The Mad Ripper of Marble

He struck again. This time his rage was directed toward a poster from another town. It was torn off, stepped on, crumpled up, and (gasp!) REPINNED to the plywood door on the Fed Ex box using only ONE PIN! What could it mean? What message is he trying to send us?

For the last several months, someone, or someTHING has been taking down posters, banners, fliers, and notices that people staple at the multi mailbox area at the bottom of our road. Ironically, there seems to be some type of pattern, so we hired a private detective from England. He came up with several interesting clues:

  1. Fliers containing missing animals are “safe”.

  2. Multiple fliers will always be attacked, unless they contain the words “private”, “campfires”, or “neighborhood”.

  3. The word “Woody” scores bonus points, and assures immunity from the Mad Ripper (we ALL love Woody and his wife. They brought food to our town.).

     

    In order to be allowed placement on the “open to the public” flier area, potential pieces of paper must be submitted for review to an unknown entity at an unknown address, and meet unknown criteria. This is easy enough.

Some suggestions have been bandied about how we can have fun at the expense of the Mad Ripper. We could put up a note like this one:

Dear Fellow Neighbors,

I’m tearing down every piece of paper that I don’t want to see on this space. You people don’t understand the unwritten rules for posting things here.

Signed,

The Mad Ripper

When the Mad Ripper tears down the “note” that we put up, we can replace it with another one like this:

Dear Fellow Control Freaks,

Some impostor is pretending to be me. I am the original Mad Ripper. Notice how I rip down the posters, and fliers around here. There is no one as good at it as me. Just because some poser smart Alec doesn’t like what I do gives them no right to imitate me.

Sincerely,

The REAL Mad Ripper

Then we will rip down most of the above letter, leaving the phrase “mart Alec” and “ad Ripper” on it.

After a few days, we will tear that note off, and replace it with 50 fliers stapled up which read,

Lost Woody

Somewhere in our neighborhood, there is a private animal.

If found, please build a campfire.

Then we will tear off all of those fliers, and staple them upside down. After a week, we will take all of them down. Then we will take a plain 8 ½ x 11 sheet of paper with no writing on it. We will staple it to the Fed Ex box with 500 staples, and no comment.

This is going to be fun.

It’s Been a Flat Year

First I tried “Old McDonald Had a Farm”. It was OK. Then I tried “The 1812 Overture”. That didn’t go so well. As my son, Caleb was threading the rubber plug material into the tire repair tool, I was playing songs on the tire with the air leaking out of the hole. It was his second repair in the last 10 minutes. And it’s only 7:30 am. We need to leave for work in a few minutes.

Yesterday, we had a flat out in front of Walmart on the main road. I mean, where you couldn’t pull off unless you parked on the sidewalk like they do in Ankara, Turkey. I changed out the tire to the spare while the kids were in the store buying birthday presents and other necessities. ( Did you know that at Walmart a pair of pliers costs less than a box of Cheese Crackers?) It was 99 degrees out. Why did we come down out of the cool mountains, anyway?

I’ve had so many flat tires this summer, that my wife and I can’t recount them all..

One memorable flat involved Big-O tires. To be fair, they have repaired about 10 of the flats- 9 of them for free. Nonetheless, I had a leak on the Suburban tire. The manager at Big-O said “It’s too big of a hole. We can’t fix it.”

“Can’t you put a patch or boot on the inside?” I asked.

“No good. Eez too small,” I was assured by the repairman, as he held up a tiny round rubber disc.

“Put it on, anyway,” I demanded.

While the guy was starting the process, I ran next door to the auto parts store, grabbed a Tire Patch Kit with larger patches in it, waited patiently/impatiently/patiently/impatiently in line, “Thanks for your patience” said the cashier, (also, see “Egyptian Jazz” to see how patient I really can be), ran back to Big-O, and handed the largest patch to the tire repair guy. Heez eyes got real big, and he said “Where you git deeze?”

“Next door, at the auto parts store” I replied.

He ripped the small patch off, and put the bigger one on.

Flat tires wouldn’t be such a problem if I didn’t live in such a remote area. 30 miles to town can be a problem, and why is it that you notice 50 percent of your flat tires in the evening, just as the repair places are shutting down for the night?

My son and I can change a flat tire on a Subaru in under 3 minutes. I wish we were on an Indy pit crew, or racing in Dakar, or Baja. I’d also like to meet Iron Man Stewart. He’s cool.

So, I’m back at the 1812 Overture, and it’s sounding more like a party balloon in a Fraternity House member’s armpit. I think it would sound better if we pumped the tire up to about 50 lbs. pressure.

Now we’ve got something going! Hey what’s that sound? Are those the cannons going off in the “1812”, or my other 3 tires exploding?…