The Lankville Daily News

By Pa-hinn Cruikshank

Pa-hinn Cruikshank is a special reporter on the Medievals.

Residents were excited last week when a small metal box (or “capsule”) was unearthed under the cornerstone of St. Amelia’s, the stately cathedral that towers over Pondicherry Square in Old Lankville.

Prof. Glenn Ogilvie of the University of Southern Lankville rushed back from his tent in the Partial Ice Regions, interrupting his vacation, to investigate.

“At one time it was traditional to bury a time capsule with some coins and keepsakes to be opened at a specified date in the future,” Dr. Ogilvie said. “This is not one of those, however.”

Instead, the historian believes the strongbox actually dates to the “middle period” in Lanque-Ville-sur-Lac, and that it was transported and built into St. Amelia’s along with other foundation stones brought over from the foreign city.

So what, eager residents and the Lankville News reporters have been wondering, is inside?

Mostly, it turns out, some dead animals, a miniature codpiece that seems to have been designed for a little boy or a dwarf, and a strange item that Prof. Ogilvie at first assumed was another dead animal.

“Dead animals are a splendid find, don’t get me wrong,” averred Ogilvie, who added that they can tell us much about the type of pets the medievals used to cherish. In this case, the box contained parts of a hedgehog, a common weasel, and what was at first assumed to be the pelt of a ferret.

An onlooker suddenly approached Ogilvie and opened a challenge. The situation was quickly defused.

“Women liked to keep ferrets up their sleeves for warmth during the long winters in the Lanque-Ville-sur-Lac Lower Icy Regions,” explained Dr. Emma T. Hogg, Visiting Professor of the Dark Ages at Lankville State University.

But when the pelt was examined more closely, it turned out to be a merkin.

“Women wore merkins over their pubic areas for added warmth, sometimes for purposes of fashion,” noted Dr. Hogg. She and Prof. Ogilvie have put the merkin through rigorous testing at a secret facility, and as of this writing have applied to the Lankville Foundation for Olden Times (LFOT) for funding to do further tests.

Medievals playing with their pets.

“We are not yet sure,” Prof. Ogilvie said, “but this particular merkin may have belonged to St. Amelia of Lanque-Ville-sur-Lac.”

Pilgrims, according to Profs. Ogilvie and Hogg, used to come from all over the foreign lands to visit the town’s cathedral and touch the dead saint’s merkin, said to have healing powers. “St. Amelia was sent to the Lanque-Ville region to try to convert the barbarians,” who at that time adhered to a strange, horrible religion that involved veganism, communal property, and speaking in riddles, Dr. Hogg said. The barbarian King Hwamstan fell in love with the beautiful Amelia. She agreed to marry him only on the condition that he renounce his religion and agree to worship the one true God. His lust turned to anger, according to Dr. Hogg, and he tortured her.

“Eventually, he had her tied to a stake outside his castle and burned off her pubic hair,” said Dr. Ogilvie.

“But the next day,” Dr. Hogg added, “her pubic hair miraculously grew back, thicker than ever.”

Seeing this, King Hwamstan converted on the spot, and broke ground on the church that is the ancestor of Lankville’s St. Amelia cathedral.

“Her pubic hair kept growing, however,” reported Hogg, and so Amelia cut it off every night and wove it into long merkins, some of which she bequeathed to her daughters and granddaughters, as well as women from neighboring towns.

If the merkin does come from St. Amelia, that would make the mysterious capsule under the foundation stone a reliquary of sorts.

“We need to do more tests,” admitted Dr. Ogilvie, who was suddenly challenged again by a second bystander.

For now, Lankville can rejoice in knowing that it houses some true treasures from antiquity.

By Doug Andujar

HOLIDAY NEWS YOU CAN USE

Traveling during the holidays can be a stressful experience. Weather delays, crowded airports, corpses, stale cookies, horribly misshaped gourds that won’t fit into the overhead bins – we’ve all been there. Thankfully, the Lankville S.W.A.T. Team has put together a handy list of suggestions to make that journey home from Aunt Ethel’s in the Lankville Outer Flats a little easier on body and soul.

1) Screaming infants can be a real nuisance, especially if you’re stuck across the aisle from them on a five-hour flight. But did you ever think of the parents? The harassed-looking mother wearing a permanent scowl, the flustered dad on the point of angry tears? Well, most likely, they’re assholes, too. The child has to get that horrible behavior from somewhere, right? So instead of shouting at, threatening, or shaking the infant up and down by its ankles, consider some well-placed anger directed at the parents of this vicious animal. Start with a silent glare, and gradually escalate things to heavy sighing and hand gestures. If that elicits no more than an exasperated look or an apologetic shrug, try tearing your cocktail napkin into little balls and throwing them at the baby and its parents. The important thing is to show them that you can be just as immature and inconsiderate as the little bastard they’re raising. Even if it’s not immediately effective, such antics will take your mind off the infant and entertain the other passengers.

