Tag: Dunwich Complainer

Dunwich in Crisis or at a Crossroads or Something or Other that Starts With a C

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Cthulhu

The partisan divide that has attended the upcoming Witch Burning Referendum has ripped away the illusion of civility and civic spirit here in Dunwich.  The latest flashpoint has been a state commission’s report that witch burning as currently practiced, falls afoul of Arkham’s stringent state greenhouse gas emissions standards.  The review has declared that from now on witches will have to be burned using solar power.

An opinion solicited by the First Selectman from the leading solar energy researcher at Miskatonic University, Professor Nehemiah Scrimshaw was obtained by this newspaper and a few of his conclusions were:

  • There are only 0.00035 seconds of usable sunlight in Dunwich per month.
  • In order to fully oxidize an average sized witch in that window of time, a magnifying glass with a diameter of 10,000 miles would be needed and this device would weigh in at 6.9 X 1023 tons and would require an enormous nuclear power plant to power the servo motors to maintain the focusing function correctly.
  • The professor also estimated that it would require forty or fifty years to obtain the needed licenses from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and until the licensing was in effect no witch burnings would be permitted at all.

Parenthetically, the professor remarked that since the mass of the magnifying device would be approximately a hundred times the mass of the Earth the actual means by which the device would be manufactured and tethered to Dunwich was unachievable using current human science and engineering.  But he did say it posed an interesting thought experiment for his current graduate students.

We tried to reach First Selectman Cthulhu for comment but the reporter we sent has gone missing.  Our eye in the sky OCF traffic copter was able to spot the First Selectman as he bee-lined for the state capital in Arkham.  Based on the debris field in his wake it is estimated that not much will remain of the state house or most of the downtown area of Arkham.  But it seems this will put to rest the question of state environmental permitting and also state government in general for that matter.

It is worth noting that the anti-witch burning party has within the hour disbanded its headquarters, erased its Facebook and Twitter pages and from what we can tell left town heading south at a good clip.  And in fact, there was a goodly caravan of pro-witch citizens joining them.  The Town Clerk’s office has described the results of the referendum (which was supposed to occur tomorrow) as completed, audited and certified to have been unanimous to extend witch burning to 24/7/365.  And the other selectmen have hurriedly and unanimously passed an appropriation for fifty tons of the first Selectman’s favorite bath salts.

At press time it was noted that on his return from the state capital the First Selectman detoured to pass through the campus of Miskatonic University and it is now believed that Professor Scrimshaw has retired from active teaching and also, sadly, from breathing.  But he’ll always be remembered for his remarkable lack of a sense of self preservation.

08MAR2023 – Dunwich Complainer – Retail Democracy

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Cthulhu

This week Dunwich will celebrate old style New England democracy at its most authentic.  We’re going to have a referendum.  Back in 1653 the Town Elders codified a law that banned witch burning on every day but Monday.  The intent was that this would provide the maximum time before Sunday for the smell to dissipate.  The puritans were deeply religious folk and they feared to offend the Lord by allowing burnt witch funk to permeate their worship.

Fast forward three hundred some odd years later and Dunwich is a much less pious place.  And witch burning is big business.  Having an inhabitant declared a witch and burned at the stake is the town’s most lucrative revenue stream.  You see, the statute declares that the possessions, real and personal, of the convicted witch are forfeited to the town and can then be sold at auction.  Of course, the successful accuser of the witch stands to gain a 10% commission from the proceeds of the sale, tax free.  So, the trials are stacked up like planes circling Arkham airport.

And that’s the problem.  Whereas the trials are getting banged out day in and day out, the burnings are way, way behind.  The municipal witch pit can only accommodate fifteen burnings a week.  So, there are currently twelve hundred witches cooling their heels waiting for stake time.  Now the witches aren’t complaining.  They’re willing to wait forever to be honest.  But the town budget is a mess.  First Selectman Cthulhu has already spent all the money that the backlog represents on aromatic bath salts.  He’s a big proponent of the long languid soak in a tub.  Although in his case the tub is reworked municipal reservoir.  But suffice it to say that requires an awful lot of bath salts.  And now the bath salt merchandisers refuse to float him any more credit until he squares his accounts.

