THE MIDNIGHT RAIDERS

March 15, 2010, Vol. 1, No. 11

The Special Ides of March Issue


CONTENTS
(in scroll-down order)

THE BEARS OF WALDEN PUDDLE
by Dr. Ursula Whipple
Sergei of Kamchatka extends an olive branch. Dr. Whipple responds with conciliatory words of her own ... and that's when all hell breaks loose.

THE MIDNIGHT RAIDERS
by the Walden Puddle Writers Uncooperative
For Walden Puddlers and residents of Copious Falls, the Ides of March is the biggest day of the year. Thanks to a 19th-century statute, on March 15 they can legally enter each other's towns and cause trouble.

THE TALK OF WALDEN PUDDLE
reportage from the Agreeable Doughnut Cafe
The real story of why the Walden Puddle Gummy Bears, known locally as Comedy on Ice, allowed more than 31 goals per game this season.


THE BEARS OF
WALDEN PUDDLE
Notes from the Field, Plus Expert Advice

by Dr. Ursula Whipple

Field Notes: March 5, 2010. Sergei sent me an e-mail apologizing for calling me a superficial capitalist bitch. I apologized for calling him a lying closet-Commie bastard.

I said we could still be friends. I made it very clear that romantically, he was way too ugly for me ... but I did it in a nice way.

"I feel very sorry for you," I wrote to him. "I am sure it has been hard for you, going through life with a face like yours. I realize it is hereditary." That way, I was making it clear that I don't blame him for it.

He wrote back, "Am I to understand that you are calling my parents hideous?"

I wrote back, "Not at all. The ugliness problem in your family goes back many generations, all the way to caveman days, so your parents were victims just like you."

I mean, here I am being sympathetic and supportive about his ugliness problem, and he goes ballistic. He writes, "And your parents are two big, smelly zits! Like you!"

I haven't had a zit for three years. I wrote back: "How dare you call yourself a scientist! I am working from observable data ... your ugly face ... while you are indulging in juvenile mud-slinging!"

He writes, "If you are a scientist, my zadnitza chews gum!"

Zadnitza means butt. I looked it up on Google.

Now that really ticked me off, because it took me 12 years to get my doctorate. So I countered with: "Up yours."

And he goes: "You ignorant slut."

So I reiterated: "Up yours again." And I immediately logged off.

After that, I owed myself a night out, so I drove into town to see a hockey game. At the Somewhat Civic Arena, the Walden Puddle Gummy Bears were finishing up their season against the Copious Falls Bare Knucklers.

Unfortunately, there was no hockey game. The Copious Falls Bare Knucklers showed up, but the Gummy Bears didn't. They've done that before, when they thought the game might be rough, and fights might break out. So Copious Falls won by forfeit.

I think the problem ... apart from the Gummy Bears' lack of size, speed, talent, and stick-handling skills ... is their sissy mascot. They need a real bear for a mascot. A real bear would inspire them. So naturally, I thought of Alonzo.

Tomorrow, I will shoot Alonzo in the zadnitza with a tranquilizer dart and lace some skates on him. The ponds around here stay frozen till Memorial Day. Alonzo is a natural athlete. If he works hard, I believe he can be better than Nancy Kerrigan.

Off the ice, Alonzo could kick Nancy Kerrigan's scrawny ass right now. And he wouldn't need a tire iron, either.

But I digress.

Look, I need the money.

Dr. Ursula Whipple is a freelance animal behaviorist and a contributing editor of Walden Puddle. Since 1990, she has lived in an abandoned cabin near town, studying the local bear population and being studied by them in turn. Often referred to, by herself and her mother, as the "Jane Goodall of the North Woods," she shares her field notes with us twice monthly, because no scholarly journal will publish them.


THE MIDNIGHT RAIDERS
(from The Walden Puddle Chronicles)
1,134 words

by the Walden Puddle Writers Uncooperative

The Civil War ended on April 9, 1865 ... in most places. In Walden Puddle and Copious Falls it lasted another three years. Each town claimed it was defending the Union against die-hard Confederates. In fact, the people of the two towns just wanted an excuse to shoot each other.

Finally, on April 1, 1868, a peace treaty was signed under the Old Dumbarton Maple, an ancient tree that straddles the towns' common border. The treaty allowed Walden Puddle and Copious Falls to vent their mutual hatred one day each year: March 15, the Ides of March. "Without that," said Jedediah Mayfield, then mayor of Walden Puddle, "the only common-sense thing to do would be to keep fightin'."

The Ides of March Clause prohibited violence, theft or destruction of property, and the poisoning of the water supply. However, it did grant license for each side "to commit, upon the Ides of March, an act of vandalism whose economic repercussions shall be of limited consequence and easily reparable ... by intelligent people ... within a fortnight."

