From the Mar 13 – Mar 19, 2003 issue

Columns

Last Days

by David Schmader

MONDAY, MARCH 3
The week kicks off with a fascinating arrest from the turn-of-the-century-architecture-preserving hills of Coldwater, Michigan, where today a 17-year-old girl was charged with a felony for allegedly having unprotected sex with at least four local men without informing any of them that she had AIDS. According to the Associated Press, 17-year-old Amber Jo Sours--a longtime problem child who's been kicking around Michigan's juvenile court system since giving birth to a child at age 12--was charged under a 1998 law criminalizing the failure to alert one's sex partners of one's HIV-positivity. Police arrested Ms. Sours after identifying four men who claimed to have repeatedly had sex with the girl without once being informed of her AIDS. (Instead, Ms. Sours blamed her iffy health on a rotating variety of cancers.) Informed of the charges in court today, Amber Sours reportedly "smiled and laughed" as a judge ordered her to be held in the Branch County Jail on a $500,000 bond and to undergo a mental health evaluation. In a teensy bit of good news, none of the four men who banged Amber has yet tested positive.

TUESDAY, MARCH 4
Speaking of citizens flouting basic laws of human decency, today brings a long-simmering Hot Tip from Kim, a concerned mother of four (with a fifth in the proverbial oven) who was en route to the Seattle Aquarium with her children a few weeks ago when she saw a series of sights that would've driven a lesser woman to suicide. "I was stopped at a light in front of the Pacific Science Center," writes Kim. "When I glanced to my right, I saw a woman picking her nose with what appeared to be a wooden chopstick. She really had it up in there, too--and what's worse, right before the light changed, she pulled the chopstick out and licked it clean." Kim had barely recovered when she pulled into a parking lot across from the aquarium and saw "a guy sitting on the ground with one shoe off, biting the toenails on his dirty feet!" "I don't think it was a coincidence that as soon as I parked, my daughter threw up," writes Kim. Last Days concurs.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5
Today tens of thousands of students across the U.S. and around the world ditched class to protest what appears to be the United States' bullheaded insistence on instigating war with Iraq. Later in the day, President George W. Bush held a prime-time news conference, dismissing Iraq's negligible compliance with 10-year-old disarmament restrictions as "a willful charade" before delivering what history may remember as the words that led the United States into World War III: "The attacks of September 11, 2001, show what the enemies of America did with four airplanes. We will not wait to see what terrorists or terrorist states could do with weapons of mass destruction."

··Meanwhile in Lakewood, Colorado, a family lesson on gun safety went horribly wrong when a 13-year-old boy shot his father in the head. According to Lakewood's Local 6 News, investigators believe the 36-year-old father was attempting to teach his son "gun safety and how to deal with an intruder" when the boy, holding what he believed to be an unloaded gun, accidentally pulled the trigger. Even worse, the accidental patricide was witnessed by both of the man's young daughters, ages seven and nine. The father was pronounced dead shortly after the shooting, leaving the world's unluckiest son (described by neighbors as "a sweet kid" and gifted athlete) to ponder the stupidity of everything for the rest of his life.

THURSDAY, MARCH 6
Speaking of the stupidity of everything: Today CNN reported on the furor surrounding the discovery of what is believed to be the biggest Chee-to in the history of the world. The cheesy glob of fried cornmeal--described as "about the size of a small lemon" and weighing half an ounce--was found by Mike Evans, a Navy petty officer; he immediately posted his find on eBay, where it sparked a flurry of passionate, if ironic, interest. Eventually, Evans decided to donate his humongous Chee-to to the sleepy farming community of Algona, Iowa, where residents promise to shellac the giant Chee-to before placing it on display on plush velvet under Plexiglas. But how did the freak Chee-to come to be? "We call it Seasoning Accumulation," said Chee-tos Development Manager Kevin Cogan to CNN, describing the scenario in which cheddar seasoning builds up and plops out in a big blob that sometimes sneaks past Chee-tos' inspectors. "If you love cheese, this is the Chee-to for you. It's beyond dangerously cheesy."

FRIDAY, MARCH 7
Nothing happened today (unless you count the woman in Palm Springs, California, who mistakenly dialed 911 instead of 411, bringing about an accidental dialogue with local authorities that culminated in the police's discovery of 75 marijuana plants inside the woman's home.).

SATURDAY, MARCH 8
Nothing happened today.

SUNDAY, MARCH 9
Just as Nostradamus predicted, today brought a drug bust in the parking lot of the Lowe's home improvement store in Federal Way. That's where the erratic parking maneuvers of a 43-year-old California man caught the attention of an anonymous tipster, who alerted police to the 2003 GMC truck that had repeatedly backed into the bushes surrounding Lowe's parking lot. (In addition, the witness reported watching the fidgety driver repeatedly get out of his truck and "look around"--classic terrorist behavior.) According to the Seattle Post- Intelligencer, the cops soon arrived to assess the fidgety man and his truck, which proved to contain NOT weapons of mass destruction but bundles of sweet, illegal greens--123 pounds of marijuana, to be precise, divvied up between 112 packages, worth a total of $1 million. The unfortunate casualty of war was arrested and is being held in a Federal Way jail.

Confidential to Erika & Erik (and anyone else who might be interested): Straight: A Conversion Comedy is available for sale on DVD/VHS at www.tlavideo.com, and for rent at Scarecrow Video, On 15th Video, Broadway Video, and others. (DVD-only bonus feature: An interview conducted by A. Birch Steen himself.)

Confidential to the guy who e-mailed me last year with a piece about Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony: Drop me a note, will ya?

Everyone else, send Hot Tips to lastdays@ thestranger.com.