Well, he’s finally lost his patience and has threatened to eat everyone in town alphabetically unless a referendum repeals the “Monday only” part of the witch burning law right away.  And so, we’re set to vote this week.  We’ve set up the “no electioneering” line 75 feet from the polling area as state law requires but being hundreds of feet tall Cthulhu has threatened to toe the line but lean his head through the gymnasium skylight to watch over the voting and eat anyone who votes no on the petition.  Last we heard; the poll workers say there’s nothing in the handbook to forbid this activity.  This seems a little suspect to me but I know the First Selectman is a fairly persuasive character when up close and personal.

The Dunwich electorate is a feisty group.  Several of our oldest and most religious citizens have openly declared that they will vote no.  To ensure that nothing tragic befalls us the Town Clerk has decided to call in Dominion to provide the ballot reading machines, and in that way, fortify democracy or at least prevent us all from being eaten alphabetically.

Well, I’m a little sad to see the old ways discarded one by one.  It will certainly change the character of the town to have acrid black witch smoke wafting around town twenty-four seven.  It’s been proposed to replace the witch burning pit with a modern natural gas fired witch kiln with a two-hundred-and-fifty-foot stack to send the smoke down wind to Arkham.  With that kind of automation, the danger will be that we may completely depopulate the town in a couple of months.

And I guess that’s the way of progress.  But I’ll miss the days when a man could bring his family to the witch burning pit and get good seats from which to hiss at the old crones and maybe even chuck a rock or two at them.

Well, we have to be realistic and live in the present.

03FEB2023 – The Dunwich Complainer – Polar Vortex Blues

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As predicted the bottom fell out of the thermometer today.  The surrounding areas of southern New England will be experiencing temperatures as low as -15 degrees Fahrenheit and fifty mph winds that will be blamed on the polar vortex.  Of course, here in Dunwich we have a slightly different climatic event.  The pole that our vortex is generated by is the galactic pole of the Milky Way.  The Supermassive Black Hole at the center of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A* causes a worm hole to open up from time to time in the center of the Dunwich town dump.  Out of that cosmic orifice flows an irresistible plasma of pure neutronium moving at 99.99999% of light speed.  Today the beam punched a perfectly round eight-foot hole through Josiah Whatley’s barn and astronomers believe that it sliced Pluto in half on its exit from the solar system.

But much more importantly, it knocked out the electric power and cable access to First Selectman Cthulhu’s abode.  Now the First Selectman is a big fan of Vanna and Pat.  He watches Wheel of Fortune religiously.  Well, that is if the word religiously can be used at all to describe a blasphemous eldritch creature.  But suffice it to say he was not happy.  I could hear him stomping up the hill toward my house.  You see he doesn’t use a cell phone, he’s got a land line that runs over the same cable so he had to visit me personally instead of calling.

Since he’s a hundred feet tall I could see him coming from several miles away.  Wanting to avoid the possible blowback from Camera Girl sassing this squid-headed town official I went to meet him.  When I got within shouting distance, I greeted him politely and he began to ooze slime from his mouth.  It was quite nauseating and frightening.  “Alright you insignificant morsel of bland monkey meat, I want you to restore the cable before 7:30 pm.  It’s LX week and that means there’s the potential for an extra forty thousand in the bonus round and I hear Vanna’s going to be wearing a sparkly dress tonight and she always looks completely delicious in one of those.  So, make it happen.  Right?”  I said I would get right on it and he let out a deafening bellow that whipped slime into the air.  Then he turned around and plodded back down the hill toward his lair.

