it was one of those weeks

When both the Panhandle Truth Squad (first) and the Amarillo Independent (next) refer to Ciudad Yellow as a "red-light district," you know that something somewhere has gone quite wrong. And indeed, even as the City Commissioners whipped out their Bibles stolen from some hotel somewhere and swore by the Gideons that absolutely no way were the red light cameras being installed to augment the city coffers, citizens driving innocently around the city began to notice that the timing on all the lights had somehow, someway gone horribly wrong. Serial lights that could have until recently been cruised through without stopping were suddenly flashing bright red in drivers' faces. Within the space of a few days, the streets turned into The Fastest and the Furiousest: Texas Driftwood as SUVs and Ford F-Bazillion pick-em-up trucks manned by somewhat attentive drivers careened through every red light in town. Meanwhile, the Amarillo Globe-Republican Newsroom Ghost, confronted in a dive bar on Tenth Street with figures showing that both rear-end and angle collisions had increased tenfold, opined drunkenly that it was a small price to pay to avoid higher city taxes.

Meanwhile, city coughers began taking preliminary steps toward a second attempt at a city smoking ordinance. The Ghost, having noticed a group of preteen skaters sitting at the bar taking shots of tequila shook his ectoplasmic fist. "You kids shouldn't be around any artillery!" he shouted. He was booted out of the bar by a seven-foot tall lesbian bartender, who had decided that a Newsroom Ghost who didn't know the difference between "ordinance" and "ordnance" was no longer worth dealing with.

On Tenth Street, already renamed Paseo de la Muerte, an irate group of parents were marching, carrying signs. Mostly saying, "Hooray for our kind," but some of the signs also demanded that their children have a Labor Day holiday next school year. The parents were becoming unruly, and the entire Police Department (the ones who were not already engaged arresting candidates for Potter County Sheriff) had been dispatched to chase down a stolen hot-air balloon that was floating over the city. The School Board, looking down on the scene from the Amarillo Club and realizing that things had someway, somewhich gone horribly wrong, decided that they could compromise. They were unwilling to declare "Hooray!" for A.I.S.D. parents, but they felt they could give them back their Labor Day. Even if it was a holiday for Communists.

It was one of those weeks.

spacedark