However, as I mentioned last week, I have begun to lose the element of surprise now that my fellow reporters are familiar with this weekly ritual. So, to switch things up, I am going to cut the lights seconds before announcing the release of “Skippy,” our wild, blindfolded and slightly rabid squirrel.
Given that our newsroom has no windows, it will be pitch black once I flip the switch.
Here it goes….
*click*
Voice one: “What the… HEY! Something’s on my leg!”
Voice across room: “Mine too! And it’s furry!”
Voice one: “Wait… Ned?!? Is that you?!”
Voice across room: “The squirrel’s over HERE! I can hear it breathing!”
Voice one: “Ned! What are you doing to my leg?!?”
Me: “Um… I’m over here.”
Voice one: “Thennnn what’s hugging my LEG?!? AAAHHEEEEEEE!”
Me: “Ah-HA! We have a winner!”
*click*
My thanks to “Bill,” our vending machine guy, for assisting this morning, although I never said anything about hugging “Amy’s” leg.
In fact, you can let go now, “Bill.”
For those who might be joining us for the first time, this is probably a bit confusing. Possibly overwhelming. Maybe even terrifying. However, after I explain, I promise it will all make perfect sense. At least in relative terms. And by that I mean relative to anything involving a wild, blindfolded squirrel.
In our newsroom we have The Box, which is a collection of unidentified photos that were submitted back in the 1980s and never claimed. Each week, I randomly choose a photo to investigate by dumping The Box onto the floor, then releasing “Skippy.” The photo closest to the first reporter who screams is chosen!
See? I told you it would make perfect sense!
With that said, I will now reveal this week’s photo and once again, utilizing my years of investigative reporting experience, identify its origin and circumstances…
To the untrained eye, this appears to be an ordinary photo of an elderly woman standing in her garage. But thanks to my many years of training and experience, I’ve picked up on some subtle clues you probably missed. For example: if you look closely, you will notice, immediately to her right, there are hundreds — if not thousands — of stuffed animals (I counted). If you missed that don’t be hard on yourself! As a journalist, I am trained to recognize subtle clues like that. Now that I’ve pointed them out, I bet it’s almost impossible NOT to see them, right?!? Bonus points: Did you notice she is actually holding two stuffed animals? If you did, give yourself a gold star; you might have what it takes to be an investigative journalist! If you didn’t, that’s ok! You might be more suited for a rewarding career officiating in the NFL.
As with any investigation, it is critical to establish a timeline to work from in order to narrow down when the photo was taken. In this case my keen eye made it easy. Thanks to a clock mounted to the wall between the window and doorway, I can say with absolute certainty this photo was taken somewhere between 1980 and 1990, exactly at noon.
With my timeline established and knowing there was an unusual amount of stuffed animals involved, I went into our “morgue,” where we keep bound editions of Siuslaw News dating back to the late 1800s, and began looking for any news stories involving those elements…
My dogged pursuit eventually led me to the truth, which is that our “morgue” is ridiculously out of chronological order. I also discovered another ugly truth, which is that the elderly woman, known by the FBI as “Teddy Bear Betty,” was arrested for smuggling bathtub gin across state lines inside stuffed animals, which were then distributed to retirement homes across the U.S. between 1980 and 1990. According to the report, when informed that Prohibition ended in 1933, “Betty” shrugged her shoulders and said, “Well, no one told me.”
Join us again next week for another exciting edition of The Box!
Assuming we can get “Bill” to stop hugging “Amy’s” leg.
(Ned Hickson is a syndicated columnist with News Media Corporation. His first book, Humor at the Speed of Life, will be released this December from Port Hole Publications. You can write to him at nhickson@thesiuslawnews.com, or at Siuslaw News, P.O. Box 10, Florence, Ore. 97439)
Ned's Blog 
Ees eveedence of Sewviet conspeeracy to inwade Oo Ess of A…Rooseean bearz all over palayshal menshun.
In Mokva, vee do not collekt bears…bears collekt us.
That is, without question, the creepiest comment I have ever received…
*blushing*
OK, even creepier… 😉
Is it just a weird coincidence that you commented on my blog today about your stuffed turtle? Hmmm…I sense a co-conspirator here! Best be checking that turtle for gin;)
Haha! The irony wasn’t lost on me! Sadly though, the gin must’ve been lost somewhere along the way… 😉
That was an action-packed episode of The Box.
