One Brick Short

OK, now the evil in this world has just gone to far, eh?

I mean, I expect politicians to lie, you know, and crooks are crooks, although it would be so much nicer if they wouldn’t steal from people who really can’t afford to have things stolen from them. But when the cheating and the lying and the gimme-gimme gets all the way to Ya-sure Land in the Kingdom of Cheese and starts infecting the ice fishing contests, well, Evil has just gotten a hold of every part of the world.

Up in Somerset, Wis., according to the Associated Press, someone brought their own fish to the party. Of course, he’s innocent until proven guilty. That’s what makes this such a great country, eh? Ya, you betcha! Still, this guy named Lee Shehow is suspected of smuggling in a 2.42-pound northern pike, putting it in Bass Lake and catching it in the Somerset Youth Athletic Association Ice Fishing Tournament fundraiser event.

Oh, get thee behind me, Satan, he won. Boy, howdy, he won! He won a $27,000 Dodge pickup!

With TV cameras rolling, they asked the man what he was going to do with his new truck, eh? And Mr. Shehow told the folks he was going to “drive it like it’s stolen.“ Funny he should say that, because it turned out that, in a way, it was. At least, that’s what the private investigators that work for the tournament think.

Hey, ice fishing is big up in the Great White North. They even hire private eyes to make sure the bait-and-hookers are on the up-and-up, eh? Anyways, the investigators think the fish was smuggled in. Perhaps in the pants of his parka, who knows? I can just hear his wife saying to him on the way out the door, “hey Lee, is that a northern pike in your parka pants or are you just going fishin’?“

Like I was saying, the investigators gave Mr. Shehow the opportunity to take a lie detector test, which is part of the contest rules—hey, when you’re dealing with ice fishers you need these kinds of contingency plans—but he refused. So, the truck, the fish and the first-place officially went to runner-up, Monica Slimmer, of La Crosse, who caught a northern pike weighing 1.72 pounds.

As for Mr. Shehow, he denied cheating, but said he gave up the prize because he didn’t want bad publicity being heaped on the youth athletic league.

Well, that was decent of him, eh?