RUBBERY SHRUBBERY Post 50
This is the Rubbery Shrubbery blog, where you’ll learn how Yachats (YAH-hots), Oregon, acquires a Major League Baseball franchise. To learn more about Yachats (“Baseball Capital of the World”) and its inhabitants—called Yachatians (yah-HAY-shuns)—please go to this page or go to GoYachats.
Today’s entry in the RS blog was supposed to be written by Tyler Macaroon, but he is busy right now, taking care of a traffic ticket. In his stead we have our old reliable Wumpy Mugwump who has never gotten a traffic ticket. He will review some of the comments our astute readers have emailed to us.
Electrons Amuck!
by Ashwagandha C. “Wumpy” Mugwump
This is reliable old Wumpy standing in for Tyler who at this moment is serving time for an unspeakable traffic violation. In case you don’t know, the speed limit through downtown Yachats is 25 mph. And there’s a pedestrian crosswalk as well. A word to the wise—those stocks in front of the empty lot where the blacksmith’s shop used to be aren’t there for decoration. Just kidding! If you have a chance, please stop by and say hi to Tyler who’s out there somewhere doing community service.
I was intending to hold a crucial press conference today, and Tyler was supposed to be doing the event’s coverage, but things don’t always work out. We’ll get along without Tyler well enough—that’s not the problem. It’s a darn email message that’s done it…has me so discombobulated I’ll need to postpone the confab with the press until I can think straight again.
The message reads, “Dear Mr. Mugwump, my client is dead sure you’re the daddy of her recently born kid. She wants you to own up to your responsibilities, and I say, Right on! So, how about it? You gonna own up or what? Signed ‘Lawyer Lady’. P.S. Please send photocopy of your driver’s license to verify yourself.”
Well, that was so ridiculous I decided to dignify it with a sharply worded rejoinder, thusly: “Dear Lawyer Lady, I’m dead sure this is a case of your client confusing me with some other paternity guy named Ashwagandha C. Mugwump. This has happened to me before. A number of times, in fact. Please tell your client don’t feel bad. Perfectly understandable mistake. Signed ‘Not the paternity guy of this instance’.”
Then I sent the lawyer lady a photocopy of my driver’s license, and she wrote back and said sorry for the confusion. She said obviously no one would want her kid to be paternaled by that. So the matter is settled, but it shook me up, I can tell you. I’m in no condition to do the press thingy.
So, to fill the resultant dead space, I thought you might like to read some of the more colorful email messages we receive here at the Smelt headquarters. The first one is an example of the kind we receive by the score daily.
Aboo Ben Adam, Lawyer
ONE KNIGHT’S SQUARE,
Nuikandi, EGAD20, Nigeria
Phone: 666-63458873
Good day, Sir or Madam,This is VERY personal email directed at you and I request it be treated
as such. I am Aboo Ben Adam, law solisiter. I am persanal
attorney/sole executater to the late Mr. Bartholomew, hereinafter referred
to as “my cliennt who worked as rich indpndent oil magnet in my Contry”
and wh o died in car crash with his imediate family on the 4th of
oct,2008. Since my client’s death in OCt, 2008, I write
many letters to Embasy with intent to locate any extended
relations that shall be claimunts/beneficeries of his abandoned persnal
estate and all such efforts have not been availed.Now I sit on this 4.8 million U.S.D. and I decide to find credible personage and finding you bear similar name, I decide to ask if you’d like to have the money? If yes pleas send me yoursocial security numer, name, and bank information. Plees cklik here to send that to me: THIS IS NO SCAM
Like I
imply, I reqquire only a solem confidentility on all this.Best regards,
Abboo Ben Adam
Just one example of the torrent of email we’ve received since the world first became aware of Yachats’s quest for a big time sports franchise. The RS blog is one of the most thoroughly read blogs in the world, after all.
