Humor - FBI Mart

This piece was one I wrote last year. I really didn't know what I was going to write about when I sat down at my computer that day, but I was glad to have such a vast array of really bizarre stories to choose from. I really couldn't believe some of the articles. They were too funny to make fun of since they did such a good job at doing it themselves. It was too easy.

But I finally settled on the bits and pieces I put together here for the story you are about to read.

I am adding this forward so that I might be able to get rid of that annoying "Duplicate" label that I have been seeing ever since I added it. None of the others show that label, even though the first four Humor Columns I posted were all from the same site.

Well this might be enough words to change the status. If you haven't read this before, enjoy. If you have, well, tough toe nails. Read it again and enjoy it anyway. Peace y'all!

I've just come across an article on washingtonpost.com which sparked my interest.

It seems, as Ellen Nakashima writes, that the FBI (motto: We’re still not as scary as the CIA) has decided it would be a good idea to start a database costing a BILLION dollars which will keep track of criminals and their physical characteristics.

This is a great idea, but at the cost of a BILLION dollars of taxpayers’ money? Does an electronic database actually cost that much to put together and maintain? And is that the start up cost or does that include smoking breaks and chartered jets for the janitorial staff?

I suppose that the FBI’s International database would be quite useful. This fact is especially apropos (a French word meaning “apropos”) when you think about the following, fear inspiring news articles I gleaned from countless hours of research (I Googled it in .19 seconds).

I first found the account of a terrifying criminal in New Castle, PA named John Allen. John, an 86 year old resident of UnionTownship, made the harrowing choice, as reported by the Associated Press, to let his grass grow and become “unruly.” It’s true! Yet, it makes me wonder what the grass was doing that was so unruly. Was it hooting at women as they passed by? Was it spray-painting its street name on the neighbors’ fences?

The man was sent to prison for seven days for the grass and trash that the grass was growing around. If it was so tall, how could they have seen the trash in the first place?

Okay, admittedly there was a LOT of trash which the prison guards helped clean up after John finished his prison term (for real). But do we really need to keep track of people like this? Is John Allen going to go on an unruly grass growing spree across the country and, in fact, into foreign lands? I thought about calling Mr. Allen and asking if he had any intention of further encounters with the law. I suppose his reaction would have been, “Who the heck is this?”

How about the woman in Daytona Beach who was Tasered for using her cell phone? Yahoo News reported that Elizabeth Beeland had the nerve to forget her credit card at checkout in the local Best Buy she had been shopping at. She went outside in a hurry to use her cell phone. The clerk thought that she had been using a stolen credit card when she left in such a hurry and so called the police whom then took offense at her profane language and Tasered her as she was backing away from them. They found it was really her credit card, but they sited her for resisting arrest without violence (a misdemeanor).

Do we need to keep track of naughty mouthed cell phone users who have bad memories? I just don’t think it’s that important.

Now we come to another delinquent senior citizen. This one is from Gwinnett County, GA, as reported by www.wsbtv.com. The incident happened at a Wal-Mart store and, as police said, “A 70-year-old woman spent three days inside the store eating, shopping and eating at the on-site Blimpie.” [SIC] (That means I'm not the one that messed up the syntax.)

The Wal-Mart in question at which she did this stint is opened 38 hours a day, so what could possibly be wrong with staying there? She paid for everything bringing revenue to the company. I mean, that is the only reason for Wal-Mart to be in business since the death of its well intentioned founder, Mr. Walbert Mart, right?

This woman wasn’t trying to do anything illegal. She obviously was lost! Have you ever wondered why there are 38 million cars in the parking lot at 11:59PM? There aren’t that many employees there and the ones that are can’t afford the expensive cars which populate the lot (‘84 Ford Escorts, Blue Geo Metros, and the like). These cars belong to people whom have never come back OUT of the Wal-Mart! One of them belongs to this woman who seems to like Blimpie Subs and shopping binges. I guess you’d HAVE to like shopping to do it for three days straight.

But how did she avoid detection while she slept? That’s what I want to know. How unobservant did the staff have to be not to notice? How many people do they have wandering around for days at a time in their store so that a woman who has been there for three days doesn’t raise an eyebrow?

Maybe the FBI should put together a database specifically to help find and track the owners of all of those cars abandoned in the parking lots of all of those Wal-Marts. I think that the thousands of unreported disappearances at Wal-Mart should be a high priority.

Child: Daddy, when’s gramma coming back? She’s been gone so long!

Dad: She went to Wal-Mart, sweetie.

Child: Oh, so within the current decade?

Dad: Maybe.

I firmly believe that the FBI should definitely keep trying to find a way to track these and other vicious offenders of our sensibilities. I am all for finger printing, DNA printing, buttocks printing, whatever it takes! These people should not be allowed to run free in my neighborhood! I’m not too concerned about your neighborhood, you might even enjoy a little bit of excitement in your lives. but my neighborhood has enough crazies already in it. They are called neighbors.

It’s time that someone did something about it, and I’m glad, when all is said and done, that the FBI has made steps in that direction.

But don’t worry, good people of the FBI. You’re still scarier than Wal-Mart.