Malarkey
mə-'l�r-kẹ n. [origin unknown]: insincere or foolish talk

Cicadas and Local Police Reports

October 26, 2004
For those of you who have wondered if I have run away from all of my responsibilities because I�m pregnant with Andy Garcia�s love child, I say: If only. I have been doing something really important with my time: making fun of Ashlee Simpson (pre-SNL incident �la Milli Vanilli) and eating things that are very, very bad for me.

Thanks to several of my coworkers, this weekend I ate red-pepper humus, famous chocolate chip cookies, and chocolate-chip cheese ball dip. What? What is this chocolate-chip cheese ball dip I speak of? It is a recipe of artery-clogging, coma-inducing magic involving cream cheese, powdered sugar, brown sugar, and chocolate chips (among other ingredients). You spread this concoction over graham crackers. Once you can separate your teeth, you thank your genius of a friend for bringing it and beg her shamelessly for the recipe because your thighs could really use some help bulking up for the winter. Yeah.

In any case, I thought I�d mention a few things that I�ve been meaning to share. (I apologize for the painfully obvious delay. I�m never on time. Not even for work.)

This was the year of the cicada. If you don�t know what a cicada is, you don�t like flying bugs the size of Texas, and you have a weak stomach�don�t read any further. Also, don�t follow this link to a cicada website where you can see all kinds of disgusting images. You can probably visit this one, though.

Cicadas are disgusting bugs that burrow into the ground, hibernate for seventeen years, then crawl out and swarm all over the place. They�re hardy but stupid. They have the same sense of direction that moths (the absolute most disgusting insects ever) do. They have no qualms about flying directly into you�over and over and over again. We don�t have cicadas in Colorado. It�s about the only thing that keeps me here.

My friend Breia lives in Ohio, where they do have cicadas. Once every seventeen years, the cicadas swarm and cover the entire state. They pile up in driveways (people have to use brooms and shovels to remove the carcasses) and people have been known to wear beekeeper hats to keep the damn things from clinging to their faces. It�s straight out of a Freddy movie. I�m pretty sure that I would lock myself in the bathroom for an entire month and most likely require long-term hospitalization after this kind of attack. Scientists say that cockroaches are the about the only thing that would survive a nuclear holocaust. I�m pretty sure cicadas would last, too. In any case, Breia endured the cicada insanity and thought it would be fun to send me the following card:


Note the disco-blue auras surrounding the juicy bugs. It�s shocking, I know, but this card is Breia�s sick way of saying, �Hey there. How the hell are you? I�m living in cicadaville.� It is important to know that this is the same person who found out about my irrational fear of moths (this includes butterflies, which I contend are just colorful moths) and decided to send me a card with a wind-up butterfly tucked inside. I opened the card, a paper butterfly came fluttering wildly toward my face, and I dropped to my knees and assumed the position I like to call Rain Man Rocking. Breia and I are close like that.

The next items up for discussion are relatively recent articles I have seen in a local paper. My parents live in a suburb of Boulder, where they get a small neighborhood newspaper. The newspaper�s police report used to consist of things like this:
At 3:30 p.m. on October 3, a teenager opened the mailbox of a house in the 1300 block of Cottonwood Way. The teenager looked inside, closed the mailbox, and left the scene.

Now, the police report consists of things like this:
At 8 p.m. Aug. 28, three adult female exotic dancers were involved in a verbal dispute at a residence in the 12900 block of Grove Way. During the confrontation, one female dancer took another woman's purse. The purse contained $500 cash, a cell phone, four blank checks and a debit card. During the confrontation, one dancer threw a shoe at another one and damaged the shoe. Loss, $700.

I also read a police report about men driving along the highway and pulling over to the side of the road to �have it out with shovels.� Now, who carries a goddamned shovel in their car with them?
Driver #1: �You! Yeah, you! Wanna piece of this?� [Holding up shovel while steering car.]
Driver #2: �Oh, you think you�re a big man just because you have a shovel? I�ll show you! [Holding up his own shovel in a threatening manner.]

Also in the local paper was a blurb about a guy who walked into a Walgreens and took a pack of water balloons up to the counter. He mumbled for the cashier to open the register. The cashier didn�t hear the guy and said, �What?� The man told him to open the register and give him all of the fucking money. The cashier refused. The guy grabbed his pack of water balloons and stormed off without paying for them.
Some people might view this as a bungled robbery attempt. I think he was a guy with six kids who was sick of being nagged to death for lousy water balloons, so he walked to Walgreens and realized he had forgotten his wallet. I think he snapped, and in a moment of weakness, thought he�d just rob the kid in the Walgreens vest. He didn�t have it in him to go through with it (he was probably using his finger in his pocket to look like a gun) so he just took a crummy pack of water balloons to get those kids off of his back. I say give the guy a break. (Note to those carrying on the legacy of Charles R. Walgreen, Sr.: Please stop making employees wear those Teflon-coated pieces of craft-table crap.)
Well, that should cover you for now, kids. Oh, and by the way, I�m actually posting some writing work here.

12:11 p.m. :: comment ::
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