I drove down to the dump and sized up the neutronium beam.  I could see that after exiting Whatley’s barn it had taken out a telephone pole that fed the street that ended near the First Selectman’s cave.  It seemed simple enough to have the cable company temporarily bypass around the beam and restore the service.  And the cable company truck was right down the road.  But I could see that the license plate on the truck was from out of state.  Apparently, he wasn’t local so perhaps he had never seen a tear in the fabric of space time up close and personal.  Also he probably had never seen Cthulhu before.

When I reached the truck, I saw a man in his thirties holding the steering wheel in a death grip and staring popeyed at the neutronium beam.  I had seen this kind of reaction by out of towners quite often.  I tried to be casual.  “Howdy friend, how’s it going?  Hey I’m glad you’re here to get the cable working again so soon.  Looks like an easy fix.  What do you think?”

He was hyperventilating and I could tell that he hadn’t heard a word I’d said.  It occurred to me that he probably had seen the First Selectman saunter by.  I reached into the window and pulled his key out of the ignition and opened the passenger side door and got in.  He saw me and his head turned sideways toward me and he made some gurgling kind of sounds.  “Now look here, there’s nothing to get excited about.  You’re a professional and you can’t let a little thing like a hundred-foot squid-headed dragon stop you from providing an essential service to the community.  I’m sure that your company has provided you with the standard sensitivity and diversity trainings.  Well, here’s your chance to put that training into practice.  Cthulhu is a proud American just as are you.  He’s been an inhabitant of this locale for over 450 million years and he is a pillar of the community.  He cheers on our local high school teams and attends the harvest carnival fair without fail.  Sure, he may eat the prize-winning bull from time to time but who doesn’t get a little carried away with all that carnival junk food.  As you very well know diversity is our strength.  Whether it’s transgender women excelling in athletics or undocumented Americans voting in their first election or a Great Old One enjoying a classic American game show while snacking on a really large portion of road salt.   So come on man, buck up and let’s get that cable back up pronto or he’s going to come pounding down that road and eat you and your truck in one mouthful.

The look of horror on his face didn’t disappear.  It sort of twisted sideways a little bit.  It’s hard to describe.  His left eye mostly closed and his upper and lower jaws were a little offset sideways.  But his right eye seemed to focus on me and he made some slightly less incoherent noises and he tried to climb out of his truck.  He fell out and ended up on his back.  But this seemed to have a revitalizing effect on him and he sat up and looked almost sentient.  I said, “That’s the spirit.  Let me help you up fella.  You’ve got this, don’t you?”

Well, by five thirty he had managed to get the cables spliced together and although they were laying on the ground they restored cable service to the draco-cephalopodic occupant of 407 Dagon Avenue.  I told him the polar vortex would shut down in a few hours and a proper repair could be done by the local service crew that was currently repairing other more mundane problems in the area.  At this point most of his hair had turned white and he had a tic in his left eye.  I slipped him a ten spot and told him to have a nice evening.  He drove off very slowly and he may have veered over the divider a few times.  I hope he made it.  Seemed like a nice guy.

I returned home and had dinner and later on while Camera Girl was watching Wheel of Fortune I remarked to her, “You know that sparkly dress really does make Vanna look completely delicious.”  She scowled at me and said, “You need help.”

Women.

Renewable Energy Comes to Dunwich

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The Town of Dunwich was recently ordered by the Colony of Massachusetts Bay to show progress in eliminating the production of greenhouse gases by switching over to renewable energy sources.  As the only engineer in town, or for that matter, the only person familiar with the decimal point among the denizens of this benighted hellhole I was ordered by First Selectman Cthulhu to, “make that happen.”  And since, as in all things ordered by Cthulhu, the penalty for failure is being eaten alive by a 100-foot-high squid-headed flying dragon, I got to work right smartly.

