Last week, there was an unintentionally amusing letter to the editor of the Cassandra Times.  Here it is, verbatim et litteratim et punctatim:

Kids Need to Know the TRUTH

God created the universe, and everything in it, in just six days, but instead of teaching the TRUTH in school, they teach evolution.  I think this is a sign that Armageddon is just around the corner. . . .

     God loves you unconditionally. . . .  Repent now or burn in hell.

     Jesus could come any day.  He’s been building up to the climax.

 — God’s humble servant, Connie Cockburn, Cassandra, Iowa

This week, someone responded to that letter:

Kids Need to Know the TRUE TRUTH

It seems Connie needs to be reminded that there are hundreds of gods and goddesses, and — as anyone who has studied ancient Egyptian religion (the only TRUE religion) knows — the universe was actually created as follows:

According to the Heliopolitan cosmogony (the creation “myth” that originated in the ancient Egyptian city of Iunu, which the Greeks called Heliopolis) the world sprang forth from primordial chaos, and Atum — “he who came into being by himself,” as the Pyramid Texts tell us — created the universe by masturbating into the void, his semen becoming the stars and planets we see today.

Anyone who denies the TRUTH of divine masturbation should be put to death.

 — Atum’s pompous servant, Harry Cockburn, Cassandra, Iowa

And here are a couple more interesting letters:

Kids These Days

Yesterday, a teenager took a submachine gun, some hand grenades, and a rocket launcher to Cassandra High and blew away more than three hundred of his classmates while they were gathered in the school gym for a pep rally.  I think that’s just plain rude.

     What is it with kids these days?

     I never took a gun to school when I was a kid.

     OK, maybe a few times — but it wasn’t loaded.

     Well, yeah, so it was loaded — but only with blanks.

     All right, so the bullets were real — but I never fired it.

     Well, maybe I fired it a few times — but I never killed anybody.

     Yeah, all right, so I did kill a few of my more annoying classmates — but that was a long time ago . . . before I’d gotten used to being away from home.

     It took me a while to adjust to kindergarten.

 — Anita Ho, Cassandra, Iowa

Evolutionary Throwbacks

I can understand how, in the Stone Age, most of our female ancestors wanted to mate with males who possessed good physical prowess.  After all, in the ancestral environment, it made good evolutionary sense to do so.  But why are most women, even today, more attracted to athletic guys than intelligent guys (not that the two are always mutually exclusive, of course).

     Hell, girls even fall for guys who’re involved in blatantly homoerotic sports like wrestling.  (As any professional lexicographer knows, the inventors of the “sport” only called it wrestling because the word foreplay was already taken.)

     Every time I see two of these lovebirds rolling around on the mat, I can’t help but say something like: “Oh, get a room.  And, for God’s sake, man — wipe that smegma off your lip.”

 — Dick Johnson, Cassandra, IA

Also in this week’s paper:

HELP WANTED: Cockburn Funeral Home is seeking a mortician who is willing to work odd hours — and another who can work the even ones.  Necrophiliacs need not apply.

HELP WANTED: Cockburn Medical Center is looking for an experienced urologist.  Last name must be Cockburn (although we may consider someone with a name like Hung Wang).  We’re also looking for a janitor–cum–brain surgeon — no experience necessary.

HELP WANTED: Cockburn Chrysler is looking for an aggressive salesperson.  And we don’t just mean aggressive in the sense of assertive — we mean aggressive in the sense of hostile and belligerent.  We want someone who will beat the piss out of customers who won’t pay sticker price.

HELP WANTED: Night watchman needed.  Apply at Len Kennedy’s Church of Naked Ladies Who Are Always Bending Over to Pick Up Their Change Because It Keeps Falling Out of Their “Pockets.”

GET RICH QUICK!!!  For only $99.99 we’ll show you how to eat coal and shit diamonds.

PORNO FOR SALE: Contact Father Cockburn at the Sacred Heart Church.

FREE: Declawed gerbil — slightly used.  Contact Father Cockburn at the Sacred Heart Church.

CORRECTION: The headline of last week’s Times should have read, “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” not “’Twat the Night Before Christmas.”  We apologize for any titters or titillation this may have caused.

And, of course, the personals:

Drooling mongoloid with a stupid-looking crew cut seeks eighty-six-year-old bag lady with false teeth and a wooden leg.

Painfully attractive triple-breed German–Irish–Cherokee American writer seeks spankulicious brunette who will choose a better pet name for me than Kraut McInjun.

Disillusioned priest seeks God-fearing altar boy who is willing to learn a few of the more painful Bible lessons — many of which require some form of lubrication.

7:1 mix of root beer and Jägermeister seeks Len Kennedy’s liver.  Will not take no for an answer.

Middle-aged woman seeks handsome gentleman who will love me for who I am inside (conveniently overlooking my morbidly obese and disgustingly grotesque body), a man who can somehow get it up for an amorphous blob of flesh and stank, a man who can see things from a woman’s point of view — a “broad” perspective, if you will (so he will have probably suffered at least minor brain damage in a car accident or something).  Will settle for good personal vibrator.

Oh, let’s not forget this morning’s missing persons report:

This announcement is in regards to the disappearance of a “Jane Doe.”

     Unfortunately, she guarded her privacy rather fanatically, so she never revealed her name to any of her friends.

     Even more unfortunately, she never allowed anyone to take her picture.

     And, perhaps most unfortunate of all, she was either a master of disguise or her friends are exceptionally daft — or, quite probably, both — because all of the various police sketches differ so dramatically as to be completely unreliable.

     Therefore, the only thing anyone has to go on is that the missing woman has a quarter-inch-diameter mole on her left labia majora.

     If you have any information as to the whereabouts of this woman, please call 1-800-HUH-WHAT.