Fringeville #203: “…well, you go right ahead!"

(I don’t usually put things I post to social media on Fringeville. This is an exception.)

I never received the first Quarter Sewer/Rain Tax bill from WVSA. The other day I got one giving me until 6/5/19 to pay $138.80 without penalty for the first and second quarters.

$28.80 is for rain, which as we all know is now an EPA-mandated chargeable event. (We will probably eventually be charged for the amount of greenhouse gases we either exhale or toot, and for the latter I may need a second mortgage.)

We will also get to pay for rain through county and school taxes.

Have a landlord? They got whacked, so you will too.

The rain tax is the gift that keeps on giving. There will be a tiny little piece of it in everything you buy because, well, it rains on the parking lot where your grocery store is, or the lot where you buy your clothing. If it rains on it, you will be whacked for it, whether you know it or not.

This is going to become a national issue next year during the Election. I don't think it can wait that long. This is an unfunded mandate screaming for an Executive Order to stop it in its tracks.

All it takes for that to happen is a pen, a phone, the will and the courage to bring them all to bear.

* * *

I’m driving home the other day, and I’m pulling up to the all-way stop near my house (the one the most drivers consider a mere suggestion to be ignored with impunity) when I quickly put on the brakes.

A bizarre animal was walking in circles in my lane. It was a big, fat creature with brown fur and an oddly-shaped white head. I looked again and (having a Star Wars moment) said to myself: “…that’s no head!”

It was a paper cup, stuck firmly on the face of a woodchuck. Thankfully for the pitiful, panicked creature, no one was around to run a stop sign. He did several circles then took off in a straight line and ran head-first …umm, cup-first …into a stone wall. The cup popped off. He gave it one last disgusted sniff then turned and dashed back across the road, disappearing into thick underbrush.

I was happy he made it out of his dilemma alive, but it got me to thinking just how much a woodchuck with a cup on his head is like our Congress. Congress runs in circles, has no idea where it is going, and when it runs headlong into an immovable object it turns around and runs home as fast as it can to fundraise. (Congress works exceptionally hard at going nowhere, but in all honestly a cup-blind woodchuck moves faster.)

Congress must do something from time to time, because we keep sending most of them back every election. Maybe we figure that if Congress is going in circles like that poor woodchuck, they’re too busy chasing their own rear ends to do us any harm.

We’re wrong, of course, because sooner or later someone runs a stop sign and flattens the woodchuck or occasional member of Congress. Guess who gets to clean that mess up.

...I'm sticking to the frigging roadside beer cans from now on...

* * *

I’ve given a lot of thought to the three most likely ways I’ll die:

1. The obvious:  A chicken wing lodged in the throat or an important artery.
   
   
2.  At the hand of a mischievous Almighty with a wicked sense of humor: As soon as I manage to lose ten pounds, I’ll be the only earthling struck and killed by a chicken-wing-shaped meteor.
   
   
3. An act of utter stupidity: I’ll say I’m going to do something that I know rubs the missus the wrong way. She’ll just smile and say,  “…well you go right ahead.”
   
   This is every married man’s most dangerous moment.
   
   (It was OK to write this one. I told her I was going to do it, and she said, “…well you go right ahead.”).

* * *

Be good to each other. And brake for woodchucks.

* * *