Coming to blows
There’s not much to look forward to in winter, as far as I’m concerned, but Wednesday did mark the opening of a very special season. Specifically, it’s time for the yearly NEIGHBOR KEEPS BLOWING SNOW INTO MY YARD! wars, available all winter long on your police scanner. Trained cage fighters are not as committed to battle as those who fume over the snowblowing habits of the guy next door. These brawlers will stay up all night and run their machines at 3 a.m. if that’s what they have to do to land the most powerful blow. Get together with your friends and watch from the window. Play a drinking game based on which neighbor calls the cops first, which goes out to buy a bigger machine and exactly when the street plow will make a final swipe and make all of that fighting irrelevant.

Knock three times if you… AAAARGH!
Over the scanner, an ongoing roommate dispute escalated when one roomie picked up a pair of scissors and announced he would stab anyone that came through the door. Unless it was a police officer. And if it was a police officer, the cop had to knock three times to prove it. It sounded like a lot of thinking for a guy who is supposed to be on a homicidal bender. We kind of hope he knew the proper hand signals to avoid getting his heinie tasered when the police came calling. We kind of doubt he did.

Welcome to hell
A wary reader named Jack has alerted me that directions to the unholy abyss can be found near the turnpike exit in Sabattus. “As I make my usual left turn off the exit ramp at the stop sign onto Route 9, I have noticed that there is a sign nailed to the utility pole directly across the street clearly marked HELL with an arrow immediately after the word pointing down.”
Sorry for the alarm, Jack. It was supposed to point to that blazing, foul-smelling place reserved for those who repeatedly ask if I’ve put my motorcycle up for the winter yet. I have not. Back to the pit with you.

Card tricks
Twice this week, I found myself trying to buy something with a debit card that would not swipe in that little swiper thingy. Twice I’ve been bailed out by clerks with magic tricks. At Shaw’s, the nice lady passed the card swiftly across her smock and bingo. I got my yogurt and carrot sticks. At McDonald’s, a clerk wrapped the unresponsive card in a scrap of paper and bam! I got my Happy Meal. I wonder if these tricks work with other things that don’t work properly.

I got nuthin’
The dramatic rescue of a cat from the top of a power pole in Lewiston led many to wonder aloud how the animal got up there in the first place. The short answer is this: catapult. The dolt who fired it up there was fined for kitty littering.

The rest of the story
I caught up with the cool kitty after the ordeal and interviewed the animal at length. Why did he spend all that time up on the wires in the cold? He wanted to meet hero photographer Russ Dillingham. And who could blame him?

Gesundheit
The latest memo is out on the spread of colds and flus across the nation. Wash your hands often, they say. And cough or sneeze into the crook of your arm. If you want to be extra vigilant about keeping germs away, do what I do: Cough or sneeze into the crook of someone else’s arm.

It’s that special time of year…
When you people will start sending me photos of the snow in your yard, even though it looks exactly like the snow in mine. I’ve been looking forward to this all summer long. Flipping through snow photos is way more fun than riding a motorcycle.

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