Welcome to New Hampshire: A Moving Story

My first roommate in graduate school, I’ll call him McRoomie, had the most harrowing moving experience of all time. McRoomie was one of the sweetest, most mild-mannered people I’ve ever met. He had served in the Peace Corps. He liked children. I actually saw him help a little old lady across the street. I never saw him get mad, even when perhaps he should have. So the fact that this happened to him makes it all the more incredible to me.

McRoomie moved from Georgia to start his graduate studies in New Hampshire. He packed up all his stuff into one of those yellow moving vans and headed to the Granite State with joy in his heart. He smiled as he crossed the New Hampshire border. He paid the toll at the toll booth and thanked the toll taker for taking his money. He drove under an underpass on the highway. On the bridge were a dozen state troopers, with guns. Pointed at McRoomie. This freaked McRoomie out, but perhaps this is the New Hampshire way, he thought.

Not two seconds later, his yellow moving van was surrounded by even more state troopers. Confused, he pulled over, even using his turn signal to do so. A trooper ripped open the door, pulled him out of the car, while a number of other cops trained their guns on him. Slammed up against the moving van, with a gun against his head, the troopers screamed at him. A couple of others ripped open the moving van door and started searching. McRoomie nearly pissed himself with fear. He was so scared that he didn’t even think to question why this was happening to him.

Less than a minute later, the cops searching the van hopped down and said, “It’s not him.”

Down went the guns, away went the cops. The trooper who had frisked him threw his wallet back at him, saying, “Welcome to New Hampshire.”

Quaking in his boots, McRoomie drove very slowly to his new home. It wasn’t until a week or so later that he learned that someone using a yellow moving van had robbed an armored car, killing the driver and his companion (a crime that was never solved).

Christmas Horror, Or Today's Tackiest Item Is . . .

Just hear those sleigh bells jingleing, ring-ting-tin-gle-ing too,
Come on, that Yuletide Stalker is coming after you
Outside the snow is falling and you are screaming “Yooo hoo!”
Come on, that Yuletide Stalker is coming after you.

This book is billed as an INSPIRATIONAL ROMANCE. Seriously. Stalking as romantic? This is why I don’t buy holiday gifts.

The Shining Drunken Rodents

Rodents, Mean and Drunken

Somehow the comments on my post about the demise of the pink flamingo turned to squirrels and rodents in general (oh, and politics, but I suppose that falls under the “rodents in general” category). Well it just so happens that squirrels (well, specifically one squirrel) and rodents (specifically, mice) have made the news lately. I thought I’d share.

I am from the devil and I will attack anyone
who dares deliver mail on my turf

Mean Squirrel Attacks Pennsylvania Letter Carrier
My favorite quote from this story, “We not issuing a squirrel alert…” What, exactly, is a squirrel alert, and how would one issue it? “Mayday, Mayday, squirrel spotted in Mr. Jones’s yard…Wait, nope, now it’s up the tree… Now it’s down the tree… Oh, damn, it’s just crossed the street and is eating an acorn in Mrs. Smith’s shrubbery. Will someone please get down here ready to run the critter over then next time it makes a break for it?”

Wine Keeps Fat Mice Happy, Healthy
In a new study, fat mice were given extraordinarily high doses of a chemical found in wine. Apparently this allowed the obese mice to stave off the health effects of fat micehood, and doctors think that this might be the magic bullet for fat Americans. Just what we need, super-sized plonk served at McDonalds. In any event, I guess that if all else fails in my life, I’ll just drink massive quantities of wine and take to my snacks. I’ll live to be 150 and laugh wickedly at all you poor saps who died young and svelte.

The Shining

Come type with us

Robyn waxed nostalgic for typewriters in her latest post. While commenting on her blog, I looked over and saw an example of my own typing. Last fall, the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, showed a revival of The Shining during a Stanley Kubrick retrospective. It was a grand good time, and apparently I was impressed enough by the “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” exercise that I tried one of my own on the office typewriter (which, by the way, is only used for the occasional out-of-date form and doesn’t work terribly well). I think you’ll see why I’m grateful for modern technology (although the soothing bell and clickety-clack are beautiful things).

Happy Halloween

I took this photograph while on a walk
in Meredith, New Hampshire, in 1995.

I didn't look inside.

I have the stuff to make magnets out of it. One of these days, I'm going to sell them.