Hamptons Police Blotter: Mo Reindeer Mo Problems, McGumbus, Hipsters
Don’t Panic
Police are asking Dan’s readers to remain calm regarding the issue’s cover date. In a special bulletin, law officials acknowledged that it’s quite unnerving to have the 13th day of the month coincide with the 6th day of the week (a phenomenon commonly known as “Friday the 13th”), but stated that they could find no practical alternative. From the statement: “Experience has shown that our sloppy, asymmetrical calendar is distressingly prone to numerological coincidences that can be troubling. Indeed, on the 12th day of last month, one of our citizens decided not to leave the house because she felt that the written date—11/12/13—was ‘just too freaky.’ Now, the 13th day of the month is once again falling on a Friday. Be very careful, and be assured that all conceivable precautions will be taken to avoid catastrophes today.”
Reindeer Games
As anyone who has driven through Sagaponack at night knows, there’s an awful lot of deer over there. What you might not be aware of, however, is that there is also a huge problem with flying reindeer pulling sleighs with Santas in them. It wouldn’t be an issue if the reindeer would keep flying, but they have a tendency to land on people’s front yards and just stand there. Local police have been unable to coax the reindeer off the yards, though they’ve tried dangling big, delicious carrots from construction cranes. They’ve called the feds, who have proposed dispatching a special “reindeer sharpshooting team” to thin the herd. “It’s about time,” exclaimed one irate Sagaponacker. “These reindeer are like big, cute rats with antlers!”
Hipster Bait
Police have once again arrested Old Man McGumbus, 103, WWII veteran paratrooper and explosives engineer, this time for crimes committed over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. It seems that McGumbus, disturbed by the influx of hipster out-of-towners on Shelter Island for Thanksgiving, devised a scheme to try to solve the problem for good. Police allege that McGumbus took 2,000 of the latest-model smartphones (at press time it was unclear how he got hold of the phones) and rigged each one with a small amount of plastic explosives—set to detonate when a user texted “Yo, check it out, I found a phone!” McGumbus then fitted each phone with a miniature parachute, loaded them into the bay of his trusty B-17, and took to the skies. Apparently, he imagined that out-of-town hipsters would be irresistibly drawn to the smartphones, would disregard the parachutes, and would in short order blow themselves skyward. Fortunately, McGumbus had miscalculated the weight of the phones, and instead of floating gracefully they plummeted to earth and smashed to pieces.