The inclusion of the phrase "by intelligent people" gave Copious Falls a huge advantage. Adhering to the letter ... if not the spirit ... of the clause, every year since 1868, Copious Falls has hired 100 locksmiths to sneak into Walden Puddle at midnight on the Ides of March and change the locks on every business establishment. It takes Walden Puddlers 10 or 11 months to figure out why the doors won't open anymore, and this cripples Walden Puddle's economy until the following Ides of March ... when the locks get changed again.

Walden Puddlers have never fully grasped the Ides of March Clause -- containing, as it does, words like fortnight and repercussions -- so they have always done the nastiest thing they could think of. Every year, at midnight on the Ides of March, they sneak into Copious Falls and egg the library.

Then they run away.

By summer, Walden Puddlers regret what they did. "I wish we had those eggs to eat right now," Walden Puddle homemakers lament. "Those varmints from Copious Falls have crippled our economy again."

And so it has gone ... for 142 years.

Each January, Copious Falls starts hiring locksmiths. "Ah! The Ides of March!" people say in Copious Falls, squinting hatefully in the direction of Walden Puddle. "I can't wait for the Ides of March!"

Each January in Walden Puddle ... as businesses begin to reopen ... the feeling is mutual. In Walden Puddle, however, people think Ides is a typo. Walden Puddlers say: "Ah! The Ice of March! I can't wait for the Ice of March! Those idiots in Copious Falls can't even spell ice."


"The humiliation has got to stop!" said Mayor Blinkie Duval at a special Walden Puddle town meeting devoted to the Ice of March Prank.

"But we egged them real good last year, Mayor!" someone shouted. "I hit their bookmobile!"

"We've been egging them for 142 years!" said Mayor Duval. "By morning, they've cleaned it all up with garden hoses! And then they mock us for not using free-range eggs!"

"Wait a minute! I have a great idea, Mayor!" someone else shouted. "Maybe we could egg them this year!"

"That does it!" said Mayor Duval, splintering her gavel. "This meeting is over!"

As she stormed out, she whispered to an aide, "Screw democracy. In some places, it just doesn't work. Get me the five smartest people in Walden Puddle."

At 7:45 the next morning, little 8-year-old Jeffrey Mayfield -- the evil Town Genius of Walden Puddle, with an IQ of 185 and a flair for using it in deplorable ways -- was sitting in Mayor Duval's office.

"Where are the other four smartest people in Walden Puddle?" she demanded of her aide.

"There weren't any," he said.

"Of course," said the mayor. "Hello, Jeffrey."

"Hi, Mayor," said little Jeffrey. "You look hot. And I love the fragrance. Very je ne sais quoi."

"Thank you, Jeffrey," said Mayor Duval, blushing. "So tell me ..."

"Here's the plan," said Jeffrey. "I can do it myself, from home."

"Yes?" said the mayor breathlessly. "How can we deal Copious Falls a blow from which they'll never recover?"

"I've hacked into their investment portfolio," said little Jeffrey Mayfield, "and I've written some encrypted code that would take 500 geeks 500 years to crack. At midnight on the Ides of March ..."

"You mean the Ice of March ..." the mayor corrected him.

"... at midnight on the 'Ice' of March, the town of Copious Falls will liquidate their entire portfolio and plow every penny into real estate on Pulapupa."

"What's Pulapupa?" said the mayor.

"A tiny island nation in the South Pacific," said Jeffrey. "Twenty years ago, it was 500 acres of paradise, but they've got a problem now."

"What's that?"

"Rising sea levels. Pulapupa is flat. Most of the time, it's 2 or 3 feet underwater. No one lives there anymore. The nation only emerges at low tide."

"Goodness!"

"Without realizing it, on the morning of the ... Ice ... of March, Copious Falls will purchase all of Pulapupa for $1,000 per square foot."

"And then?"

"They will immediately sell it to mining speculators for one cent per acre. By noon on the ... uhm ... Ice ... of March, the Copious Falls investment portfolio will be worth five dollars."

"Jeffrey ... I could kiss you!" said Mayor Blinkie Duval.

Jeffrey smiled. "Not if you knew what comes next, Blinkie," he muttered.


After school, Jeffrey rode his bicycle to the Old Dumbarton Maple, on the hostile border between Walden Puddle and Copious Falls. A man wearing sunglasses met him under the tree. That man was Brutus Whipsnade, the mayor of Copious Falls.

"So?" said Mayor Whipsnade.

"Thank you for wiring the money to my Antiguan account so promptly," said Jeffrey.

"You didn't leave us much choice, you little ... uhm ... boy."