This won’t happen to you if you read this article.

2) Tired of getting stuck in airport security? Impatient with TSA workers who insist on looking through your things for contraband? Well, here’s an easy solution that Lankville S.W.A.T. Team members like to use when they’re flying: slip a handgun or a little plastic baggie (or “dimebag”) of narcotics into the carry-on luggage of the person standing just in front of you. You are guaranteed to move swiftly through the security line as agents converge on the unsuspecting traveler, and get a good laugh out of the process while you’re at it.

3) In today’s high-tech world, identity theft is always a concern, especially amidst the hustle and bustle of holiday traveling. Cousin Sal can easily have her credit card information swiped and transform into Uncle Hal, wreaking havoc in a tri-state crime spree. The best way to combat that possibility is to always travel under an assumed name, with corroborating false documents. The Lankville Copy Emporium can help you with all of your identity documentation needs. Once you have secured a new passport and other items, you must be prepared to answer questions about them as you move through travel checkpoints. Criminals often exhibit an overly calm and confident demeanor when challenged, so our Team recommends behaving in a nervous, anxious manner in response to questions. When asked if Paul Butterschmidt is your real name, for example, pause at least thirty seconds before responding. Blink rhythmically. It adds to the verisimilitude if you can generate a clammy sweat on the backs of your hands, which you then wipe on your overcoat. Hold your breath, then let it out by popping your cheeks with your fingers.

We hope these tips help you enjoy a safe and happy holiday travel season!

The man (who finds dogs)

I’m a man who finds lost dogs. That’s what I do. I don’t set out to do it. It’s not my job or anything like that. I don’t get paid for it. I’ll just be walking or skipping along somewhere and boom – there’s a dog, lost. They seem to be there waiting for me, in the middle of a sidewalk or on the edge of a lawn. Maybe they somehow know when I’m coming and they pick that exact moment to break free from their leash, or their house. I don’t know. I just know that I find them.

What do I do with them, you ask?

That depends.

The other day I was trotting down Hazard Avenue at a healthy clip, not really going anywhere, and I noticed a small black figure crouched half a block ahead on the sidewalk. Sure enough, it was a little dog. The kind of short-haired dog that looks like it’s wet even when it’s not. It was shivering, and gazing forlornly in my direction as I approached. As I stopped to see if I could read its tags I noticed an old woman heading towards us.

“He’s cold, poor thing,” she said, “he needs a sweater.”

I glared at her.

The little black dog wouldn’t let either one of us get close enough to read whatever name and number there might be on its tags. I mean, it would sidle up near us, whining and sniffing at our fingers. And then it would scamper off. After about fifteen minutes of this, I felt the way I always feel when I find a lost dog: angry and excited and frustrated and a little fearful, as though someone might be watching me, the owner maybe, or maybe a special kind of cop assigned to catch people doing things with animals out in public.

Finally the little black dog took off trotting on the sidewalk and I lit out after it. After a couple blocks the little black dog turned into a cobblestone drive and ran into a courtyard behind some houses. After a moment’s hesitation, I followed it.

The little black dog stood on the ledge of a doorway scratching at a large, wooden door, the type of door you might imagine breaking down to save a damsel in distress, if that’s the kind of thing you go in for. I’m a guy who finds lost dogs, so I knocked on the door. When no one answered, I rang the doorbell.

The old lady had caught up to us by this point, against all odds, her cane tapping on the cobblestones.

The little black dog yipped at her.

“Did you try ringing the doorbell?” she asked me.

Literal rendering of figure of speech used in story

I found myself reaching for the whip that I keep coiled in my overcoat.

Just then some people came out of the house at the back of the courtyard.

“This your dog?” I asked hopefully but also a little reluctantly, as I danced along the hedge trying to grab it by the scruff of the neck.

They said it was not but one of the folks, a bespectacled, bearded young fellow, indicated that he perhaps recognized the dog. He waved a cell phone at us ineffectually.

People.

It was then that a dark blue roadster sped down the drive and turned sharply into the courtyard. The woman who stepped out of the car had a face that made me nervous, like a plastic bag caught high in the branches of a tree.

The dog ran to her and she picked it up like a sack of groceries, holding it high against her shoulder as it nuzzled her neck, cooing and yipping with pleasure.

“Thank you so much,” she said to everyone and no one. “He runs away but he always comes back.”

The old lady was saying something and the man was holding up his phone and I found my hand gripping the leather handle of the whip.

“He does this all the time. Don’t you?” she said, tickling the dog under its chin, the little black dog yipping and smiling sheepishly, as if in agreement.

I had to do something so I released the whip handle and hit myself in the face. Hard. The woman looked at me and the little black dog sprang from her arms and the old woman gasped. The man didn’t seem to notice. I hit myself again, in the temple.

The sky seemed to get very bright and pulsed red, everything red, and then I was running.

Or trotting. I’m not sure.

