Odessa 2, Issue 5

CUPID RESIGNS; FATE OF LOVE INDUSTRY IN JEOPARDY
Stress played key role.
By Ludwig

PARIS—Speaking from his hometown of Paris, the city of love, Cupid announced to a shocked world that he was resigning his post as the Lord of Love (better known as “The Guy Who Shoots Heart-Tipped Arrows Into Your Butt”).

Cupid had long shown signs of tiring under his immense workload, but few believed he would take such drastic steps. In addition, many lawsuits and investigations into Cupid’s private life have left the Avatar of Admiration disillusioned and overly stressed.

“I just can’t do this anymore!” Cupid said to the crowd of reporters covering his press statement. “Nothing is ever good enough for you people nowadays. You all want to go cheating on each other, fall in love before I shoot the arrow, and do other kinds of seriously irresponsible and foolish things for which I get blamed. Well, I’ve had enough.”

The Ayatollah of Affection was referring to several key points in his recent life. For one, recently he has been accused of breaking up thousands of relationships by sending happily arrow-shot couples off after other people, something humans call “cheating”.

“It’s not my fault your spouse or girlfriend or your dog wants to find someone else. Maybe you didn’t love them enough! Ever think of that? But no, that would make too much sense. Let’s blame the angel in a diaper with the cute little crossbow. Hey, that was kind of an oxymoron, wasn’t it?”

Also, a lawsuit was filed against Cupid by a teenager claiming he used faulty arrows, and was failing to provide the services he is paid for.

“First of all I’m not paid squat,” retorted the Emperor of Emotion. “Second of all, it’s not my fault you people go thinking you’re in love when I haven’t shot you yet. That’s right! It’s not faulty arrows! I just haven’t shot you yet! How do ya like them apples?!”

Finally, private investigators have been looking into the Dictator of Devotion’s personal life, claiming that he has been involved in fraudulent activity and is hiding and/or destroying the evidence. So far, nothing has come up that really incriminates the Fuhrer of (Expletive Deleted), but it’s not made Cupid any happier with people.

“Let’s see how you do without me, then. You’ll find out how much you miss me, just when you realize it’s too late.”

CHICKEN EMPEROR DEFEATED
Reign of terror finally over.
By Kou Cao

KANSAS FARM—Last night, in a stunning and major development in the ongoing War Against Terrorism, the chicken leader Feathers McGraw was taken out by a team of special operations experts, ending his reign of terror over us all.

Emperor McGraw was in command of the largest terrorist organization in the world consisting only of chickens. He operated out of a Kansas farm, and commanded a vast host of chickens spanning all the many farms in the Great Plains states. Only recently was action taken against him by the government, and according to some, it nearly came too late.

“Old Feathers McGraw…yeah, I knew him,” says Shane Kramer, a regular in Dusty’s Bar and Grille, a social center in the chicken emperor’s old neighborhood. “He’d come in here, buy a few drinks, cluck at us, you know, the usual. Chicken stuff, mostly. Sometimes he would cluck something about taking over the world, but hey, we weren’t worried. We were on his good side, we figured.”

But in fact they were not, as Mr. Kramer goes on to state.

“There was this one guy, Dameon. Dameon was one of them guys who can hold a lot of beer, so he of course spills as much of it down his throat as he can. Well he was pretty messed up one day, and he picked up Feathers by the neck and flicked his wattle with his fingers, shouting something about chicken legs for dinner. Then it went all quiet.

“Now people,” Shane Kramer goes on, “I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a chicken get mad, but let me say, it’s no pretty sight. We knocked over tables and hid behind them, and the bartender got out his shotgun, just in case. But old Feathers, he didn’t say nothin’. When Dameon saw the shotgun, he put the chicken down, and Feathers just clucked a few times, brushed the dust off his down with a wing, and waddled out the door. We thought it was all over, but we were wrong. Dameon, the next day, he…he…”

Dameon Cross was found in an alley surrounded by chicken feed, which had apparently been thrown over his prone form as hundreds of hungry chickens approached. He had been pecked to death.

“These kinds of violent acts can no longer be tolerated!” shouted a passionate President Bush at a recent press meeting. “Feathers McGraw and all those who follow him will be brought to justice. Any farmer who feeds them will face the same punishments. Any state that harbors agents of the Chicken Coup (we at Odessa believe Bush should be impeached for this pun) will be subject to punishment as well! It’s reasons like this why I asked for billions to be spent on defense. It’s time to use several thousands of it, and defeat this mad chicken!”

