Further confirmation of my theory that thieving weasels will steal absolutely anything. Come on over to my house thrice a week, why don’t you, and steal the litter out of my cat box.

I’m buying it. It’s not that I like bowling, mind you. I haven’t bowled since The Incident. But I like standing around in somebody else’s shoes and drinking beer all night so, yeah. To whom do I make the check out?

It’s been a tough winter. It’s not that we’ve had a lot of snow and it hasn’t been all that cold for long stretches. It’s tough because if you try to complain about it, which frankly is one of my favorite seasonal pastimes, terminally happy people will say things like, “We’ve been really lucky so far,” or “It’s really only just begun,” or even “Who are you and why are you standing in my driveway complaining about things?” It’s like they don’t even WANT to experience the joys of being sulky and downcast five months of the year.

I seem to have caused confusion with my recent column extolling the magic of cold brew coffee. The process of preparing a batch of this savory brew uses cold water, sure enough. But I use it to make a steaming HOT cup of coffee by adding — you might want to write this down — hot water. I mean, you CAN use cold brew for iced coffee, but I’ve always considered that an abomination and I feel dirty for even bringing it up.

River Dave arrested again
Every time I read about this saga I’m reminded of one lingering and troublesome question: Why do I not have a cool nickname like this? I mean, come on. I’ve been skulking around Lewiston’s prime spots for so long, you’d think people would have taken to calling me “Kennedy Park Mark,” “Canal Man” or “That Long and Ugly Alley Between Lisbon and Park Streets LaFlamme.” Actually, I rather like the ring of that latter one. Maybe I’ll just get it tattooed somewhere.

Because I can no longer monitor police radio chatter, I’m always overreacting to ambulance and fire calls. If I hear the right combination of words, I’ll go screaming off to the scene, expecting to find a Valentine’s Day-style massacre but ending up with a drunk guy whose elbow “kind of feels funny,” instead.

What about “The Pine Street Prowler?” That’s got a kind of Dickensian grittiness to it. Also, “Dickensian” is just good fun to say. Sounds a bit dirty.