![]() Good morning everybody! We’re looking for some, well, unexpected rain this morning at The Compound. I say unexpected because the last I saw of the weather guesser show (aka, News 9 at 6PM), we wouldn’t see rain until sometime this evening. Eh well, I’ll take it whenever we can get it…even if Tornado Payne in the Ass can’t get it right. This wouldn’t have happened with weather hottie Emily Sutton…her forecasts are almost always dead on. Of course, we’re currently deprived of Emily’s forecasts what with DISH TV holding Channel 4 hostage and all. Rat bastards. But, I digress… Friends, have you ever considered just how much the decline of man…and, I’m not speaking of “man” as human beings considered collectively. No, I’m speaking of the male of the species and how his inevitable decline is likely being propelled forward by the female of species. Seriously, how many men have you known who have done really stupid things trying to impress a female? After spending time over the weekend taking pics of Cousin Fred in various poses around The Compound, he sent those off to his new love interest, Francesca, and eagerly awaited her response, which he expected to be something along the lines of “Wow, what a manly man you are!” or “My, my Fred, you are a handsome devil, aren’t you?” What he got back was more along the lines of “Oh, that’s a nice car” and “It looks beautiful around there” and my favorite, “Ummm, how come there are no trees around there?” So, of course, Cousin Fred decided he needed to do something really spectacular to win the heart and mind of Francesca. I awoke from my mid-morning nap yesterday to find him standing directly over my face. He was encouraging me to get up, grab my video camera, and come with him to the Cosmic City. By the time I got myself outside, he was loading the back of the Lexus that the hairdressing hydrologist Gigi left behind with several coils of rope and a bag full of rock climbing gear. I was afraid to ask. On the way into town, Cousin Fred gripped the wheel looking down the road in front of him. He asked me, “Cousin, what do you know about grain elevators?” Stupid me, responded, “Not much…why?” I cringed as I asked why. I didn’t want to hear the answer, but it’s like looking at a horny toad that’s been run over in the road, you can’t help but stare. He informed me that he was going to scale a grain elevator and then rappel from the top back to Earth. He needed me to video the action for later sending to Francesca. When we pulled into the parking lot at Mazzio’s, I thought perhaps he wanted to stop for lunch – a last meal? – before attempting his stunt. I thought maybe I’d have a chance to talk him out of his idea. Then it hit me. We weren’t there for lunch. Nope. His target was the derelict grain elevator immediately behind Mazzio’s. Where Mazzio’s stands now used to be the Woodward Farmers Co-op. That grain elevator was deserted decades ago and is just waiting for the right amount of wind or an earthquake to cause it to crumble and smash people stuffing pizza in their pie-holes. When the elevator goes (and it will go) – even if it manages to avoid massacring the assembled pizza eaters grazing on sotsy crust pizza – it will raise a plum of asbestos-laden dust into the air wreaking havoc in the lives and health of Cosmic City residents. But, for whatever reason, the City figures it’s worth it to wait for the thing to fall and let insurance deal with the rest. Seems like poor risk management to me, but what do I know? When we got out of the Lexus, Cousin Fred soon realized that his plan to scale the outside of the structure was doomed. There was a much rusted ladder that stopped approximately 40 feet off the ground, but even getting to that would be a mega challenge. Fortunately, kids had subverted the City’s efforts at keeping kids out of the damned thing by rigging the door so that it looks locked, but is actually easily opened. Cousin Fred disappeared inside and reappeared atop (a few hundred feet in the air) the structure 15 minutes later. He hollered to me that he was lowering his rope, which he did and which stopped about 50 feet above the ground level where I stood capturing on video the events for posterity (and/or prosecution). I hollered up at him that the rope was too short. He hollered back down asking why I was calling him, sport? After some hollering back and forth, he finally understood. His answer? Move the rope so that it would lay next to the much rusted ladder coming down the side. Seems reasonable enough, right? It might have been cooler, not to mention more dangerous, for Cousin Fred to simply have wrapped the rope around him for the rappel. But no, he put himself into a harness equipped with a braking system for the descent. Smart move, I guess…but, much less Spidermanish. He hollered down asking if I was ready with the camera. When I responded in the affirmative, I saw him step up to the edge before leaping off backwards. Having rappelled before, I knew he jumped out too far. The rope immediately swung him back into the side of the elevator. There were a few seconds of no movement. But finally he hollered down that he was okay and wasn’t bleeding too badly. He managed to get his feet up against the concrete and pushed off with much less force this time. He began a slow rappel of that damned derelict elevator. About a third of the way down he paused and pulled a can of black spray paint from somewhere on his person and painted “For Francesca 8/23/16”. He then continued down. As he neared the end of the rope, he swung over toward the much rusted ladder. As he set his feet on its rungs, he declared loudly, “I did it!” At that point there was a creak followed by the groan of overly stressed metal followed by the ladder, from a point above Cousin Fred’s head, snapping loose from its moorings, and falling backward with a now panicked Cousin Fred still holding tight, to the ground. I got it all on video. Even the cloud of dust when his body hit the ground. YouTube here we come! At the hospital later, with Cousin Fred’s upper torso encased in a plaster body cast, members of the Cosmic City’s crack crime fighting team showed up and began writing tickets-o-plenty. Let’s see there was a citation for trespassing on City property (entering the structure), vandalism to City property (spray painting), damaging City property (the much rusted ladder), creating a public nuisance (traffic grinding to a halt for emergency vehicles trying to get to him), public performance without a permit (rappelling down the side), on and on. I figure this was all Cousin Fred’s way of contributing to the City’s budget. As he lay there covered in citations, he looked up at me and made me promise that I would get that video to Francesca as soon as possible. Some of us just don’t learn, I guess. Comments are closed.
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