As if the cantankerous and largely self-destructive town of Lamont needed any more ammunition in its ongoing feud with itself, the tenuous political balance of the town was dashed to pieces as one of the mayor's relatives (Oh, why can't he be some 'kinless urchin' or 'rootless vagabond' or whatever, anyway? Like we need more of them people scuffing up the place!) decided to drop in for a week or so to check out the municipal Mecca where one of the family's decidedly questionable and profoundly embarrassing bloodline somehow was catapulted to the very pinnacle of mayoral power and prestige in a small town setting. (Editorial Note: Oh, we can't believe those words were actually committed to the permanent record of this lost, hopeless world! 'Catapulted to the very pinnacle of mayoral power and prestige" indeed! Oh, how nauseating! Where is a literary 'barf bag' when you need one - and we were forced to write that by our tyrannical management! Oh, the humanity! Must one sell one's soul for a doggone job in journalism - even on the largely pathetic Lamont Blog? Now that is pretty darn low! I mean, come on! What a person won't do for a dollar - and we mean literally 'a dollar'! What cheapskates! What skin-flints! What tight-wads!) "Well, needless to say we were just so tickled pink when one of our brood made it to the 'big time' and became the mayor of such a big, fancy town!" said Trudy Leadbottom, 53, the mayor's aunt twice removed. (thank goodness for her it is somewhat removed, anyway!!) "Heck, our branch of the family over there in Idaho can't seem to manage to succeed at anything, for Pete's sake. I mean, heck, my brother Scooter once ran for dogcatcher and couldn't even manage to win that - although he only lost by 7 votes! (ironically, only 7 votes were cast in the whole doggone election! Not being very bright, Scooter somehow even managed to vote against himself, although he swears to this day that he didn't and that it is some sort of 'vast, right-wing conspiracy' - something that he seems to be in agreement with Hillary Clinton on, for crying out loud! And we all know from listening to the news media that that woman is never wrong!) "So, as we somehow managed to scrape together enough gas money for the long drive over here (and after slaughtering a pig before they left so that they had plenty of vittles for the trip and so that they could give that traditional and largely ceremonial gift that all visitors give when visiting another small town - fresh pork sausage!) - one can only guess at our excitement as we came up over that rise on Highway 23 and we were able to gaze upon the bustling, expansive, throbbing metropolis that we have all heard tale of! Oh, it was enough to take your breath away! gushed Mrs. Leadbottom, a woman not easily swayed by fleeting fancies and crass emotionalism of any kind. "You could just feel the vibrant life pulsing from every single-wide trailer and railroad house! (Editorial Note: The Mayor's house was in fact built in 1905 and is still solid as a rock and surprisingly well designed to adapt to the climate extremes that the Palouse faces. Temperatures in the 100's are not uncommon - and lows in the -20 F range are not all that rare, either! But some long, forgotten genius knew how to build a structure that could withstand these extremes. Obviously, that person was just passing thru on the way to Long Beach or something!)
"Well, this town needs that darn woman like we need a dadburn hole in the head!" seethed Mathilde Snopes, 67, an area farm/ranch wife and the town's alpha-busybody. "And who does she think she is with all them modern fashions she wears and by sipping her coffee without making loud, obnoxious slurping noises so everyone knows that the coffee is too hot but that it is so darn good she can't wait to drink it anyway! I mean, what a snob! Oh, and those dern fancy clothes that she wears! Like she just stepped off some fashion runway in Paris or the Tri-Cities or whatever! That darn woman has every man in town standing on his head, just waiting for a sideways glance from that no-good Jezebel! Heck, I never could stand that stupid mayor anyway, given his big city ways and all and the fact that he uses multi-syllabic words (whatever they are!) - but now that I met his snotty, too-good-by-half, sophisticated, obviously worldly, vampish aunt, I can't help but hate him even more! (Is that even possible?) Is the whole dern mess of them just a bunch of fancy-pants socialites more in tune with the social excesses that are killing this country than with the traditional American values we hold so dear in Lamont? (Editorial Note: The Snopes clan actually used their first zipper just last year (they take turns sharing it which allows them to bone up on their sewing skills!), discarding decades of the more traditional and tried-and-true buttons that this country was built upon). "Oh, I will just be glad when we can see the back of that darn woman (ironically, she holds this opinion with a majority of the town men! Whoa!) once and for all and she can take all of her pretentious 'big city ways' back with her to whatever fancy, citified boom-town she comes from over there in Idaho. And she should take our stupid mayor, too! It won't be a moment too soon for me, I can assure you!" said the outrageous grouch and notorious battle ax who seems to be able to gripe about everything - except, of course, her son who is currently doing 15-20 in the 'Big House' over there in Walla Walla after leaving his wallet and car keys at the scene of his last, hapless crime! (Oh, where is that '3 Strikes' rule when you need it, anyway?)
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