The President noted after the successful assassination attempt last night that “even though Feathers McGraw is dead, the war is far from over. We will strike out at all countries that harbor chickens and/or finance them. Justice will prevail.”

LOCAL CHILD WISHES HE WERE A HOT DOG
Insists everyone will love him.
By Baron Ziegfeld

TOWN SQUARE—Local child Alex Stevens loudly proclaims to anyone who will listen that he wishes he were a hot dog. The 9 year old also insists that if he were the hot dog in question, everyone would love him. It is a case of identity crisis and false advertisement that has attracted the attention of the City’s highest authority figures.

“I wish I was an Oscar Meyer wiener!” says Alex, at the top of his lungs. “That is what I’d truly like to be!”

“This kind of behavior is quite frightening,” said county psychologist Alan Whitman. “At such a young age, little Alex should be concentrating on developing himself, and on accepting the way he is. The fact that he wants to be something else is bad in itself, but when you throw in what he wants to be, we’ve got a serious problem.”

“I just don’t understand,” said Alex’s mother, Mary Stevens. “Alex was always a happy boy, and never seemed to doubt who he was. But now…it just seems like he’s not good enough for himself anymore. Have I failed as a mother? Have I? No, really, have I?!”

As if this weren’t already serious enough, there is a second line to Alex’s banter, and it is far more controversial.

“’Cause if I was an Oscar Meyer wiener,” Alex explains, “everyone would be in love with me!”

There are several problems with this statement. For one, it brings the Oscar Meyer Company into the picture even more fully than it already was. Their company spokesman, Arnold Wilson, had the following statement.

“The fact of the matter is,” says Wilson, “that our theme song is really catchy. We can understand if he wants to sing it at the top of his lungs.”

Finally we get to the fact that everyone would not love Alex if he were a hot dog, because Alex is kind of whiny, and no one likes a whiny hot dog.

“We really can’t joke about this!” insists Whitman, the boy’s psychologist. “If Alex isn’t shown the light now, things can get out of hand. His arms and legs may begin to recede into his body. He may get a very reddish tan on his skin.” Whitman’s eyes bugged out, in total seriousness. “He may even plump up when you stick him in a microwave!”

ROACHES REJOICE AT NOSTRADAMUS PREDICTION
Utopia ahoy!
By Baron Vince

HAMMOND, IN—The very many cockroaches in the Hammond area rejoiced today as the latest prediction of the famous Nostradamus appeared in supermarket tabloids. In it, Nostradamus predicts that the world will sink into nuclear war because of the fallout caused by the terrorist attacks of September 11.

“Hiss!” says cockroach Bzork IckHi. This translates into “My brethren are very happy about this latest prediction. When the human world dissolves into flames, all other life will die with it, and the world will belong to the cockroaches!”

If this seems like an oxymoron, it’s not. Roaches are the only life form on Earth that have a high chance of surviving a nuclear holocaust. Therefore, if world leaders started a free-for-all with their Red Buttons, the cockroaches would soon be free to evolve into higher life forms and develop their own culture.

“Hiss hiss, hiss hiss hiss!” says Gluk IckLo, which means “Yay!”

When roaches saw the newspaper, presumably in a garbage pail, they all gathered together in a circle and began to chant in unison. “Hissssss hiss hissss hiss hiss hiss!” Which means, “Koombayah, my Lord, Koombayah….”

Many of the roaches were then stepped on by civilian Tracy Levin.

“I didn’t even see them!” Levin insists. “They’re everywhere, nowadays! It’s like the end of the world, or something.”

BIOTERRORISM PROBABLY NOT GOOD FOR HEALTH
Despite what some would have you believe.
By The Experts

WASHINGTON, D.C—President Bush has been campaigning recently for a massive new budget to be spent on national defense. One of the President’s key worries has been the issue of bioterrorism weapons suspected to be in the possession of al-Qaida and other related organizations.

“Bioterrorism will be good for our health sciences,” said Bush.

No, this was not all he said, but that is the key part. We researched this statement, and studied issues related to it, and have concluded that no, bioterrorism is probably not good for health, because you’ll be dead.

We of course know what the President meant, mainly “Bioterrorism will make us have to develop new medical sciences to combat it that will be helpful in other areas.”