Last week, The International Planetary Committee and Dry Cleaners Association, determined that Sumo wrestler, Joe Nagahide, like planets in our solar system, has his own gravitational pull.

               “It was an astounding discovery,” says Lynn Chevenay, Chairperson of The International Planetary Committee and Dry Cleaners Association.   “We discovered it by accident, really, while Mr. Nagahide was visiting our headquarters with a Japanese delegation.  Mr Nagahide was walking by our cafeteria, when all of the sudden… dozens of otherwise inert food items began to gravitate around him.  I’m talking burgers, fries, Italian meatballs, macaroni salad, tuna  sandwiches, etc., and even an armada of corndogs.  Mr. Nagahide then consumed every last food item in his orbit, including the corndogs and even the sticks that hold them.  Subsequently, Mr. Nagahide’s loincloth was stained with fallout from the Italian meatball sauce.  Immediately, several of our members began taking readings with their gravimeters. The results were conclusive and compelling.  While other members began to apply perchoroethylene, bromopropane, and lemon juice to get the Italian meatball sauce stains out of his loincloth.   Collectively, our members were thrilled to experience a body mass of his size with its own gravitational pull and also, what we think was, a rather rare nearby WormHole, at the same time.”

                  Despite having his own gravitational pull, The International Planetary Committee and Dry Cleaners Association has determined that Mr. Nagahyse is not a planet.

                    “He’s large enough to be his own planet,” says Ms. Chevenay.   “And although he’s gotten an official planet designation from George Jefferson, he lacks an official endorsement from George Jetson.”

 

                                    Yesterday, the Dobson’s, a seedless grape couple from the lower Eastside Vines community, were rejected in their attempt to adopt children.

                              “We discovered some troubling information in their background check,” says adoption caseworker, Jason Wright.   Apparently, several years ago, Mrs. Dobson worked in a club as a stripper.  That’s simply unacceptable.”

                  “Yes, it’s true, I did work as a stripper when I was younger,” says Mrs Dobson.  “However, I only peeled back a little skin.  It was tasteful and I only did it long enough to pay my way through etiquette school… where I learned the skills to become a successful call girl.”

                 Caseworker Jason Wright continues.  “Then it says here that two years ago Mrs. Dobson was convicted of stabbing a fisherman in the neck with the remnants of a bottle of Pinot Grigio, all because he whistled at her in a karaoke bar.”

                 “That was just a flat out misunderstanding,” says Mrs Dobson.  “Turns out, the fisherman was whistling that Don’t Worry Be Happy Song.  But just as well, everybody hated that song.  If I hadn’t done it, somebody else would have.”

                       And Mr. Dobson was busted by the Feds last April for running an illegal pelican fighting ring in his basement.

                      “We have to expect a certain standard of acceptable behavior, past, present, future,” says Mr. Wright.  “The Dobson’s were rejected because we felt that they would not provide a child of any age with a safe and nurturing environment.”

           Mr. Dobson, on his pending pelican fighting charges:  “That situation is still making its way through the legal system.  I fully expect to beat the rap, considering the fact that everything we did was by the book.  The pelicans all signed waivers and releases.  The refs were all trained in CPR, beak trauma, and how to spot depression in flightless birds… so we’re legit.”

                WormHole Square Webcomic and NewsLike Blog, which has been updated each and every Monday since Napoleon Dynamite hit Uncle Rico in the face with a steak.  However, it  will not be updated on Monday (today ), but will be updated on Tuesday of this week instead.

               “I found this bit of news to be somewhat frustrating and inconvenient, as I schedule my  nose hair removal to WormHole Square’s weekly updates,” says Sherman Agnew.   “For some reason, it always makes my laugh and cry to the same time.  Furthermore, I often read the newsfeed to my cat as she paints murals with nothing but her paws, acrylic paint, and nine lives full of vivid recollections of fishbones and back alley shenanigans.”

                     The WormHole Square staff gave no logical reason for the delay.

                  “There was an octopus strike last week,” says WormHole Square creator, MW.   “Everybody knows that.  Sooooooo, there was no ink to be found in which the cartoons are drawn and the words are written.”

                    WormHole Square will be updated on Tuesday.   Sorry for the delay and thanks for reading!

                                      Yesterday, Agnes Turner, 46, was found deceased in her kitchen, under a pile of plastic storage containers.

                      “At this point in our investigation, we’re considering this an accidental homicide,” says, Detective Ron Snodoff.   “We believe the victim, Ms. Turner, was preparing to make one of her signature king-sized, colossal, Cesar salads when the tragic crime occurred.  She opened the kitchen cabinet to retrieve the giant salad bowl, which was in the back.   There was then a severe foundation breach when a two ounce sauce container fell out of the cabinet.  It was followed by several four ounce food containers falling out as well, continuing the breach.  It then escalated into a deluge of Rubbermaid, Ziplock, and Tupperware plastic containers bum-rushing out like a vengeful, overturned Acme tire truck.  Sadly, it culminating with the onslaught of a gang of forty ounce, sixty ounce, and the finally the big five hundred 0unce salad bowl completely engulfing the victim.”

