As predicted the bottom fell out of the thermometer today.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Of course, here in Dunwich we have a slightly different climatic event.\u00a0 The pole that our vortex is generated by is the galactic pole of the Milky Way.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Out of that cosmic orifice flows an irresistible plasma of pure neutronium moving at 99.99999% of light speed.\u00a0 Today the beam punched a perfectly round eight-foot hole through Josiah Whatley\u2019s barn and astronomers believe that it sliced Pluto in half on its exit from the solar system.<\/p>\n
But much more importantly, it knocked out the electric power and cable access to First Selectman Cthulhu\u2019s abode.\u00a0 Now the First Selectman is a big fan of Vanna and Pat.\u00a0 He watches Wheel of Fortune religiously.\u00a0 Well, that is if the word religiously can be used at all to describe a blasphemous eldritch creature.\u00a0 But suffice it to say he was not happy.\u00a0 I could hear him stomping up the hill toward my house.\u00a0 You see he doesn\u2019t use a cell phone, he\u2019s got a land line that runs over the same cable so he had to visit me personally instead of calling.<\/p>\n
Since he\u2019s a hundred feet tall I could see him coming from several miles away.\u00a0 Wanting to avoid the possible blowback from Camera Girl sassing this squid-headed town official I went to meet him.\u00a0 When I got within shouting distance, I greeted him politely and he began to ooze slime from his mouth.\u00a0 It was quite nauseating and frightening.\u00a0 \u201cAlright you insignificant morsel of bland monkey meat, I want you to restore the cable before 7:30 pm.\u00a0 It\u2019s LX week and that means there\u2019s the potential for an extra forty thousand in the bonus round and I hear Vanna\u2019s going to be wearing a sparkly dress tonight and she always looks completely delicious in one of those.\u00a0 So, make it happen.\u00a0 Right?\u201d\u00a0 I said I would get right on it and he let out a deafening bellow that whipped slime into the air.\u00a0 Then he turned around and plodded back down the hill toward his lair.<\/p>\n
I drove down to the dump and sized up the neutronium beam.\u00a0 I could see that after exiting Whatley\u2019s barn it had taken out a telephone pole that fed the street that ended near the First Selectman\u2019s cave.\u00a0 It seemed simple enough to have the cable company temporarily bypass around the beam and restore the service.\u00a0 And the cable company truck was right down the road.\u00a0 But I could see that the license plate on the truck was from out of state.\u00a0 Apparently, he wasn\u2019t local so perhaps he had never seen a tear in the fabric of space time up close and personal.\u00a0 Also he probably had never seen Cthulhu before.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 I had seen this kind of reaction by out of towners quite often.\u00a0 I tried to be casual.\u00a0 \u201cHowdy friend, how\u2019s it going?\u00a0 Hey I\u2019m glad you\u2019re here to get the cable working again so soon.\u00a0 Looks like an easy fix.\u00a0 What do you think?\u201d<\/p>\n
He was hyperventilating and I could tell that he hadn\u2019t heard a word I\u2019d said.\u00a0 It occurred to me that he probably had seen the First Selectman saunter by.\u00a0 I reached into the window and pulled his key out of the ignition and opened the passenger side door and got in.\u00a0 He saw me and his head turned sideways toward me and he made some gurgling kind of sounds.\u00a0 \u201cNow look here, there\u2019s nothing to get excited about.\u00a0 You\u2019re a professional and you can\u2019t let a little thing like a hundred-foot squid-headed dragon stop you from providing an essential service to the community.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure that your company has provided you with the standard sensitivity and diversity trainings.\u00a0 Well, here\u2019s your chance to put that training into practice.\u00a0 Cthulhu is a proud American just as are you.\u00a0 He\u2019s been an inhabitant of this locale for over 450 million years and he is a pillar of the community.\u00a0 He cheers on our local high school teams and attends the harvest carnival fair without fail.\u00a0 Sure, he may eat the prize-winning bull from time to time but who doesn\u2019t get a little carried away with all that carnival junk food.\u00a0 As you very well know diversity is our strength.\u00a0 Whether it\u2019s 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. \u00a0\u00a0So come on man, buck up and let\u2019s get that cable back up pronto or he\u2019s going to come pounding down that road and eat you and your truck in one mouthful.<\/p>\n
The look of horror on his face didn\u2019t disappear.\u00a0 It sort of twisted sideways a little bit.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to describe.\u00a0 His left eye mostly closed and his upper and lower jaws were a little offset sideways.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 He fell out and ended up on his back.\u00a0 But this seemed to have a revitalizing effect on him and he sat up and looked almost sentient.\u00a0 I said, \u201cThat\u2019s the spirit.\u00a0 Let me help you up fella.\u00a0 You\u2019ve got this, don\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 At this point most of his hair had turned white and he had a tic in his left eye.\u00a0 I slipped him a ten spot and told him to have a nice evening.\u00a0 He drove off very slowly and he may have veered over the divider a few times.\u00a0 I hope he made it.\u00a0 Seemed like a nice guy.<\/p>\n
I returned home and had dinner and later on while Camera Girl was watching Wheel of Fortune I remarked to her, \u201cYou know that sparkly dress really does make Vanna look completely delicious.\u201d\u00a0 She scowled at me and said, \u201cYou need help.\u201d<\/p>\n
Women.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As predicted the bottom fell out of the thermometer today.\u00a0 The surrounding areas of southern New England will be experiencing temperatures as low as -15<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3366,1289,818,1263,4],"tags":[362,3341,3367,255,339],"class_list":["post-22110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-life-in-dunwich","category-fiction-by-me","category-ocf","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","category-sff","tag-cthulhu","tag-dunwich","tag-dunwich-complainer","tag-h-p-lovecraft","tag-new-england"],"yoast_head":"\n