, but there is some talk among the Council of Old Guys to call up the local trout farm to stock the quarry. “You wouldn’t understand, but it’d be nice to practice my cast and maybe actually catch a real fish,” Art said. ” It’s just not as much fun catching carp from a swimming pool.” The other Old Guys nodded, grunting in agreement.
Teachers at the elementary school are having their first in-service this week in preparation for the coming school year. The main topics will be “I had that kid last year, sorry, but he’s your problem now. Good luck,” and “I hope she’s really successful, grows up, leaves town, and never looks back.” Also on the table are renewing first aid certifications and updating staff food handler permits.
Edna is running a special this week. Waffles will be available open till close. She won a bunch of fancy antique crepe and waffle irons on eBay and wants to put them through their paces before seeing which ones “…are fit enough for service, and which ones are a liability to their pack.”
This issue of The Community Bulletin is made possible by a financial gift from Brother Louis Song, who would like to remind you “of what you already know man, that deep knowledge: the slow dark water of your deepest soul, that stills your anger, and washes your eyes, so that you see that ALL are one, dude, and that which you do to another, good or ill, you do to yourself.”
