Slithy Toves Gyre, Gimbol, Ransack, Rummage, Galumph – February 10, 2010
• Friday, January 1 10:33 p.m. A howly-growly lass made a spectacle at a 13th Street marketplace, then wandered into G Street traffic, almost getting car-whammed, miraculously surviving to appear next at a nearby video store and creating a similar kerfuffle there. She was arrested on public schnockerdness charges.
10:36 p.m. Something named “Isaac” wearing ear plugs didn’t pay the $10.91 tab at a no-excuses Plaza restaurant/tavern.
2:44 p.m. Goat Guy and Gal are back, and were reported with their diminutive ruminant not on a leash in Larson Park. Police advised GG&G as to livestock harness laws.
6:29 p.m. A woman in her seventies stated that she was going to kill herself by going on a hunger strike.
• Saturday, January 2 6:29 p.m. A man in an I Street store yelled at people about suing the police department. Officers transported him to the crazy house.
8:29 p.m. When people break up, the modern problem is what to do with the sex tapes. When she moved out, he kept two videotapes, the value of which she said was “priceless.” He told police the tapes belong to both of them and that he had as much right to them as she. In his opinion, she was just an angry ex “trying to make drama.”
• Sunday, January 3 3:07 a.m. Shoving a woman at a Samoa Boulevard apartment complex didn’t quite do the trick, so a manly man followed that up with a promise to “slit her throat.”
3:52 a.m. A Samoa Boulevard apartment dweller said that a man showed up at his home and attacked his sister, broke a window and stole his $50 hat. “Go get my hat,” he told an officer.
10:41 a.m. Someone broke into an S Street school and savaged hallway decorations. The lust for light damage unsated, this was followed by writing a naughty word on an instructional skeleton.
11:26 a.m. Maybe mud splashed on a building does qualify as vandalism, maybe not.
1:45 p.m. A man with no shirt or shoes wandered down Alliance Road, muttering to himself.
• Monday, January 4 9:24 a.m. Some five-year-old sculpted shrubs were reported trampled in Sherri Court, again.
9:26 a.m. Some sort of parking activist reported yoga practitioners parking in a rather free-form manner, blocking the Post Office lot. A postal employee said he hadn’t noticed anything awry with the parking situation.
12:26 p.m. A Valley West budget motel lodger boasted of his impressive credentials as an ex-Marine and Hell’s Angel, adding that he had a license to carry firearms. So when he vowed to “kill and gut” the tow truck driver who had taken his vehicle, an employee thought it best that police know. With that, he and his dog wandered away.
5:16 p.m. A man said that he was in the checkout line at a 13th Street store when someone came up behind him and in a loud stage whisper accused him of being a “child raper.” This sort of harassment occurs every time he sees the other guy in public.
• Tuesday, January 5 7:37 a.m. An emotional man wept in the City Hall parking lot, complaining that he couldn’t remember the last time he slept. It seems that his girlfriend “did something” to him while he was sleeping in Crescent City, and he hasn’t been able to sleep normally or pee painlessly ever since.
9:22 a.m. One dog named Charlie on Diamond Drive, two stories:
1. A resident claimed that a neighbor frequently walks her dog leashlessly, and that this day it approached him growling while the owner “did nothing.”
2. The owner and leashed dog were crossing the street when the man yelled at her to “get her dog back” and gave the pooch a face-shot of pepper spray, which made it growl. She didn’t say anything to the man because he doesn’t like her and it’s an ongoing issue.
12:59 p.m. A man in a color-coordinated jogging ensemble – gray sweatpants and hat – granted himself a personal exemption from Marsh-use rules and wildlife well-being and went jogging on the wetlands trails with two large boxers.
1:16 p.m. A South G street resident’s unlocked car underwent a severe rummaging, with little or nothing stolen.
2:18 p.m. A C Street resident reported a $300 two-way radio stolen from his unlocked vehicle.
9:23 p.m. A woman worked on her boyfriend’s computer in his back bedroom when two men she’d never seen before entered the house and walked down the hallway. One of them paused in the doorway and asked her what she was doing there. She said she was just visiting while the boyfriend is in jail.
10:15 p.m. An H Street business reported that on New year’s morning at about 4 a.m. as an employee was doing inventory, a man named “Will” came to the front window and pointed a shotgun at her. Police found the man, who, along with a friend, had been ejected from the business, and admonished him for playing with his shotgun.
• Wednesday, January 6 4:47 p.m. Medical personnel rushed to aid a dehydrated woman at a G Street mini-mart.
5:37 p.m. A man baying insensibly at Fifth and G streets was located and drunk-tanked.
• Thursday, January 7 2:33 a.m. Something wearing a hat and known only as “Stomper” supposedly threatened an Alliance Road apartment dweller with death.
8:09 a.m. A vehicle on Beverly Drive was entered and very thoroughly rummaged by a slithy tove sometime during the night.
8:22 a.m. After hearing someone in the driveway at about 11 p.m. the previous night, a Golf Course Road resident awoke to find the vehicle ransacked and property strewn about the area.
8:39 a.m. The aftermath of a nocturnal vehicle rummaging was again detected on Beverly Drive.
11:40 a.m. A woman with a beehive hairdo was seen emerging from a Uniontown supermarket’s bathroom with bags of groceries, arousing suspicion. She’d previously been arrested for shoplifting there and banished from the store, so police were called. Her parole agent authorized that she be held, so she was arrested and jailed on trespass and shoplifting charges.
3:13 p.m. A man called to report that he was assaulted by a drunken man near Redwood Park, but he said he had located the suspect at a nearby church and didn’t need police assistance – he would “deal” with it himself.
4:06 p.m. One of the citizens featured on a national TV show about Arcata’s cannabis-growing issues said his friend overheard people in a coffee shop plotting to kill him and his wife. Meanwhile, pals of one of the many accused grow house operators continue to loiter in front of his house and take his picture.
11:13 p.m. A bald man at Fifth and E streets was reported “freaking out” and having an argument with himself. Who won isn’t documented.
• Friday, January 8 8:34 a.m. A vehicle was entered and ransacked during the night on 14th Street.
5:42 p.m. Two travelerish-types (identified thusly by the relatively high bandana-density of their cranial regions), one known as “Mark,” reportedly harassed other travelers and customers outside the store where everything’s worth a dollar. But when blue-suited officers showed up, they became submissive and agreed to move along.
• Sunday, January 10 4:15 p.m. A Buttermilk Lane resident was reported “turning in circles with his hands in the air.”
7:08 p.m. A woman showed up at a Jay Street house saying that the resident had some property of hers. He held her at bay with a spear gun until police arrived and arrested her on public tipsitude charges.