What I discovered was that currently 100% of our electrical energy supply is generated by burning sperm whale oil.  It’s a little known fact that Dunwich, along with certain Inuit tribes is  allowed under treaty to hunt sperm whales and since the market for whale products long ago dried up we utilized the carcasses as a source of fuel.  The carcasses are hauled up on the shore and trucked to the power plant where the oil is drained off.  Then the meat is turned into Dunwich’s world-famous blubber chowder.  And the bones are packaged for resale to Dunwich’s werewolf (or for the politically correct term, lycanthrope) population.

I contacted the DEP to see if this treaty allowed for our whale oil to be grandfathered in as a green energy equivalent but, alas, there was a whale-lover on the staff there so, no soap.  I began to get panicky so I called in a consultant to see what other towns were doing.  The consultant described the latest scams that currently passed for “green” energy.  The favorite was “converting” natural gas to hydrogen to use in a fuel cell.  After looking at the material balance I could see that this process produces almost the same amount of carbon dioxide as combustion does.  When I questioned him about this inconsistency, he waved his hands around for a few minutes while claiming that the science was settled.  Anyway, the price tag for the installation was so high I realized there was no way we could switch over to this particular scam.

I asked him if he had a cheaper scam that we could invest in.  He looked disappointed.  I guess most of his clients aren’t as primitive and poor as Dunwich.  Finally after dejectedly checking through his inventory he noted that he had several generators that were reclaimed from some wind turbines that had fallen down and been carted away as scrap.  He could let us have those for a pittance.  Out of desperation and to buy time I ordered the parts and sent him on his way.

Then I had an inspiration.  We had some old caterpillar treads left over from some heavy machinery that had broken down and some other odds and ends.  I had the maintenance crew rig these up into a gigantic treadmill and hook it up to the generators.  I had the highway crew dig a pit out near the bicycle path that runs through the scenic area of the ghoul haunted forest.  And I had them catch and imprison the biggest shoggoth they could find in town.  It was a big, ugly, smelly, hungry one.  I think we might have lost a couple of the crew that caught it.  Oh well.

The next part of the plan was the good part.  Along the side of the bicycle path, I put a sign leading over to the pit that said “Contribute to Green Energy.”  Over the pit I had built a sound-proofed shed with a revolving door that led into a dark room with a pit trap.  When someone falls into the pit it raises a panel that separated the shoggoth from its dinner.  Once the shoggoth starts moving toward the victim it turns the caterpillar track and begins powering the generator.  As long as the green power enthusiast is able to run on this treadmill and stay ahead, the shoggoth continues to pursue.  But when the friend of Gaia tires, the shoggoth will get its lunch and the treadmill will stop and the power will go out in town.

Of course, this is a problem.  I’ve come up with some improvements.  To improve the reliability, we now run a bicycle race daily in town.  And I’ve hooked up a battery system as a form of uninterruptible power supply (UPS) for the town between shoggoth meals.  But uninterruptible is probably an overenthusiastic claim.

But the important thing is the First Selectman is pleased.  He’s grown fond of the project and has named the shoggoth Tesla.  He’s tasked me with setting up a similar treadmill for his personal use.  He says he needs the exercise and donating some energy to the town is patriotic.  Also, the town is making a nice profit reselling abandoned bicycles found along the road.

Who knew going green would be this much fun.

Dunwich in the Depths of a Non-Winter

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Swamp in Fall 2

Here we are at the brink of February and Dunwich looks like early December.  There’s no snow cover and the ground is soggy with all the rainfall.  There are serious consequences from this warm weather.  Mange has broken out among various species.  Werewolves, zombies and the Mi-Go (those winged fungoid crustacean creatures) have all been observed uncontrollably scratching themselves against tree trunks to relieve the itching.  And the smell from these festering wounds has made the forested areas around the swamps almost unendurable for residents there.  First Selectman Cthulhu complains that tourism is way off and he blames it on this blight.  I don’t know.  I think it could be a result of the new advertising slogan they came up with.  I mean, “Dunwich, smell the history” might need some work.

