MONDAY, JANUARY 22
In his final week as Commander-in-Chief, Bill Clinton has been working
his booty off by issuing pardons left and right and saving the national forests.
However, his staff, it seems, was up to no good. When George W. Bush’s Lone Star team arrived this morning to start their four-year reign, they found
a few items missing from the White House–namely, the “W” from most computer keyboards.
Also, in at least one printer tray, all of the blank sheets of paper had been
replaced by sheets that showed a goofy caricature of the new Executive Chief.
Bush staffers also complained that outgoing messages on answering machines had
been changed to undisclosed but “odd” greetings and furniture had simply disappeared
over the weekend. Asked if he had a reaction to the mystery of the missing W,
the new White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said: “It would have
been, ‘Wow,’ but now it’s just ‘o’.”

TUESDAY, JANUARY 23
While the rest of the nation is frantically searching for seven escaped inmates
from Texas, the residents of Vancouver, Washington have been looking for something
that really matters–a stolen wheelchair. The wheelchair in question
belongs to Ian Harris, a blind and deaf 8-year-old boy. Momentarily left
at a bus stop, the custom-made wheelchair was absconded by some creepy ne’er-do-well,
sending the Harris clan spiraling into a state of depression, and even leading
the optimistic Ian to question how humanity could have gone so wrong. However,
happy days returned to the Harris household today, when the wheelchair was recovered
by the Clark County sheriff’s department. Police discovered the chair a mere five
blocks down the street in the domicile of Robert Reed (not the star of
The Brady Bunch), who had been using it–to haul his recycling bins
out to the curb. Naturally this caused a moral dilemma for the cops: should
they arrest Reed who not only turned himself in, but was actually using the chair
for humanitarian purposes, or set free an admitted wheelchair thief who made a
deaf and blind boy cry? Happily for everyone concerned (except possibly Reed)
the man had an outstanding warrant in Clackamas County, and he was carted away
to the hoosegow. So now little Ian has his wheelchair back, and the evil recycler
is in jail where we all hope he will rot. (Aren’t happy endings awesome?)

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 24
Today’s top story: A nice beaver has been replaced by a mean one. For 48 years,
the absolutely adorable Benny the Beaver has been the mascot for Oregon
State University, and has performed his job admirably. Nevertheless, OSU officials
announced today they’re replacing this beaver with a new beaver–except this
beaver looks really, really mean! In fact, he looks like he wants to
bite something, and we’re not talking about a tree, either! So what is this
particular beaver so mad about? Nobody knows! But as in the case of Spuds
McKenzie, the youths of today demand that their mascots have “attitude.”
And while the new angry beaver looks like he may pop an aneurysm at any moment,
University officials deny his anger. “He’s got momentum and is looking forward,”
says Orcilia Zuniga Forbes, vice president for university advancement.
“He’s not officially angry.” However there may be hope yet for for Benny as
the Mercury has always wanted an adorable mascot of their own. Stay tuned
for all the buck-toothed details!

THURSDAY, JANUARAY 25
Newsflash! American penises–now, shorter than ever! In a highly suspicious
study conducted by a Brazilian urologist, Dr. Paulo Palma said today
that the average Brazilian penis outdistances its American counterpart
by a whopping .7 inch. A doctor who has seen a lot of members,
Palma states that the average penis from Brazil stretches to a manly 5.7 inches,
while the weak, noodly American ding-a-ling can only muster up a measly five.
However, in order to assuage the bruised egos of American men, Dr. Palma went
on to give an even more suspicious statistic. He stated that mini-men
need not worry about small appendages since women only have sensitivity within
the first 3.1 inches of the vagina (leaving an uninformed public to assume
the remaining part of the organ is nothing but a vast wasteland of insensitive
rubber and dangling fallopian tubes). Naturally, Dr. Palma has his challengers,
including one of his own countrymen, a Dr. Bayard Santos, a specialist in penis
enlargement. According to him, for lovemaking purposes, the most important aspect
of the penis is the width–adding that anything less than 3.5 inches in circumfrence simply will not satisfy a woman. Okay. So now that it’s
a documented fact that Brazilian doctors are idiots, One Day will be
sending each of these guys a copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves. Until
then, remind us that Brazil is not the place for our next Pap smear.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 26
A scientific study, reported in The Oregonian today, has finally proved
the age-old adage that small people are stupid. Or rather that big babies
are smarter. According to the British study, among children in the normal birth
weight range (5.5 lbs and up), the bigger the baby, the cleverer, more dashing
and beautiful the adult. Of course, we’ve known this for years, especially as
a hulking too-big child when the small spry children would prance around
us in wonder and torment. “The fucking weather up here is FINE,” we’d say. “And
are your puny brains sucking in on themselves yet, because they will.
They WILL.” But we digress. Albeit the study does not account for sumo
wrestlers, NFL players, or models. Though we suspect nature does not either.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 27
Yesterday (the diminutive) Vera Katz had a very good day. Ross Island
Sand & Gravel president Robert B. Pamplin Jr. agreed to donate the island
by 2004, allowing Vera to fulfill her vision of an island park. Today
The Oregonian reported that the EPA may have other plans. Why turn the
island into a park, when it would make such a terrific toxic waste dump?
We could hear Vera’s psychic scream all the way over in the Mercury offices.
Always the conciliator, One Day has come up with the perfect compromise.
Ross Island can be both a park and a toxic waste dump. Picture it: Survivor
III–The Mighty Willamette. Sixteen strangers, clothed only in Polar Fleece
and with only one Subaru Outback between them, must brave high levels of dioxins
and polychlorinated biphenyls as they kayak, tree-sit and eat raw salmon while
competing for one million dollars. Hello, CBS?

SUNDAY, JANUARY 28
Today, according to the New York Times, (the gargantuan) Arnold
Schwarzenegger may be asked to run for governor of California. Mr.
Schwarzenegger is attractive to state Republicans because he has money, name
recognition, and could obviously deliver (the slight) Gray Davis a real
ass-whooping. He is also married to (small-boned) plucky news hound and JFK
niece Maria Shriver. In addition, he comes equipped with several memorable
slogans that could be easily altered for campaign use. (“Hasta La Vista,
Southern California Edison.”) Alas, Arnold’s foreign birth precludes a presidential
run. No matter, there’s only room for one conservative-actor-presidential-hopeful,
and like the NRA bumper sticker says, Our President Is Charlton Heston.

Sensitive for 3.5 and beyond!
ann@portlandmercury.com