MONDAY, AUGUST 30 This week of stunning cruelty, elliptical justice, and ignored-for-the-sake-of-our-sanity political conventions got off to a bloody bang today as the Associated Press shared the cautionary tale of John Kemper Hutcherson, the 21-year-old man in Marietta, Georgia who drove home from a night of hard drinking to awake to every drunk driver's nightmare: a headless corpse in the passenger seat. Even worse, the headless passenger was Hutcherson's dear friend, 23-year-old Frances Daniel Brohm. According to Georgia authorities, Hutcherson and Brohm were drinking at a bar on Saturday when Brohm announced he felt sick. On the drive home, sickly passenger Brohm apparently leaned out of the window; tragically, Brohm's lean coincided with the truck's collision with a telephone-pole support wire, and the rest is DUI horror-story history. On Sunday morning, one of Hutcherson's neighbors called police to report the headless corpse in the truck in Hutcherson's driveway; police arrived to find a visibly drunk Hutcherson asleep in bloody clothes, then tracked Brohm's severed head to the crash site a full 12 miles away. God only knows what combination of shock and intoxication inspired Hutcherson to drive 12 miles with a headless friend in the passenger seat, only to ignore the corpse of said friend while he tried to get some sleep; whatever the motives, Hutcherson has been charged with vehicular homicide, driving under the influence, and failure to stop at an accident involving death or injury. He remains jailed on a $100,000 bond.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 31 As Russia's week of unprecedented horror commenced with a female suicide bomber killing nine people outside a Moscow subway station, Seattle experienced its own flourish of cruelty, as reported by Hot Tipper Kelly. The scene: A #26 Metro bus heading from downtown to Fremont. The protagonist: An elderly woman with tremors--"the really severe kind where a person can't control her hands or, as in this case, her head and mouth muscles," writes Kelly, who adds that the Elderly Tremor Lady looked "fairly well taken care of--but it looked like she'd spilled something all down the front of her white skirt." Which brings us to the antagonist: a middle-aged woman with really large Elizabeth Taylor-like sunglasses and big hair, whose rolling eyes and audible sighs made clear her displeasure at being selected as seatmate by Sweet Granny Trembles. "At first I thought the Liz lady was just a little uncomfortable with the tremors, as we all were," writes Kelly. "But then I realized that she was just a total bitch. Over the course of the ride, the Liz lady actually had the nerve to elbow the elderly woman and order her to 'Stop it'--that is, stop moving her mouth and head uncontrollably." But Grandma Tremors was having none of it: "She said, 'That's not very nice. You shouldn't say such things to people like me.' The Liz bitch responded by yanking the bell for the next stop and loudly ordering the tremors lady to 'move it.'" Then things got really good: "The elderly woman with tremors replied, 'You're a horrible person and I hope I never see you again,' then hit the Liz lady on the arm. AND THE LIZ LADY HIT THE ELDERLY WOMAN WITH TREMORS BACK! For a second, I thought a catfight was going to break out, but the Liz lady just said, 'Look at you, you're pathetic --and you have a horrible stain down the front of your skirt,' then walked away. The elderly tremors woman replied, 'So what? Who cares? What does that matter?' and proceeded to mutter and cry softly to herself for the rest of the ride. I know there's no defecation or blood involved, but I think hitting and mocking the elderly and physically impaired is pretty damn awful." Silver lining: "As I got off the bus lamenting the fate of mankind, I passed a mailman helping an elderly woman figure out how to start her lawn mower. Somehow everything seemed better."

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1 Nothing happened today (unless you count the school-hostage horrors in Russia or the unspeakably good luck of Kobe Bryant, whose alleged rape victim's refusal to testify at trial resulted in today's dismissal of all charges against the 26-year-old celebrity athlete).

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2 As authorities closed in on a potential suspect in Seattle's season of arson (47-year-old Mark William Morse, who'll be arrested on suspicion of arson tomorrow in Vancouver, BC), a house in Bellevue fell victim to that invisible arsonist, natural gas,the leaking of which caused an explosion that literally blew the roof off the house of 68-year-old Frances F. Schmitz, who fled the flame-engulfed home with critical burns before being transported to Harborview. According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Schmitz's neighbors alerted the gas company to the odor of gas around 8:30 a.m.; one hour later, as technicians from Puget Sound Energy probed the ground, Schmitz's house went boom. By week's end, investigators will attribute the blast to a leak in a three-quarter-inch service line buried about 18 inches below ground level near the Schmitz home's foundation, while Ms. Schmitz remains at Harborview in critical condition.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 3 Two days after an armed gang of Chechen rebels stormed an elementary school in southern Russia, today Russian troops counter-stormed the school, freeing 400 hostages and killing a reported 20 hostage-takers. According to CNN, the number of hostages may have been 1,200, with 70 percent of them children; a reported 335 hostages are now confirmed dead (156 of them children), and another 100 are unaccounted for.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4 Today brought an e-mail from Hot Tipper Malcolm, who wrote to report the iffy incident he witnessed yesterday afternoon in front of his Greenwood home, which began with a knock at the door. "Through the peephole I saw a solicitor, whom I ignored until he moved on to my neighbor, who didn't answer either. The guy then crossed my neighbors' yard to their well-tended citrus tree from which he picked a fruit and took off. After he left, I found his flyer on my doorstep: SKYLINE PROPERTIES, INC. YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD REALTORS. Ha--no neighbor of mine would do that! I just want these people to know that this is not appropriate behavior." Last Days thanks Malcolm for noticing and sharing, and wonders if his indignation is shared by the masses. If you agree with Malcolm, e-mail realtorsshouldnotstealfruit@thestranger.com. If you think Malcolm is overreacting, e-mail itwasjustonedamnlemon@thestranger.com. (As for Skyline Properties, Inc's official policy on the matter, owner Don told Last Days that the company has no official "fruit rule," but "does not advocate theft in any manner.")

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 5 The week ends with the U.S. government finally placing a dollar amount on the pain and suffering caused by the exposure of Janet Jackson's right breast during the Super Bowl halftime show. Today news agencies around the globe reported the $791,650 fine imposed on the breast-broadcasting CBS by the psychonanny Federal Communications Commission. Cheers to Ms. Jackson for retracting her apology to the FCC, and for proving, in this age of girls gone wild for penny strings of beads, the true value of a single human boob.

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