                 Ms. Turner had been missing for six days, when her husband Claude suspected something was amiss.

                 “My plastic three compartment plastic serving tray wasn’t in the kitchen cabinet in its usual place,” Claude says.  “Bottom right, midway back, it’s always been there.  Always.  Odd.”

              But Claude didn’t realize his wife had been lying lifeless under a tomb of plastic volumetric spheres and shapes for days.  It fact, cadaver dogs were brought in and discovered Ms. Turner’s body two weeks later.

                       “Initially, the dogs were thrown off by the scent of residual Thousand Island salad dressing, or we would have discovered the body a hell of a lot sooner,” says Detective Snodoff.

 

 

                      Jim Crow, the old school American laws of the old south, which featured bigotry, oppression and a king-sized slice of intimidation and violence, has returned in an updated form disguised as James Crow.

                  “I was underground all them years, y’all,” James says.   “Not in the same way them cicadas was underground, but damn near close to it.  Like… I was living in a basement studio apartment/converted outhouse in the backwoods of Mississippi.  My landlord was the ghost of Strom Thurman.  Kindly fella.  ‘Cept he smelt like an old corndog and Bull Connor’s festering third molars.  Anyway, I’m back in a new form of bigotry, oppression and intimidation.  And I’m known as James Crow now.   I’ve gone through a few different iterations over the years.  First it was Jim.  Then it was Jimbo.  Next came Jimmy.  Then Jimbo again.  Now it’s James.  New name, same immoral bullshit antics from back in the day, weakly camouflaged.  Yep, I’m coming out of my swamp, my Klan robe is freshly starched, and I’m ready to kick voting rights all up in the ass, y’all.  Hey, call me James Crow!”

                 James Crow’s goal now is to push new voter suppression laws that are aimed largely at  disenfranchising people of color in America.  These voting suppression laws are being proposed and passed in many Republican states.

              “Look, y’all, Republican’s ain’t got the numbers no more to win elections.  Too many of them brown peoples in America.  So, we is going to lie, cheat and steal our way to attain, maintain, and expand our power, by any means needs be done.”

                James says his inspiration comes from several different sources.

                     “Yep, I’m wearing my confederate flag underwear, which not only feel great and are breathable, but they also cured my erectile disfunction.  Now, I can spread my poison upon the land whist I masterbate to a photo of Robert E. Lee and David Duke… which ain’t easy with these hands.  Hey, call me James Crow!”

                   Last week, Thomas, a cicada from the westside, signed up for a number of different dating apps to help him find someone he can mate with before he dies in four to six weeks.

                           “I tried a few and finally signed up for one year of online services with Matches.com,” says Thomas.  “Although I know I’ll be long dead and gone by then, I just couldn’t turn down that great 50% off deal.”

                 But Thomas has not had great success thus far with any of the online dating apps.

                “Then problem with these dating sites is that people misrepresent themselves,” Thomas says.   “I had one women, who was supposed to be thirty-five years old, but in the background of her photo, I saw a black & white TV set and a transistor radio sitting on a kitchen table.  And next to them was a copy of LIFE magazine.  She was clearly old as dirt.  And I know dirt, having lived in it for the last seventeen years.  And the other problem is that I believe in being completely honest with people.  Most women I communicated with were looking for a long term relationship.  When I tell them that I’m just looking for a two to four week courting cycle, which would lead to sex, hopefully impregnating her.  After which, I would go off and fly around blindly for a week or so, until a die.  Might have time to check out the French Open or a few episodes of The Wire, but I doubt it.  For some reason, my forthrightousness turns women off.”

                         The life cycle of a Cicada is a strange one.  For seventeen years it lives underground as a nymph, feeding off of tree roots, sap, and the occasional burrito.  Then it crawls up from under the ground, sheds its outer casing, has sex, dies.  All in a span of two to six weeks.  If Thomas is unable to copulate with a mate soon, he says he has a back up plan.

                      “I’m going to donate my jizm to the sperm bank,” Thomas says.  “Hopefully, they can keep it frozen for the next seventeen years until, hopefully, my soulmate comes along.  Or… on my last day, Im gonna crawl up to the tallest branch of any tree, where I’m going to masterbate into a wall of cicadas and let the wind do the rest.  Hopefully, something will stick.”

                       Yesterday, Clifton, a 16 ounce glass tumbler, who contains only 8 ounces of water, was faced with the proverbial question:  Do you see yourself as half-empty, or half-full?   Clinton, an eternal optimist, saw himself as half-FULL, despite the fact that the water inside his glass contains lead, arsenic, radium, various others pathogens and traces of Raspberry Kool-Aid left over from a gathering of Scientologists.   The other sources of Clifton’s rancid water include, Baltimore City, any city in Michigan, and being down river from a gathering of The Loyal Order Of Water Buffalos.

                   “I’ve always tried to have a positive attitude,” says Clifton.  “Starting many years ago when I was just a little shot glass, bad things have always tried to get me down.  But I kept it positive.  Even after, my mom, a wine glass, was killed in a canoeing accident.  The canoe came through the front window of the restaurant where she was working at the time.  It crashed into her table where she was holding a Chardonnay, vintage 1981.  The canoe then ricocheted across the room where it wiped out most of the glasses on the bar counter.  Among the lost, my father, a beer mug, who never saw it coming.  The window, also a casualty that day, was a distant cousin on my paternal grandfather’s side.  Though, tragic, I saw those events in a positive light, through a prism of hope and inspiration.  That prism… was my grandmother, who always instilled in me to always look at myself as half-full, no matter what.”