But I knew that somewhere out there, waiting for me at the end of another road, was another lost dog.

By Gina Bradley-Komminsk

LANKVILLE ACTION NEWS: YES!

Andy Reinheimer is a self-proclaimed world-class taker of showers. The 32-year-old mechanic-cum-graphic designer has honed his craft over a lifetime, fueled by a passion that he says few can comprehend.

“How long is the typical shower?” he asks, somewhat rhetorically. “Seven minutes? Five? Ninety seconds if you’re really in a hurry?”

“Child’s play,” he scoffs.

Reinheimer, who hails from the Northern Lankville Peninsula Area, sometimes takes showers that last 45 minutes or more, with his longest clocking in at over three hours. He describes his technique as a careful combination of the “Three P’s”: perseverance, precision, and “Puffy Soap.” “‘Puffy Soap’ is made from a secret recipe that I’ve developed in collaboration with Vitiello Decorative Hams,” Reinheimer says, using excess swine and decoration parts from Vitiello’s factory. It will soon be available for purchase alongside other Lankville products.

“You have to love it, you know?” Reinheimer says.

Andy Reinheimer: Shower Enthusiast

A typical shower begins with the sculpted Reinheimer standing with arms pressed to his torso and thighs, eyes closed, and head tilted slightly downward, facing the nozzle as hot water cascades over him. He holds this position, which he calls “The Nestling,” for upwards of twenty minutes. Then, with extremely slow and precise movements, he begins to turn.

“Most people splash water around pell-mell, in a haphazard kind of way,” he says, his voice barely concealing his disdain. “They scrub here, scrub there, lift their arms up, pick some lint out of their belly buttons, and they’re done.”

By the time Reinheimer has completed the second phase of his shower, “The Pivoting,” he has rinsed and washed every pore of his body with a thoroughness that defies description – that to some people, Reinheimer reports, flies in the face of sense and reason.

“People are bothered by it,” he admits. His epic showers in local gyms are often met with staring, guffaws, and bewilderment. But sometimes he enjoys a more positive response, one from which he draws inspiration to keep going. “One guy hung around to tell me he’d watched me shower for half an hour. He was moved by it, especially when I got into a crouch for the final phase, ‘The Pod.’ When I hear something like that, it just drives me to push harder, shower longer.”

With that in mind, Reinheimer plans to move to the Lankville Partial-Ice Regions next year and begin a competitive shower league. “Those people are really into bathing,” he says, adding, “it must be all the geothermal pools and hot springs and whatnot.” It will be good, Reinheimer says, to live in a place where people take showering as seriously as he does.

Until then, he’ll just keep doing what he does, letting the water wash over him and honing his craft.

By Ida Rumpus

LANKVILLE ACTION NEWS: YES!

When Dave Schlarsberger purchased a bag of Barlow Foods Braided Honey Twist Wheat Helices in the basement vending machine of Lankville State University’s Carmody Hall on Friday, he was in for a big surprise. The 52-year-old Assistant Vice President in the Office of Financial Excellence frequently seeks out the salty snack in the mid-afternoon, when hunger drives him from his suite on the fifth floor.

“Sometimes I opt for Moon Chips,” Schlarsberger admitted. “I might even go straight for a Vitiello Decorative ham bunny on a day when I’m really famished. Usually, though, it’s the Honey Helix Pretzels. Man, they just hit the spot.”

Schlarsberger didn’t sense anything different as he smoothed his dollar bill and slid it into the vending machine. The spiral mechanism whirred forward as it had dozens of times before and dispensed the bag of pretzels, which he bent to retrieve with a characteristic flourish.

“I like people to know, anyone who might be watching: yeah, I just bought this. This is mine,” he said.

Almost immediately Schlarsberger felt a different heft to this particular bag.

“Usually, you know, the bag has a decent-sized serving, more than twelve pretzel helices but less than twenty.” It’s enough to fill him up, Schlarsberger added, but not so much that he feels bloated or has no appetite for dinner.

But when he sat down behind his desk on the fifth floor and tore open this bag of Honey Wheat Helices, he was startled.

The bag of pretzels photographed through a weird, confusing filter.

“The bag was packed,” Schlarsberger reported, his face still betraying astonishment. “I mean, there were pretzels practically bursting out the top of it. No way I could eat all that.”

Schlarsberger said that he thought about marching right down to the lobby of the Office of Financial Excellence and dumping half the bag onto a paper plate, to share it with the administrative assistants stationed there. Often, he said, there is a plastic container of store-bought cookies sitting on the ledge of the front desk. Sometimes brownies. Sometimes extremely heavy candies.

In the end, however, Schlarsberger decided not to share his bounty.

“Actually,” he admitted, “I kind of forgot about it. I ate a handful, did some work, ate another handful, and before I knew it, the pretzels were gone.”

But the Assistant Vice President won’t soon forget the day he discovered such an unexpected bonanza in his Braided Honey Helix Wheat Pretzels.