From the Crow’s Nest
by CLINT YOUNTS

I have been asked on numerous occasions where I come up with ideas for this beloved column. Some mistaken fans actually believe I’m a brilliant, imaginative writer, but they probably neglected to take their dose of Prozac. The truth to my madness is my skull is largely a half-empty vacuum, ready to suck up every bit of bizarre news I hear. My ears, which essentially are the portals to psychosis, filter out uninteresting talk of politics, professional basketball and other boring crapola. But if there’s some story about the discovery of an apeman wearing a prom dress up in the Ozarks, it gets sucked into my cranium like a hairball into an Electrolux. From there, the news item sits and festers like a boil on a mule’s butt until I find time to sit behind this here PC.

On some occasions when there’s nothing new fermenting in my cerebral caldron and my beer fridge is nearly empty, I have to resort to searching for something to write about. Most legitimate newspapers don’t include stories about Elvis sightings or chupacabra attacks unless they occur at the local Dairy Queen, so I have to dust off my reporter hat (just because it has “John Deere” printed on the front doesn’t mean it’s not my reporter hat), and I go searching the internet for the interesting stories. Here are a couple of tidbits of tantalizing trash that you might’ve missed.

There’s this fella up north in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin who was arrested for attending real estate open houses in the Milwaukee area and stealing women’s underwear out of their dresser drawers while he posed as a potential home buyer. The panty raider was caught red-lacy-handed by some realtors and turned over to the police. Now, here’s where the story gets bizarre.

This thong thief, 58, told officers he was taking the items because he missed his ex-wife. He said he had about 50 more pairs at the home he lived in with his parents. Now, I’m no Dr. Phil, but I speculate that the reason that he has an ex-wife in the first place is due to his living with his parents, and, instead of having a healthy hobby like solving crossword puzzles, the guy steals ladies’ undergarments. Now, that ain’t right, not even in Wisconsin. I doubt any panties robber exists down here in rural Texas because there’s no telling what you’ll find in the dresser drawers of some gals ‘round these parts. Would the Wauwatosa wacko be happy stealing a pair of size 48 cotton drawers out of Bubba Jo Sue’s lingerie chest? That might be enough to straighten out that guy.

And did you read this story? It actually made the Austin paper, but was tucked down in the corner of a sports page next to a Levitra ad. Some corn-fed fan at a Kansas City Royals game back in September was struck in the face by a hotdog tossed by the Royals’ mascot, Sluggerrr. The black-eyed fan is now suing the Royals organization for causing him to have a detached retina and cataracts. Now, I’m no Dr. Oz, but I suspect that this Kansas fella already had vision problems prior to the accident. If you can’t see a hotdog flying towards your face, I think you may need to see an optometrist. How hard is it to dodge a soaring sausage? The plaintiff claims Sluggerrr threw it behind his back and “lost control of his throw.” Dude, if you saw the throw, why didn’t you duck? Were you trying to catch the lobbed link in your mouth and misjudged the trajectory? A fried pickle I can understand, but not a fat hotdog. You’d have a better chance of winning a lawsuit if you claimed the stadium food gave you high cholesterol.

I hoped these two stories opened your eyes at the real problems in this country. Sure, the economy is bobbing like a cork in a cesspool of greed, and there are plenty of crazy cowards crashing planes into buildings or shooting innocent school kids, but just when you think people can’t get any crazier, I have to write about these two idiots. America has been given the metaphor as a “melting pot” of different races and heritages. I believe our nation is more like a can of assorted nuts.

rockytop78640@yahoo.com