Our next email message comes from Toad S. in Tennessee. (At least, we think that’s right. A tobacco stain’s smudging the name. It might say Bartholomew J.) It reads:
Hi there, RS! Listen I’m having a little problem finding me a job and I’m wondering if I can just come on up to Yakats [sic] and play for you guys. I’ve been playing for our town team, the Hog Hollow Grunts (see Fig. 1), and got myself two hits in the last game although that rock in the infield helped a tad on the last one. I got myself several other hits this year so I must be hitting at least .300 (haven’t got the hang of figuring all those complicated stats yet). Anyway, with a little batting practice like you pros get, I’ll bet I could hit maybe .400 or more. I got my own glove and can play any position mostly first base. Just give a holler and I’ll be on your doorstep in a frog’s wink.
Toad S. or Bartholomew J. in Tennessee
Figure 1. Hog Hollow Grunts’ official team photo. Toad or Bartholomew is in the second row.*
And our sympathetic reply:
Dear Toad or Bartholomew,
Why, sure. Come on up to Yakats. We’ll find some place for you in the lineup. There’s always room for rampant enthusiasm. By the way, please bring your own shoes and jock and do you have a uniform? And one last thing, do you expect to be paid?Wumpy Mugwump and the whole RS staff
Our third message is from Prof. Forp of Yale University (see Fig. 2).
Dear RS,
I am writing in behalf of my son, Knobby, who is in his senior year here at Yale. He has decided he would rather be a baseball player than work for a living. He has never played the game (what with not missing a single class and studying every waking hour nobody has the time to participate in a sport too, unless he is a student at Harvard or one of those places). I doubt if that will be a problem since baseball doesn’t appear to be very hard and Knobby is very keen. Would it be okay if Knobby comes up there and plays for the Smelt? At least, until he gets this ludicrous idea out of his head. We are stinking rich so of course he will pay his own way. Please let me know right away because we have twenty-three firms waiting to hear from him regarding their job offers. Thank you.Prof. Forp, Chair of Questionable Studies, Yale University
Figure 2. Yale University, 1807. Notice the students in the foreground, attempting to play baseball before it was invented.
Here is our earnest reply:
Dear Professor Forp,
We are absolutely giggly to learn that Knobby wants to be a Smelt and pay his own way. It seems there’s a snag, however. Major League Baseball rules, as we understand them, prohibit Ivy Leaguers, and especially Yalies, from playing major league baseball. If only Knobby were a student at Harvard, we might be able to get a special dispensation. But Yale? No chance. Might we suggest that Knobby send his resume to various teams in the leagues in Japan. They might be more tolerant towards Yale graduates, having had less experience with them. Thank you for your interest in the Smelt.Wumpy Mugwump, the RS Staff, and just about everyone else in Yachats
And our final message for today is from Waldport, the town just up the road from Yachats.
Dear Smelt,
You cowardly scumbags! We bet you’re too chicken to come up here and play us. You know we’ll kick your butts all the way back to Yachats. Scaredy cats! Scaredy cats!The Waldport Heathens
And my scathing, non-scaredy cat reply:
Dear Heathens,
Oh, yeah? Says who?Wumpy Mugwump, etc.
Well, after that unpleasant exchange of outrage, I’m seething to the point I can’t go on. I need a nap.
* Actually, a photo of the Yoncalla, OR, town team, 1921. Courtesy of David S. Eskenazi.
Next time: Wumpy calls a momentous press conference again.
NOTE: Big Forbes Crossbowe wants to remind you that today is National Retiree Day. So is tomorrow and the next day and the day after that and…
If you are a retiree, check at www.gotcha.gov to find out if social security and medicare have been snatched away from you. If so, go look for a job. If not, celebrate by reading a book or spelunking or puttering around your dungeon. But before you plan to do anything, check for your pulse.
NOTE AGAIN: Eric Sallee and Dave Baldwin are cautiously optimistic the Rubbery Shrubbery blog will live to entertain you another day.
Be sure to check out the “Yachats Smelt” page on Facebook, and “Like” us if you’re so inclined. Thank you.