Domestic News Bulletins

This just in ... Sadie, the dog, has escaped from the backyard. Her whereabouts are currently unknown, although it is suspected that she is in the vicinity of the neighbor’s garbage cans, because that is where she was apprehended the last time she escaped. Sadie must be considered dangerous to all small animals, and particularly dangerous to small children, as she has been known to steal their candy, cookies, or anything else they may have in their hands when they go to pet her. Do not attempt to apprehend Sadie yourself — please call authorities who know how to lure her with a special whistle, and a handful of hamburger ... In our top story this hour, Tommy, our 17-year-old, has still not completed his term paper on Moby Dick. The deadline for this paper was last Thursday, but his teacher was kind enough to give him an extension because of some sort of double-talking trickery on Tommy’s part, which he refuses to fully explain. However, if he doesn’t turn it in tomorrow, he’ll probably flunk the class and wind up spending the rest of his life deep-frying potatoes at the Burger Barn, according to his mother. We’ll continue to report on this story, with updates every fifteen minutes, as the paper is printed and proofed ... According to an unnamed source, who I’m pretty sure is our next-door neighbor, Alice, the new family that just moved in down the street used to live in Washington, DC, and work for a congressman who recently resigned due to a scandal involving his private parts. Although the source has no information that the neighbors know anything more about this scandal than what we all heard on the news, she is ready to pass along any juicy rumor as soon as she hears it ... In other neighborly news, Bob, the guy across the street who spends most of his life cutting, trimming, feeding, and reseeding his lawn, is taking a vacation to Bermuda. We jokingly suggested that he is going down there to smuggle back some primo Bermuda grass to plant in his yard. He didn’t smile or laugh at the joke, and looked kind of guilty. This leads us to believe the yard will be re-sod (again) in the spring ... In a rapidly unfolding disaster, the basement flooded when the twenty-year-old hot water tank finally cracked and spilled its contents all over the floor, next to the TV. Because the kids have left all their video games and controllers, half-eaten bags of chips, and unfinished homework assignments lying all over the floor, the collateral damage is substantial. Tommy is applying for disaster relief from his History teacher, to try to get the deadline on his World War II report extended (even though the original copy is on his computer, so I don’t know how he expects to get away with this excuse). The upside of the disaster is that all the dirty socks and underwear that have been lying down there for weeks will now be washed and all the old, stale food picked up and thrown out so that we can mop the floor before the plumber comes to give us an estimate that I know will make me cry ... In news from abroad, our oldest son, Lonnie, called to say that he’s stuck at the Los Angeles airport because his flight got cancelled due to bad weather on the east coast, and he doesn’t think it’s fair to ruin his day and his travel plans just because the weather stinks back east. He’s being forced to reroute through Colorado, where he’ll visit his 90-year-old grandfather, who we hope won’t insist on driving and probably taking a wrong turn and winding up in Kansas like the last time we visited ... In sports news, Tommy left his football at the playground again, and it wasn’t there when he went back to get it. So now he’s complaining that he can’t practice, and it’ll be our fault if he doesn’t make the team. His mother says, “Good, I hope you don’t make the team. It’s a stupid sport anyway. If you want to get your brains knocked in, why don’t you just go out for the boxing team? Or dive into the swimming pool when there isn’t any water in it? Why can’t you play tennis, or run track or something that doesn’t involve smashing into 300-pound kids wearing armor?” ... A fire was reported in the kitchen by Rachel, our eight-year-old, who said that she smelled smoke up in her room, and when she came down to investigate, saw her mother throwing water on a smoking pan full of something burnt beyond all recognition. When confronted with this charge, my wife denied all wrongdoing and claimed that she was an innocent victim and that a poorly Google-translated Chicken Fricassee recipe was the cause of the fire. Emergency personnel have been dispatched to the Chinese restaurant to pick up a take-out order.