Luckily for me I took the precaution of planting the perimeter of my property with wolfsbane a year or two back and the only local inhabitant that hasn’t fled is a shoggoth that lives under the rock overhang at the edge of the swamp.  He’s a really old and decrepit example of the species and he probably would have already succumbed to the infection if Camera Girl hadn’t started putting out scraps for it to subsist on.

As is her habit, she has sort of adopted it and calls it by a pet name, shoggy, which I find annoying.  I’ve explained many times that it is a loathsome man-eating nightmare, the very sight of which can shatter the sanity of any human being.  She claims it just needs scratching under the chin (wherever that is), some warm blankets and leftover fried chicken to make it a “boopa.”  Women are mostly insane.  I’ve resorted to poisoning the chicken but all that accomplished was to make it thirsty.  It drank down the pond and swelled up to a hundred times its original size.  It’s about the size of a city block and about three hundred feet tall.  It seems to have either the hiccups or some kind of rhythmic flatulence.

Next Friday is supposed to be a quick freeze.  Forecasts call for nighttime temperatures dipping down to minus fifteen Fahrenheit.  I believe that after absorbing that much water the shoggoth will freeze solid overnight.  My plan is to rent one of those construction vehicles with the industrial strength jack hammer attached to a robotic arm and use it to chop up the shoggoth into bite size chunks.  I figure I can probably transport them to a fishing port and sell it as chum to the commercial fishermen.  Anyway, that’s the plan.

With the cold weather coming I expect the more traditional winter activities to resume.  Once Lake Bishop freezes the annual ice fishing derby will be announced and all experienced fishermen will partake in the night before drinking binge to shore up their nerve for the event.  And whoever draws the short straw that morning will need every bit of that alcohol to get the nerve to make the run across the ice.  After all, running across a half mile of open ice dressed as a giant “kivver” with the First Selectman coming after you from under the ice with only a ten second head start is pretty heady stuff.

Last year Tanner Featherstone came within twenty feet of the shore and maybe three seconds of winning the contest and the $100 Amazon gift card.  Not to mention keeping his life.  It’s this kind of town-spirit and bone-headed stupidity that keeps this amazing tradition going despite the unbroken history of failure and the terrifying sight of a man being eaten alive by a one-hundred-foot-tall squid-headed flying dragon.  The screams and the sound of the crunching bones really makes you think.

Well anyway.  I’ve got to do some research on that whole jack hammer rental thing.  Busy, busy, busy.  I hope your winter is going well and I’ll be back soon to describe what looks like an early spring and the return of the “colour out of space” to the local foliage.  Ah those unearthly colors.  They make Dunwich the garden spot it is.

Dunwich Complainer – Avalanche 2022 (In Rumble-Rama)

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Yesterday as I lolled around in my lazy recuperative stupor, I was suddenly aware of a booming sound and the sensation of shaking.  At first, I assumed I was still goofy from the COVID and had imagined it but then I saw that the dogs had picked up on something too.  I thought, “Maybe a truck came down the driveway and banged into the house.  So, I got up and went to look outside.

And what I saw was a boulder sitting on the lower driveway.  I could see where it broke off from the wall.  What I had heard was it falling, bouncing and rolling to a stop.

I was still kind of lethargic yesterday so I left it as, “to be continued.”  Today I felt more myself.  So, I investigated.  It’s roughly 4’X2’X1.5’ and I estimate it weighs about 1,500 lbs.

Looking at the exposed surfaces it looks like over time the rock has been fracturing and finally the weight was too much for the remaining stone to support.  It’s these lousy New England winters.  Freezing and thawing incessantly wreaks havoc with structural integrity.  It’s why I’m the broken-down husk of a man that I am.

So, this boulder is a metaphor for how the world wears down even the best of us and then sends us crashing to earth abandoned and out of sorts like a modern day Humpty Dumpty.  Very sad.  Very abstract, so deep.

But now I have to move the darn thing and then figure out how to prevent the dirt that was being held in place by it from eroding away.  Camera Girl will see me like a modern-day Sisyphus toiling to roll this huge stone up the hill.  What’s next?  The extinction level asteroid strike?  Yeah, why not?

