Nasal Ranger

OPINION — The average reader might’ve missed a lot of stuff that’s been going on in the news lately, on account of Trump splashing an Iranian general named Salami, or something, and all the Hollywood narcissists getting their socks in a wad over Ricky Gervais wagging his finger at them at the Golden Goblet Awards ceremony. The general, by the way, was a certified Bad Guy, with the club gym card and Aloha Snackbar membership to prove it, and since he was the chief behind the Benghazi fiasco, I’m thinking he pretty much had it coming. But that’s none of my business.

There was also the acceptance speech Michelle Williams (see pic, above) made when she was handed her Golden Goblet, in which she pointed out that she was really proud of the idol, and all she had to do to get it was murder one of her kids. Which was creepy, but what was terrifying was when the roomful of rich, influential snoots all applauded her for it. Makes you wonder.

Watch Ricky Gervais wag his finger at Hollywood during the Golden Goblet Awards ceremony:

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But we’re going to focus this week on positive things, like Florida Man. If you’re new to this column, Florida Man is sort of the opposite of a super hero. So many guys in Florida get in trouble for such ridiculous things that someone started posting the headlines on social media, making it sound like the annals of the world’s most inept crime fighter. Check it out on twitter. I dare you.

The latest, which turned up on a website called 105.5 The Beat, read ‘Florida Man arrested for hanging from a traffic light and pooping on cars.’ Evidently, due to his recent consumption of a combination of recreational marijuana and crystal meth, Roy Stern became convinced he was a pigeon. Or something. I really wish I could make this stuff up. Because I wouldn’t.

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Above: Roy Stern

You’d think, if you’re a normal American, that lawmakers would see this kind of thing going on and say to themselves, “You know, maybe it’s a bad idea to legalize the sale of mood-altering drugs to such creative, and insane, people.” But lawmakers don’t really care, because they don’t wash their own cars. So now more and more states are legalizing marijuana. I recommend carrying an umbrella.

My research department, Pat Wentworth, recently sent me a news item concerning a town in Michigan that has a pot problem. Bessemer City, Michigan legalized the recreational use of marijuana in 2018 to the point where residents are allowed to grow it at home, as long as they don’t sell it to Roy Stern. Or if they do pass Roy a joint now and then, they aren’t supposed to tell anyone. Surprisingly, Bessemer City hasn’t, to my knowledge, experienced any traffic light pooping to date, but the new law is not without its disadvantages. Mostly it’s the smell. Not the odor of people smoking pot, which is probably significant. The problem is the aroma of the plants blooming, which they do for six to eight weeks at a time. Apparently they smell like skunk spray.

The Grow Your Own Mary Jane idea seems to have caught on pretty heavily in Bessemer City with the residents, but there’s also the fact that the Wisconsin border is only six miles away. Since the good folks of Wisconsin are not as enlightened as those in Michigan, and marijuana is still illegal there, a lot of folks from Wisconsin have bought houses in Bessemer City, and are using them to grow pot. So now the air in Bessemer City is a perpetual swirling miasma featuring the rich fragrance of Pepe Le Pew.

Bessemer City authorities realized the problem was bad enough they had to do something about it, so they did. Oh, not what you’d think. Not the logical thing, which would be to change the law and require people to grow their weed out in the weeds someplace, like regular potheads everywhere. No, they decided to spend $3,400 on the Nasal Ranger, a device which ‘measures the concentration of stinky particulate matter in the air to determine the strength of a given odor.’ Maybe that’s how the cops located Roy Stern, up on his stoplight. I don’t know.

Now, you might assume that, if the smell is so bad, it shouldn’t be necessary to spend north of three grand on a device to sniff it out. The article didn’t address that point, but this is Michigan we’re talking about, so who knows? You might also wonder, as I did, if they didn’t have one dog, in a town of almost 2000 people, that could locate houses ripe with essence of polecat. I guess not. If I didn’t know better I’d say something smells rotten in Bessemer City.

The Nasal Ranger looks kind of like a megaphone that you use by holding the small end against your nose, making you look, at a casual glance, like a total gooberhead. I guess some poor Bessemer City employee will be walking around town with the two-foot thing poking out from his face, pinpointing the offending plants and requiring their owners to use some filters, or something. A dope looking for dope. The good news is I’m not him.

All I can say is that if anyone ever decided to start a cocaine using rock band, the Nasal Rangers would make a good name for it. Roy Stern could be the drummer . . .