It’s my secret formula:
Liquor + Elderly = nail-biting action.
That’s really a weird use for stuffed animals. But, that’s just me, and that’s just because all MY stuffies were liquor-free. I think.
Yeah, if you’d found a gin bottle in “Fluffy Bear” you would feel differently.
I wonder if this explains why the stuffing was always coming out of the sloppily-sewn seams of my Bear after we went on that road trip. Things went over my head quite frequently back then…
Don’t forget, you were a lot shorter then…
And the world was bigger…
It just seemed that way because you didn’t have liquor.
Too plausible, Ned.
That’s Imelda Marcos’ sister, Imoldy.
She was ratted out be her other sister, Imtellin
Have a Cheeto for that one. That was good. Or a Dorito.
I just realized I sounded a wee bit Irish in that comment “Ratted out be her other sister…”
I still get a chip though, right?
Only if you take one from the bowl on your editor’s desk.
I’ll be teekin’ me woon then, Laddie.
(That’s the last time I shower with Irish Spring…)
You call your wife Irish Spring?
“Dove,” because she’s hard to catch.
Adds a whole new dimension to dropping the soap in the shower.
LOL! My nickname is Ivory.
LMAO — some day she’ll call you Lava.
Hahahaha! I won’t be concerned unless I find a bar of Caress hidden behind the shampoo.
I can’t wait to see who plays the role of intrepid reporter in the CSI episode re-enacting this story.
There’s word of of resurrecting the “Simon and Simon” cast for a special two-part mini-series. I will have a cameo as the “Sleeping Morgue Librarian.”
It’s all very exciting!
She definitely looks guilty of something! Bathtub gin smuggling sounds about right.
Most of the time your first instinct is the right one 😉
Hiding behind a stuffed toy is the oldest trick in the world for a gin smuggling granny,.
You can see it in her eyes, right?
Yep. Can’t everyone? 😉
Grandma? *cries* All those years I thought the dog was stealing my stuffed animals, it was you and for such a sorted reason, they are all tainted now and probably drunk wandering the streets.
Wait, the stuffed animals or grandmas are tainted and wandering the streets?
Meh, probably both…
in my world it would be both.
mabel c. hornswaggler, hard-core addict of the ever-popular claw game, invites an undercover reporter posing as a fellow addict, into her collector’s cavern, (in a secret, undisclosed location) to show off a bit of her haul.
I don’t know how you did it, but that was the actual cutline beneath the photo in the newspaper.
Word-for-word.
I’m impressed…
mad psychic skills
…is it me, or…..do you jsut have an entourage of acdc shirts?
I was a late bloomer when it came to appreciating ACDC, so I’m trying to make up for it 😉
im hoping you have more than 2? for deo sakes…
on a side note, i saw a staff on the side of the road today. i instantly thought of you. im in hopes you are still intact….you know..by that I mean, limbs.
Oddly, our editor called for a staff meeting and I thought of you. I don’t know what that means…
…was it a long meeting?
It felt like the same point was being drive in again and again and again…
…was it concerning batteries?
Street repairs and jackhammering.
oh. heavy duty….
I KNEW those three bottles over the monkey’s right shoulder were Moonshine!!
They aren’t Evian, that’s for sure! 😉
I might be crazy, but I admit that large quantities of stuffed animals freak me out. All those eyes…
It’s like nutcrackers. One by itself is ok. But a whole table of them or nutcracker collection? It just looks creepy.
All of the stuffed animals are staring at her!
That is just creepy, all that’s missing is a UFO parked outside with a green alien head peering in from outside the window….
By the way, you have a very keen eye 😉 lol
As I told someone, too many of something always gets creepy. Nutcrackers, stuffed animals, snowmen, hamsters… get more than 20 and things begin to get unnerving.
LOL! You know what, that is completely true! 😀 I never feel comfortable when my “friend” sticks me in his guest room with all his toys from when he was a kid… too many old raggedy looking clowns and other human looking toys always have me running to his room…
now that I think about it, he may be doing this on purpose.
Because I am a man, and know how men think… yes, there is a method to his madness 😉