Subject: Manse Diaries: How Not to Find a Crack House

Date: 26 Mar 1998 00:00:00 GMT

From: nospamum@radix.net (MegaLiz)

Organization: MotPU: Where Binary Moodswings are ALWAYS on the Menu

Newsgroups: alt.foot.fat-free, alt.slack

Since this same sort of scenario keeps playing out all over me, I have

decided that it must be something about my pstench. It apparently has

a touch of wispy vulnerability that brings predators in close, but

once they are near me they lose their nerve when they get a taste of

the actual UNDERTOE of SUBGENIUS. Then again, maybe I just LOOK like I

would just as soon kill them and be polite. I dunno.

Today, after I had loaded up the wriggly girl people to DRIVE to a

playground with better STUFF, a man poofed into existence beside the

van. This in itself was enough to piss me off.

He started off politely enough but immediately started to LIE about

how he was "a...uh...private investigator" and was investigating the

house on the corner to find out if there was "uh...unusual activity,

like it might, like, be a crack house." He was wearing camouflage

pants, a tee shirt, red suspenders, a two-day beard and had a zombie's

attitude and an otherworldly sense of what might make a plausible

conversation starter. He fiddled with a piece of paper and a key while

he spoke.

Since I already had the car started and was IN it, I just kept my grip

on the shift and was perfectly willing and ready to inflict maximum

toe damage if he got any closer. "I haven't noticed anything over

there. Now EXCUSE ME, I'm running late so get away from my car."

He mumbled some Dragnetesque phrase like, "Thanks for your

cooperation, ma'am," as I drove away slowly. I watched to see if he

got in another car, but he appeared to be driving a double-parked tow

truck. He must have been an Agent of Joey's Tow, the Super Secret Arm

of the Drug Enjoyment Agency.

I was REALLY furious. I don't CARE if people want to smoke crack and

die quietly in my neighborhood. I REALLY REALLY DON'T GIVE A TWO

SECOND SHIT. I do NOT, however, want BIG STUPID MEN to hover around me

in my own front yard because they forgot how to get there. I AM NOT

THE FUCKING CRACK HOUSE TRAFFIC COP. Sure, I could have pointed him to

a drug dealer, I'm pretty sure that those folks over THERE are

peddling something, but the only trouble we've seen is that they take

up too many parking spaces and don't mow their grass much.

I SPED to the police station, and I really HOPED that I'd get pulled

over just to save time, because I wasn't going to get any more

punctual for my play date. Naturally, I got to the station without

seeing any police, and had to ring a bell to get in there.

The door was opened by a standard issue trooper, who apologized for,

but insisted on wearing his standard issue shades throughout the

conversation. I gave him a DETAILED description of the zomboid, the

location and the conversation. Bobo crowed her version of events at

him from my lap, while Spunky wrapped herself around the base of my

chair. When I told him that I KNEW that the private investigator story

was bullshit, Officer Trooper smiled very broadly and showed off a

full set of braces, which shattered his badass image just a teeny bit.

"They would never act like that," he said, "you would never even

NOTICE a real private investigator." I knew that. I used to work with

fifty retired FBI men who did private investigations, and yes, they

really do all look alike, and yes it IS possible to individually NOT

NOTICE fifty men.

So, as it happened, Mr. Trooper was too busy to run right over and Mr.

Zomboid was probably pretending to be a paper boy with some elderly

neighbor, "Yeah. I've got, like, this free delivery for the nearest

CRACK HOUSE, Mrs...um...M-Moogferson..."

I felt a lot better after we played on the swings and had our

ceremonial playmate pizza place takeover, but I am NOT going to forget

this. The next one will not even get a chance to SPEAK.

Why do crackheads have to be so STUPID? Do they lose the ability to

appreciate simple technology like the PHONE? If *I* needed drugs that

badly, I'd make sure I at least had a drug sniffing DOG, for

chrissakes.

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"I would say DUH! when you say that, except that you told me

that's rude. So can I just whisper "duh" instead? Really quietly?

Would that be okay?" -Sparky

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