21. Correction to the second to last post (or #18)

STOP THE PRESSES. IT'S ALL BEEN A HUGE MISTAKE. SERIOUSLY!

(Newspaper retraction)

As the employees prepared for Hawkinson's final farewell--Absinthe was making a wreath of onions, Cliff was putting candles in empty salsa jars, and Ed was trying to prepare a eulogy, despite his ill-fitting new dentures, which he feared might fall out at an emotional moment, and Grace Kellinski was busy making dill bouquets, although the seeds were falling all over the floor--an unexpected knock on the door interrupted their various duties.

It was the local police, who, smiling sheepishly, announced that as someone once said about a different premature announcement, Hawkinson was not in fact swallowed up by a sinkhole. 

The local reporter had made up the story to fill the remaining 14 inches required to complete the newspaper. “I didn’t think anyone would notice,” she said, unapologetically, “and besides, they shouldn’t keep running those two-for-one specials at the Roadhouse. Talk to the chopper gang. They’ll back me up.” (She has been reassigned to typesetting for the next two weeks.)

In yet another follow-up interview, Hawkinson cleared up the whole story: “I was out running. That part I remember. Then I tripped in a mud puddle and hit my head on the concrete. After that it’s all a blur.

“I could have sworn—no, I must have been delirious—that something or many somethings were tugging at my “Just Do It” jersey. They were all working together to tug me off the highway and out of harm’s way.

“Oh, it must have been the knock to my noggin. It had to be. I’m almost certain it had to be. After all, dozens of—all of things--turtles couldn’t possibly move me. Yet as I recovered, I checked myself out for injuries and found nothing seriously wrong.

“I did, however, find dozens and dozens of tiny stretched out bite marks in my jersey . . . and a scratchy note stuffed into my running shorts: ‘U r wel’um.’”*

*Editor’s Note: One must wonder whether turtles would be better spellers if they were fitted with a decent pair of choppers.