Election Day in Dunwich

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Election Day was my first day at my new gig as Dunwich Deputy Election Scourge.  My job was to apply a gigavolt prod to the Great Old One voters to keep them moving in the chutes.  To some people this might seem a little odd.  Well, most towns don’t have Great Old Ones (GOO) as a component of the voting population.  These must be given their own separate line and voting booths and kept under tight control or they would escape the line and begin eating the humans.

Things went very well all morning and at 4 pm I was starting to think we’d get through the day without any trouble but at 4:20 pm we had our first incident.  One of the high school ballot checkers foolishly leaned up against the steel sides of the chute while drinking a Diet Pepsi.  A tentacle wrapped around her ankles and dragged most of her through the space between the steel guard rails.  Four nearby scourges began firing on the GOO with their prods while the Chief Scourge shouted in an Australian accent, “Shoot her, shoot her.”  But it was all for naught.  The ballot checker had long since disappeared into the florescent green maw of the GOO, never to be seen again.  All that remained of her was a dismembered hand with shiny blue nail polish still holding a bottle of Diet Pepsi.  The clean up crew kept carefully outside of the safety lines that surrounded the chute.  Needless to say, morale amongst the election checkers plummeted.  Buffy had been a popular member of the team and would be missed at the high school senior prom.

But we redoubled our vigilance and kept a close watch on the younger volunteers to prevent another regrettable incident.  When it was 7:50 I began to think we were out of the woods.  But in the final minutes, disaster struck again.  A final GOO entered the chute and headed for the checker area.  When the Checker went through the list there was no record of Azathoth (sometimes referred to as the “Blind Idiot God”) ever having registered in Dunwich.  This was not well received by that symbol of primordial chaos.  But before the checker had a chance to state that same day registration was now a reality in Dunwich, the monstrous nuclear chaos from beyond angled space punched a ten-foot hole through the hardened titanium wall and flattened the unfortunate checker into the concrete floor with an invisible limb.  It then began pulsing energy in all directions, preparatory to collapsing time-space and thereby forcing Earth through a singularity.

Before we retreated out the rathole I punched the upload button to preserve the ballot data.  Then I hit the timer for the tactical nuke and released the goat blood into the floor trough to distract the GOO and give us a chance to escape.  One minute later the bunker we had entered was buffeted by the fifty-kiloton detonation.  A few minutes later we exited by another tunnel that opened about five miles from ground zero and we proceeded above ground to election HQ to fill out the paperwork and tally the votes.

An irate state election rep who had received a complaint from Cthulhu called to officially chastise the town for gross discrimination against a protected class (GOOs), levy a fine and strip us of our status as a sanctuary city.  We absorbed this abuse, finished up the election tally, submitted it to the state and to the press, licked our wounds and headed home for a very late dinner.  Well at least Azathoth didn’t get to vote.  That bugger is a well known progressive and it was already a pretty bad night for the Right so every little bit helps.  Some of the Republican Town Committee tried to blame this on Trump.  You can’t please some people.

Politics sucks.  Next year I’m hoping to get on the town road crew instead.  It doesn’t pay as well but they don’t have to wear radiation badges and necklaces of garlic and wolfsbane.  So you have to take that into consideration.

Progressives really are monsters when it comes right down to it.

20OCT2022 – The Dunwich Complainer

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Very interesting week here at the epicenter of the Great Old Ones’ Realm in New England.  I put out my Re-Elect First Selectman Cthulhu sign up on my lawn next to a slaughtered goat carcass ritually adorned with wheat germ.  I watched the latest feed from my trail cam and noticed that the werewolves have all begun to wear skinny jeans and carry BPA-free water bottles on their belts.  None of them look like they could take down a girl scout in a fair fight.  Without a doubt, these are times that try men’s souls.