 

 

 

 

 

                               Yesterday afternoon, L. Dorsee, a pirate, was pulled over by police and charged with the very rare traffic violation of Swashbuckling While Driving.  

                             “I observed Mr. Dorsee commit several illegal maneuvers that would fall under the swashbuckling category,” says, Officer Lori Felton.  “First, Mr. Dorsee was heading southbound on Tucker Avenue, when I observed him use some fancy swordplay to signal a right turn and then he swirled the sword, lunged forward, and changed the radio station.  Then I witnessed the subject exhibit acts of chivalrous behavior when he yielded his right-of-way to several motorist, all of whom were of the female persuasion.  I later observed Mr. Dorsee involved in a rather heated road rage shouting altercation with another motorist.  But instead of yelling profanities as the other motorist was doing, Mr. Dorsee employed rapier beguiling wit to de-escalate the situation.  Finally, I observed the subject drive through a toll booth and toss several pieces of eight, totalling approximately twelve dollars and seventy-five cents into the tollbooth without even slowing down his vehicle.”

                       Mr. Dorsee was subsequently given a field swashbuckling test, which he failed miserably.

                     “The subject was asked to walk a simple straight line,” says Officer Felton.   “… which he could not do without breaking into dramatic flourishes and then he subsequently swung from a light pole and landed in the middle of the intersection, sword pointing towards oncoming traffic.  Ultimately, it was the fact that his breath smelled of alcohol spirits and scurvy that prompted me to arrest him.”

                    Mr. Dorsee’s vehicle was impounded where two barrels of four hundred and fifty proof rum, a treasure chest filled with gold, Spanish artifacts, forty kilos of cocaine, and seventeen pairs of bootleg Errol Flynn suede tights were found.

                         Earlier today, Ruxton, one of King Kong’s original nipples, was denied access to the MegaCoaster ride at the WormHole Square Amusement Park.

                        “Yo, we gotta strict height requirement in order to get on this here ride,” says Roy Royster, MegaCoaster height verifier, and ticket taker ( but he does not do any of the ticket ripping in half ).   Roy continues.   “No exceptions!  That goes for drawfs, midgets, gnomes, Keebler elves, pygmies, Hobbits, jockeys, the Rice Krispies Snap, Crackle, and Pop boys, and either one of the two King Kong nipples.  No exceptions!”

                           In fact, Roy has never made an exception in the twenty-seven years he has been working the MegaCoaster ride.

                              “Napoleon Bonaparte tried to get through here one time, but he was one millimeter under the height requirement.  I didn’t let him on.   So what, you were a great French military leader and emperor.   You’re not tall enough to get on this here ride.  Waterloo, bitch!  Napoleon Bonaparte can’t ride.  Now, Napoleon Dynamite, tall dude, he’s good to go!   No exceptions.   They all try to get on this ride, but I hold it down like the law.   Danny DeVito, Kevin Hart, and Bruno Mars all tried to get through the gate.  Nope, no-can-do, not gonna happen!”

                          After being turned away from the MegaCoaster, Russell had to settle on riding the Merry-Go-Round and the whirling Tea Cups.

                        “It was really embarrassing,” Ruxton says.  “Here I am, a grown-ass man, and I’m relegated to the kiddie rides.   All the parents laughing at me, teasing me, calling me Nipsey Russell Jr.  My only sense of revenge is knowing that within that crowd of chuckling adults were some moms who had a debilitating case of nipple envy.”

 

 

 

 

                       Reno, a bomb sniffing dog, was placed on suspension from his position at the ATF for unsatisfactory job performance and not adhering to the agency’s personal appearance code.

                    “Who would have thought that old lady would leave twenty pounds of explosives under that park bench,” says Reno.  “It smelled like funnel cake to me.   It wasn’t my fault, really.  I had a very bad cold at the time, so my ability to distinguish TNT from vanilla extract was severely diminished.  Actually, I tried calling out sick that day, but decided not to because I was still on probation for deceptively calling out sick six months ago.  At the time, I told them I had a severe case of the shingles and heartworms.  Wouldn’t you know it, my supervisor saw me at the damn dog track that very day.  Busted.  What are the odds of that, huh?”

              Apparently, the old lady that Reno is referring to planted a bomb under that park bench because she wanted to blow up pigeons.  She absolutely hated pigeons and all birds, in general, including crows, eagles, cockatoos, hummingbirds, penguins and taradactles, in particular.  But because taradactles have been extinct for quite some time, she settled for extinguishing as many pigeons as she could.

                    “Now I’m on administrative leave with pay,” Reno says.  “And this sucks because all I do now is answer the phones, type up memos, which is really hard to do after I got my head blown off.   Actually, it exposed the fact that I really did have heartworms after all.   Serendipity.  What are the odds of that, huh?”