SHEsaysWITHaSMILE.blogspot.com

MOUNTAIN MIKES and the MIDNIGHT BULLETIN, by (my!) LEONARD STEGMANN

honestly! there is nothing not contest worthy
between my children. who's first to the car, who's first to touch the front door, who's first inside, who's first to the computer, and here

at mountain mikes pizza

"who can hold their finger on the hot pizza the longest?"

meanwhile, i'm with cold beer and the fifth edition of the midnight bulletin; cracking up!

i'm laughing so hard i make the owner laugh, and the one other patron laugh.. and they don't even know what i'm reading

leonard stegmann.. you were just getting warmed up when you stopped the presses. i love this story!

the midnight bulletin. october, 1985. number five. green. (plus/love the cover! what they really think of you)

words/pg 2/leonard stegmann:

it all started when the jug that i keep pennies in became full. roll 'em up, cash 'em in and start over, i thought cheerfully. so the next time i found myself at the drive-up window at my bank i asked the girl in the glass booth for some penny wrappers. when the cylinder returned it contained a total of six wrappers.

"we're a little low," said the girl in the booth.

"you're a bank, for chrissake," i didn't say.

went to the local lucky's later that day. asked the cashier if she might have any penny wrappers. (i am still laughing!) she answered politely that she didn't.

"we're a grocery store, for chrissake," she didn't say.

waited in line twenty minutes at the bank next door, and was amply rewarded with about twenty wrappers. i returned home delirious and rolled up my pennies. (still crackin' up).

went back to the bank the next day, but they wouldn't take the pennies since i didn't have an account there. (smilin'/laughin')

returned to my bank, (the name of which i won't mention because first interstate would probably sue me), waited in line and then told the teller i wanted to cash in these pennies. (sip while smiling). fine, i was told, but first i had to write my account number on each roll (spit/laugh).

i quietly stepped aside and began the task. i'm not unreasonable, and i realize that there are reasons for this requirement. i mean, some less-than-honest type could make up a batch of 49-penny rolls and could have (okay.. i am laughing so hard right now) hot-footed it to nevada before the bank knew what happened, taking a cool thirty or forty cent profit with him.

having written my account number on each roll (this is as funny to me right now as it was yesterday in the pizza parlor), i got back in line (why make trouble?) and soon found myself unloading my pennies in front of a large and somewhat grumpy teller. she stared at the first two rolls as if they were test-tubes full of the AIDS virus, and then began to load them into a plastic tray, sighing mightily as if atlas had just asked her to hold the world while he went for a pack of cigarettes (two good ones in a row!/sooo funny)

"how much ya got?" she growled.

"excuse me?" i said (i cannot. can. not. stop laughing)

"how much money is here?"

i thought of taking a chance and saying there was fifty thousand dollars there, but i suspected she was too sharp for that old trick, so i told the truth and she parted with the nineteen bucks as if it were her own.

"excuse me," i said, "but could you spare a few more penny wrappers?" (this is the funniest story of all time). in today's orderly plastic world there's so few opportunities to experience true danger. and with a look that could kill small animals she huffed away and returned shortly with the booty.

i have a few hundred pennies left, which i intend to roll up and cash in. after that, however, i'm going to change my method of loose-change organization. i'm going to use my now-empty jug for the nickels, dimes, and quarters. and i'm going to take the one or two pennies i accumulate each day and toss them directly into the trash. i've got enough problems.


you are a riot! this is a treasure of a story!

thank you! ~s.c.

posted by SHE @ 11:10 AM