This week at the official induction ceremony I was named Deputy Election Reanimator.    Now this a misnomer.  The Reanimator doesn’t really have a deputy since only the primogeniture descendant of Herbert West has the moxy required to bring back the dead, especially during a rush-rush mass ceremony on election night.  My job would probably be more accurately described as Deputy Election De-Reanimator.  You see the reanimation procedure takes place at the graveyard and apparently is not selective by party affiliation.  So, my part is to stand at the gate with the old voting records and stop the Democrat voters from leaving the graveyard.  Or at least to make sure their heads don’t leave the graveyard.  So, in addition to the lists, a sharpie and a flashlight I’ve got a reasonably sharp machete.  This year they modernized my gear by getting me one of those headlights that you can strap to your forehead.  That helps quit a bit.  I don’t have to ask the deceased to hold my lists while I’m fumbling to cut his head off.  Much more dignified and much more ergonomic.

I really hope I’m not asked to help clean up the grave yard on Wednesday morning.  I think the volunteers should handle that.  I mean, I’ve paid my dues and now I’d like to let the system do its thing, if you know what I mean.  Of course, the volunteers do a pretty bad job.  Every election night I see mismatched heads on the reanimated voters.  It’s kind of an embarrassment.  But still, I can’t be expected to do everything around here.  At some point the kids just have to be allowed to sink or swim.  ‘Nuff said.

In the real world I attended the latest meeting of our local Republican Town Committee and was surprised to hear that even in the cobalt blue New England state that Dunwich is embedded in the Stupid Party candidates have a fighting chance of winning for once!  I could tell the rest of the folks there were almost shocked by the situation.  I was quite amused.  Maybe I’ve underestimated the people in this country.  Could there be a limit to their willingness to endure progressive insanity?  Even here?  Well, we’ll see.

I will be working on Election Day in an official capacity which is interesting and annoying at the same time.  I’ll have to figure out if I can bring my laptop and go on-line when I’m on my breaks.  Not being able to follow this election on OCF would be unfortunate.

It should be fairly interesting to be involved in the election.  I’ll finally see how the sausage is made.  I suspect my town is one of the more boring and honest operations.  And maybe the rough stuff happens higher up the ladder in the crooked states that we saw on tv in 2020.  I remember those films in Philadelphia where they threw everyone out around midnight and all the skullduggery occurred behind closed doors and blacked out windows.  It’s kind of sad to know that after all that went on in plain sight that nothing has been done in some of those states to prevent a replay this year.  Well, as I’ve said this is the Day of Reckoning coming up.  We’ll find out where we stand and that is valuable in and of itself.  So, bring it on, bring it on, bring it on.  And where did I put that sharpening stone?

Dunwich Public Service

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Here in Dunwich the Evil Party and the Stupid Party cooperate.  Typically, First Selectman Cthulhu represents the Evil Party and negotiates with the Stupid Party to determine whom he’ll eat first and whom he’ll leave for last.  In between these two cases the order of the other meals can be a surprise both for Cthulhu and the ingestees.  Basically, they’re all living in the moment.  If the First Selectman happens to be feeling a might peckish then even without any provocation from the various entrees, he may decide to indulge in a snack.  And conversely, if the partisan antics of the Stupid Party are indulged in too strenuously, then even a sated or even a queasy Cthulhu may be forced to quiet the proceedings by the process of elimination.

But after those discussions were done, we got down to the business of making the Great Old Ones great again.  Apparently, Dunwich has a four hundredth anniversary this year.  On that day in 1622 Cthulhu ate his first Englishman and really, really liked it.  For that reason, he signed in blood (someone else’s) the official charter allowing Puritans the exclusive right to colonize what would come to be known as Dunwich.  Although back then it was known as New Dunwich.  In exchange, the inhabitants agreed to forfeit their immortal souls and pay an eight percent sales and real estate tax in perpetuity.  That Cthulhu really is evil.  Anyway, the anniversary committee gave its report and recommended fire works and a school pageant.  Blah, blah, blah.