"Here's the deal, Brutus," said Jeffrey. "At 11 p.m. on March 14, tell your brokerage to shut down the Copious Falls investment account for two hours. No access to anyone. No transaction orders accepted. Anybody asks, just say it was for routine systems maintenance."

"And ..."

"And the rest will take care of itself," said Jeffrey.

"Can you help us raid Walden Puddle's investment account, the way they wanted to raid ours?" said Mayor Whipsnade.

"If $46 means a lot to you."

"I'll take their $46, just for spite! And I'll still hire 100 locksmiths!"

Jeffrey got back on his bike.

"Are you sure we can't renegotiate your consultant's fee?" said Mayor Whipsnade.

"Estimez-vous hereux, mon ami," said Jeffrey, and he pedaled away, $1.5 million richer.


Early on March 15, the Ides of March itself, Jeffrey urgently requested a meeting with Mayor Blinkie Duval of Walden Puddle.

"Our plan is foiled," he told her.

"Who? What? When? Where? Whubba? Whubba?" said Mayor Duval.

"Some Evil Genius in Copious Falls has thwarted us."

"How? You mean they have a greater Evil Genius than you?"

"Apparently so," said Jeffrey. "They sniffed out my code, and they blocked the whole deal."

"Whubba ... Whubba ..."

"Not only that, but they donated the $46 Walden Puddle had in the bank to the North Korean Defense Ministry, with a note that reads, 'Good luck from your friends in Walden Puddle.' They sent a copy to Homeland Security."

"Whubba ..."

"I can't do anything about it. Honest, I tried."

"Whubba ..."

As Jeffrey left her office, Mayor Blinkie Duval regained her composure. "Jack?" she said to her chief aide.

"Yes, Mayor?"

"Jack, be a dear and run down to the shopping center ..."

"Yes?"

"... and buy up every goddamn egg in the supermarket!"

For another slice of the bitter rivalry between Walden Puddle and Copious Falls, visit Page 1 at http://onwaldenpuddle.blogspot.com/ and scroll to "Divorce, Walden Puddle Style," published November 9, 2009.


THE TALK OF
WALDEN PUDDLE
At the Agreeable Doughnut, we chatted with Seemu Tippolainen, the Finnish coach of the Walden Puddle Gummy Bears, who were again named the "worst minor-league hockey team in North America" by The Sporting News. The Gummy Bears lost all 56 of their games, 44 on the ice, and 12 by forfeit because they didn't show up, fearing violence.

"I have high hopes when I come to Walden Puddle in September," said Coach Tippolainen. "Now I go back to Finland and practice the tango. I have lost my love for the hockey. I shall dedicate my life to the Forbidden Dance."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Seated as far away from Coach Tippolainen as possible was the Gummy Bears' goalie, Timmu Hakkolainen, who allowed 31.6 goals per game this season. The Gummies imported Timmu from Finland in October, over the strenuous protests of Coach Tippolainen, who had seen him play back home.

"I blame the 3-D glasses," said Timmu. "I found them in an erotic magazine, and I wore them under my goalie mask to improve my depth perception, which has never been good."

What happened?

"The 3-D glasses made the puck seem closer than it really was. Also, the puck appeared to be traveling very, very fast. I was terrified that it might hit me. Instinctively, I did everything I could to get out of the way."

It sounded awful.

"Yes. It was. Sometimes I was so fearful that I did not leave the locker room. Now I go home to Helsinki and swim in the Baltic."


NEXT POST: March 30, 2010

FEATURING: "Break a Paw." The Rev. Alvin Bisonnette is auditioning singing dogs for his musical Oedipus Rex for Christians. Will he "bomb in New Haven," as theater folk say? Not at all. He'll bomb in Walden Puddle.

THE BEAR FACTS: In his first skating lesson, Alonzo takes to the ice ... and falls through it. Also: bear wrestling tips from a pro. Plus the inside scoop: Are the matches fixed?

BONUS ITEM: His theater career may have stalled before it started, but the Rev. Alvin Bisonnette doesn't know the meaning of the word capitulate. Literally. In a dictionary sense.


Editor's Note: You're on Page 3 of Walden Puddle, which begins with this post. You can view Page 1, which contains Posts 1 through 5, by clicking http://onwaldenpuddle.blogspot.com/. You can view Page 2, and Posts 6 through 10, by clicking http://onwaldenpuddle2.blogspot.com/. If you're new to Walden Puddle, we hope you'll pay a visit to both.

All printed matter in this issue of Walden Puddle copyright © 2010 Walden Puddle Gift Shop. All rights reserved. All photographs reproduced with permission. Original artwork courtesy of Aytsan.