NEARING END OF APPLICANTS FOR COLUMNIST “POSITION” – Your Editor, who suffers the tortures of the damned without any of their concomitant compensations, has, in spite of his best endeavors to stem the flow, received yet another batch of applications for this miserable position (the job market must be MUCH worse than we imagined). A couple bear mentioning in passing, without printing their entire vitae:

Bob the Attack Cat (submitted by his keeper, Chief W.C. Nylon, and written in his own inimitable way): Editor, I figger if Bob the Famose Attack Cat be smart enuff to keep them shiftyeye selectmentals up a tree, and him being smart enuff to scratch in his litter box, that he be smart enuff to scratch out a stoopid column every week. [Ed. note: There’s some truth to this, and at the moment Bob could be a top contender.]

Three selectmentals: Edditore, we is the three selectmens who is very mental, we got the smarts to write this dumb collum, witch wood be good on account of we could put the heat on some of them udder bozos and take it off of us. [Ed. note: Hah! In their DREAMS!]

The week’s mail brought a second bizarre letter comparable to the one printed last time, leading us to the inevitable conclusion that a full moon, with all it portends, shines permanently on this town. We reprint it in full, with such editorial comments as we deem necessary enclosed within [brackets].

“Dear Editor, My cheeks were aflame with such righteous indignation upon perusing Silly Social Scenes this week that I found it necessary to spritz them with my soda water bottle [more likely her bottle of gin]! A lovely, sincere application for work that would continue this most peculiar newspaper column was a response of vile trickery imposed on an innocent [incomplete sentence and dangling participant]. “The work of Hostile Parties to seize control” indeed! You ran Penelope Applebaum’s application “through our truth detector?” I would doubt you could recognize a truth if it fell plonk in your porridge! Where are your principles [as an Editor and therefore Lord of All We Survey, we are not required to have any]? I know her not, but her letter shows her to be a sincere lady of the highest degree [and functionally illiterate into the bargain]. You, sir, have impugned her reputation. This piece of yours shows you to have a whimsically cruel Hand [hand, no; sense of humor, yes]. You have desiccated the foundation of editorships the earth over. Boswell must be turning ‘neath his stone. [Wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong! The writer betrays his/her/their appalling ignorance by intimating that James Boswell was an editor; Edmond Malone was an editor, Harold Ross was an editor and Horace Greeley was an editor – but James Boswell, Senior, was NOT! Hah!]. Cordelia von Hausentrich”

WELL! As the name was PLAINLY made up and so obviously an anagram, we resorted once again to the anagrammatical machine to determine the actual name of the writer, and believe us, the results opened a few eyes around here. The three likeliest candidates were “Rina Struvach- Doone, Chile” (a dealer in shady bat guano futures in Santiago and a one-time snake charmer and exotic dancer in Wolcott, Vermont, which explains her familiarity with Our excellent newspaper); “Nashvoile U. Crachit, Drone” (the illegitimate daughter of an illegitimate son of an illegitimate nephew of Napoleon, and a flunkout, drop-out or kick-out from nine finishing schools, including the well-known [but not wellloved] Frau Krinkheimer’s School for Obstreperous Young Ladies in western East Roxbury, and a general boil upon the body politic); and finally, “V.R. ‘Cheech’ Nailaroo, Nudist” (a particularly odd character who for many years was a professional streaker and who attempted to establish a nudist colony on South Main Street, opposite the residence of Mrs. Gazpacho Prongfelter, who finally discouraged the sun-worshippers with loads of rock salt discharged from her AK-47; generally thought to be harmless [if charmless].

Of the three known to have used this anagram, the first-named appears to be the most obvious candidate, if only because neither of the others seem to have the oomph needed to get up in the morning, scour the streets of this municipality for gossip, and then put it into columnar form. Needless to say, however, your Editor is NOT going to hire a dealer in bat guano futures, no MATTER what the polls say! We already have at least three miscreants in town (presently residing in a tree, courtesy of Bob the Attack Cat) who are adept at spreading bat guano, so why would we want another?