At the meeting I was held forth as a candidate for the office of Keeper of the Condiments.  This is a high honor and comes with the additional perk that as the purveyor of barbecue sauce for the First Selectman I would be very unlikely to be eaten.  Of course, it is a highly demanding job and some folks think it slightly cruel.  Before every meeting of the selectmen, I am charged with slathering them with barbecue sauce from head to foot.  Most nights it’s just a formality but then again you never know.  It would also be my job to keep on hand a thousand-yard spool of nylon rope to be available for use as dental floss as needed.  But of course, replenishing the supply is only a very occasional chore.

I must confess that I have my qualms about accepting the nomination.  I mean, it’s not that I don’t despise all of the members of the Stupid Party.  After all, they are invertebrates of the first water with no hint of courage or even conscience.  As cocktail hors d’oeuvres for a squid headed dragon they would enjoy their finest hour.  But wasting that much barbecue sauce on these slugs just rankles.  If it was just ketchup or mustard, I think I’d be okay with it but my upbringing was always “waste not want not.”

But what the hell.  I need the cash.  Things have gotten expensive and the job comes with a pension and a tax exemption and eight percent is eight percent after all.  And all things considered it’s not the worst position in the town hall.  I’ve heard being the First Selectman’s Keeper of the Bicarbonate is a lot worse.  I don’t like to think about that one.

16JUN2022 – Dunwich Complainer – Campaign Season

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I attended the Dunwich Republican Town Committee (DRTC) meeting last night and it was all aflutter with excitement about prospects for electoral victory.  Enormous dissatisfaction with taxation and economic hardship along with blatant partisan power grabs by the Democrats both locally and at the state level had convinced many of the committee members that this was the moment when the tide would turn and Dunwich would be delivered from the Democrats and a new order would prevail.

Needless to say, I sat in the back benches and kept quiet.  The report to the committee on elections stressed that victory would be assured if we could just get our candidates through the approval process this week.  All that was needed was the Selectman Interview and the fee payment.  The committee responded with hearty applause and the candidates were welcomed to the floor to say a few words.  These four men were new to the community but enthusiastic about taking their places as selectmen and guiding Dunwich to a new day.  Their spokesman displayed their application paperwork with attached checks and more applause broke out.  This further enthused the spokesman and he went on to say that the interview was scheduled to take place at this meeting and the interviewer would be the First Selectman.  The spokesman read from a card and had some difficulty with the First Selectman’s name, “Cuh Thu Luh or something?  Must be Samoan I guess.”

Silence descended on the crowd and I shrank even lower in my seat and edged over to the emergency exit.  At that moment First Selectman Cthulhu squeezed his bulk through the bulging auditorium double doors and ponderously plodded up to the dais.  Without a word he snatched up the application forms from the candidate spokesman in one hand and with his other arm he funneled the candidates into his mouth and noisily chewed, crunched, mumbled and swallowed the screaming men down his voracious gullet.  After one fairly loud and malodorous belch he turned around and plodded back out of the auditorium.  As he reached the doors his booming voice was heard to say, “I’ll have these checks deposited in the Dunwich Rainy-Day Fund later today.”  This latter reference was slightly insulting.  The Rainy-Day Fund was the First Selectman’s euphemism for his whiskey allowance account.

The rest of the meeting was slightly more subdued.  It was agreed by one and all, that electoral gains were probably not in the cards for 2022 but that the steering committee would go to work immediately drafting a strongly worded rebuke against the First Selectman for interfering in the internal affairs of the DRTC.  It was also unanimously decided not to publicly distribute this rebuke but maintain it as an attachment to the meeting minutes and password protect it.  After smelling salts and sedatives had been distributed to the women members and some of the less stalwart men a motion was passed to concentrate all of the committee’s time and energy to making the Labor Day Jamboree the best goldarned jamboree the town had ever had.  It was also agreed unanimously that future meeting would be held in a venue that lacked double doors.