Tell it like it is
Heard a police call the other night during which some downtown ne’er-do-well was reported to be acting strangely in the narrow dark between tenement buildings. The first cop to arrive in the area totally dispensed with the legal mumbo jumbo and tedious 10 codes and reported that the shady suspect in question was “up to no good.” Frankly, I wish more cops would use easy and familiar language like this when describing scenes. When you hear someone is “up to no good,” after all, you get an immediate image of some shifty weasel doing stuff that you can’t quite describe, but you know it ain’t good. I would likewise encourage the return of descriptions like “acting up,” “good for nothing,” “rascal” “scoundrel” and “naughty” to the radio airwaves.
Ne’er-do-well
Is also a great word, but who has time to look up where the hyphens and dashes go every time you use it? Not me, that’s for who.
Police chase car with canoe on top after man didn’t pay for his beer in Belfast bar
Two things occurred to me when I read this headline. First: Holy moly! This headline is so long, I had to use a bookmark. This headline is what we in the industry used to call a paragraph. And B: This headline totally sounds like the beginning of one of those “Bert & I” stories from back in the day. Read the headline with an exaggerated Down East accent and tell me I’m wrong. (News flash: The man DID pay for the beer. Now leave him alone!)
RSU 16 school year will end one day early
Use that day wisely, young people. I remember I got out of school a day early in the fifth grade and I totally squandered the day watching cartoons and playing with Slinky and Lite Brite. I’ve regretted it all my life. I could have been somebody if I’d done something with that day.
What are YOU looking at?
In Auburn Wednesday night, an obvious ne’er-do-well wearing goggles and a mask walked up to a fast-food restaurant drive-through window on Minot Avenue and gaped at the worker on the other side. I presume he gaped, anyway. He may have gawped or ogled or simply gazed. At any rate, the worker didn’t open the window and the masked fellow went away. It just goes to show . . . I don’t know. Something.
Meanwhile, at Dunkin’ Donuts
Another clerk outwitted a robber by stepping into a back room and locking the door. Game over and the night’s final score: Clerks 2, Masked Scoundrels 0. Seriously, bros. Get a paper route.
A bald getaway
In downtown Lewiston, a woman fleeing a crash scene on foot lost her wig as she fled from police. I don’t know much about the science of hair works, but how fast do you have to be hauling butt to blow the hair right off your head? You’ve got to fasten those things down with a staple gun if you’re going to be an outlaw.
To hair is human
When I first saw the wig down there on the dusty sidewalk, I assumed that the suspect was a witch who had melted into the ground like that old hag from “The Wizard of Oz.” I won’t lie to you. It scared me a little. My first impulse was to run away, but had I done so, I might have lost my weave.
PS
Not that I wear a weave. Forget I said that. My Fabio-like mane is totally real, you hear me?
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