Petersen: The ‘Wretched Mess Press Gazette’
Buzz publications are popping up everywhere. These — usually monthly — periodicals contain quips, quotes, recipes, cartoons, statistics and a bunch of other entertaining tidbits. I suspect much of the material is harvested from the all-knowing, all-powerful, all-resourceful, interplanetary internet.
You can find these cutesy buzz journals in restaurants, bars, merchandise stores, gas stations and, well, there seems to be no end to locations where you can pick up your very own free copy.
How are these balderdash bulletins funded? Ads, of course — cheap ones. Which means there’s an abundance of advertisements packed into the pages. Readers are attracted to the buzz sheets by the humor, fun, flimflam, puns, paraprosdokians (look it up), jokes and wry quips sprinkled like chocolate chips in a Toll-House cookie throughout.
Matty and Mildred, those intrepid, over-the-hill cowgirls, have been inspired to originate a buzz bulletin they’ve titled “The Wretched Mess Press Gazette.” They’ve formed a board for the enterprise, naming themselves editor and CEO. Other board members are Smokey, the cowdog, and Drifter, the mule. M and M decided to organize “The Wretched Mess Press Gazette” into 10 categories. That way, they claim, there will be a spot for any kind of incoming blurb, news, jokes, comments, casual criticisms or the occasional hairball.
Category one: Doofus Definitions (Questions asked by the confused or the mentally limited persons)
Q: What’s a tweedle?
A: A verb frequently erupting like a spouting geyser. I tweedle — present tense; I twaddle — past tense; I have twaddled — past-perfect tense. Tweedle, in all its forms, most often describes politicians and political aides, particularly those of the feminine persuasion who can spew hot air faster than meteors orbiting earth.
Category two: Codpiece Corner
Q: “What’s a codpiece?”
A: The exciting detailed recounting of old-men celebrities’ former methods of dating females of the Homo Sapiens genus.
Category three: Fashion Follies
Q: What’s a fashion folly?
A: Expensive pre-torn holes in jeans, lewd phrases on t-shirts, flesh colored tights, thong undergarments and worse to come.
Category four: Flibbertigibbets
Q: What’s a flibbertigibbet?
A: Wal-Mart shoppers, pocketbook-size canines and potent pills that male celebrities offer to women they wish to date.
Category five: The First Church of Other People’s Business
Q: Who comprises the parishioners of this church?
A: The IRS, the internet, credit card companies, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, eBay, Amazon, all forms of “social media,” Russia, China, North Korea and Hank the Hired Hacker.
Category six: Freeloading
Q: What is freeloading?
A: When a store employee carries your groceries out to your automobile and doesn’t expect a tip. Scammers, hitchhikers and political parties. And any feral varmint that helps itself to the dog’s food.
Category seven: Cranky Letters
Q: What’s a Cranky Letter?
A: Complaints penned mostly in newspaper “Letters to the Editor” by those who feel that folks who do not agree with them are disloyal, misguided, ignorant, seriously wrong and should be punished.
Category eight: Psalm Wailing
Q: What is Psalm Wailing?
A: The so-called discussions that ensue in any group, organization or club meeting in which there are no conclusions and all actions are tabled, on pause, or pending. Sometimes referred to as Congress.
Category nine: Other-Than-That-Mrs. Lincoln
Q: What is Other-Than-That-Mrs. Lincoln?
A: Paraprosdokians such as: You are never too old to learn something stupid. I started this week with a big box of patience … the box is now empty. You can’t have everything. Where would you put it? (This last one is a very popular category and responsible for the proliferation of storage units.)
Category 10: Wretched Mess Medicine
Q: What is Wretched Mess Medicine?
A: Diet pills, surgical procedures to discourage over-eating, lose-weight-while-you-sleep silliness, sodas, sweeteners and the current political Up-In-Air-Health-Care-for-Us, but Not Y’all closed-door debate.
Matty and Mildred held the number of “Wretched Mess Press Gazette’s” categories to 10, but they feel certain there will be added categories to come. Publication will be immediate unless Mildred and Matty’s printers run out of ink.
Distribution will be to all corners of the county as early as possible via mule and four-wheeler. Mildred will ride Drifter. Matty will drive the four-wheeler.
Send your contributions to the “Wretched Mess Press Gazette” at any time. Nothing is turned down, but sometimes things go astray. ❖
