How the water falls and other tales of adventure

A terror stalks us here in this our Great Republic, a nightmare that haunts our every waking hour, a horror that fills the very air we breathe with tension and keeps us all glued to the edge of our seats hoping against hope that this tide of purple prose will come to an end. Yes, somewhere here amidst the amber waves of grain, the purple mountains’ majesties, and the rocket’s red glare, and no, you don’t win anything for knowing that the last bit is from a different song than the first two, there is malicious micturation going on.  Yes, malicious micturation, a crime most vile and heinous and loathsome too, especially if you’re wearing light colored trousers. I bring this disgusting subject up because the University of Florida reports that they have such a fiend stalking one of their campuses and that he has already struck seven or eight times. The effects on the victims and the University’s reputation are, as you might imagine, devastating. Debates have already begun in the Sunshine State as to whether or not the state’s stand your ground laws governing self-defense apply to this case, or whether standing your ground simply makes it easier for the criminal, who, from the police artist’s sketch appears to be a deranged Muppet brought to us by the letter P, to relieve himself on the prospective victim.

These are not easy questions to answer. Not so very long ago, we here in our happy little burg had to deal with just such a maniac.  No one knew who he was or where he came from or even why he chose to urinate on people at all.  In the few moments before he struck, his victims said in their statements to our local constabulary, he appeared to be a highly intelligent and even personable young man. He was tall and thin, the victims reported, clean, articulate, and spoke with no hint of Negro dialect unless he wanted to. Before he struck he would smile and say something to the effect that he thought it would be better for everyone if he spread the wealth around, and then, without a moment’s hesitation, he would urinate on the victim and then run off.

The cops never caught our personable pisser; he struck five or six times and then disappeared completely, leaving everyone in our happy little burg a bit mystified by the whole experience.  Why us, we asked ourselves, why would anyone come here and do something like this to us? And, of course, when would he come back and strike again?

To date, he has not reappeared, but that hasn’t stopped some people hereabouts from taking precautions.  You will probably find more people wearing hip waders and raincoats here on a sunny day than almost any place else in the United States not actively involved in the fishing industry.  People are sort of proud of that factoid, although I’m not really sure why—looking like the road show cast of Captains Courageous is not my idea of a great civic distinction, but the Chamber of Commerce thinks otherwise and who am I to disagree with them?

In any case, people tell me that they’re ready for him should he ever show his face or any other body part here in our happy little burg ever again. The pisser has probably done more to stimulate gun sales here than anyone else in the town’s fairly boring history.  And his vanishing years ago has done nothing to stop our local gendarmes from going all out to catch him. All over town you can see the solar powered micturation towers, towers crammed with new state of the art urine sensors that can detect an illegal excretion from five hundred yards away.  The police brass like to tell everyone that there’s no way the pisser can get away the next time he strikes, but I know some of the guys on the force and they tell me that the towers seldom work because the police dogs pee on the sensors all the time. I’m not supposed to tell people that because it undermines the citizenry’s faith in our local police and also because the cops like to keep the fear of the pisser going. As long as he’s out there the department’s bloated budget stays bloated; nobody turns the cash-cow into a hamburger with a Coke and fries on the side, not unless they absolutely have to and the cops are a long way from absolutely having to, so color me cynical about them catching this oddball any time soon.

 Still, I can’t help but wonder why he did it. You can’t get very far in this life peeing on people; they find it annoying in the extreme. It’s probably got something to do with sex. That’s what Freud said about damn near everything and if I’m not going to disagree with the Chamber of Commerce, who are as admirable a crew of land sharks as you’d ever care to meet in a month of Sundays, then I’m sure as hell not going to disagree with Sigmund. That’s just not going to happen.