Local News Honey

Like a lot of people, I try to stay engaged with the real world through the nightly television news and animated children’s programming. Normally I do not get too invested in stories since I never completely trust the idea of learning ‘facts of life’ through sound bites, and 30 second blurbs from ‘perfect hair’ newsies and anything named ‘POOH’. This is especially true of the local news geeks since often these people don’t have anything substantive at all to talk about, except car accidents, sports, and weather.

Take for example our local news broadcast tonight which lured our ‘talking head’ anchor-people into titillating ‘tizzie’. They had not one, but TWO stories on how local folk were traumatized due to local wildlife. Now we are not talking big scary bears, lions, or things that will kill you like hungry politicians. No, these SEPARATE but important news stories were about ‘Coyotes’ and ‘Bees’. Even worse, it wasn’t that the coyotes had attacked anyone, or even a local KFC restaurant looking for chickens, they had simply been spotted in the area and they appeared ‘hungry’.

WHAT? I look hungry all the time. I hope my neighbors don’t start calling the authorities and news vans every time they see me outside a Taco Bell. Anyway I heard somewhere that pepper spray fends off attacking animals so will load up my gourmet pepper grinder as a substitute to keep my neighbors at bay. By the way, the bee story on TV said the yellow jackets ‘flew around and stung some local kids’ in a PARK! Oh my - BEES IN A PARK – now that is an important and unusual news story.

So forgive me if I often seem uninformed, unimaginative, and unenlightened. It is not my fault really that I am ‘UN’-challenged since I am one of those morons who looks to local TV programming to keep me unbelievably ‘UN-informed’. At least now I know the dangers of that buzzing in my ears and that those ‘hive’ earrings forming on my earlobes are not normal. As for the coyotes, I would welcome their company right now – maybe they’ll scare off that creepy Pooh bear who keeps dipping his finger in my ear and calling me ‘HONEY’.