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Greetings from Raleigh, North Carolina
Aug
10
You are never too old for story time
Written by S. Beaumont and filed under Editorial
RFP hit its one month anniversary on Wednesday. To celebrate, I wanted to share a few observations I’ve made over that time period and then try something a little different with this post. First, the observations:
- Although news sources are abundant and available in a mind-boggling number of formats, their is still a healthy demand for amateur local writers to publish and share their thoughts with fellow citizens (over 130 thousand blogs were created on Wordpress alone last month)
- Our readers are passionate and well-educated when it comes to our fair city
- Running a website can be an extremely gratifying experience, but also quite time-consuming (mostly because you’re always thinking how to improve it)
- Spreading the word to a few is easy, but after you’ve exhausted your personal email contact list it’s much harder to grow your reader-base
- The true measure of any post, website, or product for that matter is the value it provides to the consumer
Ok, enough with the deep thoughts. I’m traveling this weekend so I want to try something new for this post. In true 3rd grade style, I’ll start a story about Raleigh and leave it open-ended. After that, it’s up to our readers to decide where the story goes from there by writing your own comments and continuing the story for the next person. If you haven’t commented before, give it a shot. You don’t have to register or sign-up and you don’t even need to use your real name unless you want to.
So without further ado:
The most interesting day I’ve ever had in Raleigh began with… (continue the story)
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a hot slap in the face when I stepped outside my door and off my porch…
I couldn’t believe it. Normally, the mail man was so friendly!
“Hey, what’s the big idea?” I said in a hurt tone…
He then went on to explain that he had a terrible mix of tourette syndrome and parkinsons disease that caused him to get excited and accost any person (or other object) that is presented in front of him.
I apologized and invited him in for a drink; being a postal worker, he gladly obliged.
As I walked back past my antique pornography collection to where my bar stands, I asked congenially, “What’s your drink, dude?”
…
He replied, “I’ll have a Raleigh Red-eye.” “What’s that,” I asked. “I can’t believe you’ve never had one — It’s one part” …
red wine and one part cognac.”
I didn’t want to be rude, so I accepted one on the rocks. After a minute or two, I began to feel very strange…
“While you were getting the wine, I put sleeping powder in your glass”, said the mail man. “If you cooperate, this will be really easy – there was a package I delivered on Monday and I must get it back from you.”
I was beginning to feel really dizzy now & I slowly said, “I don’t know what you are talking about, the only package I received on Monday was a ….
toner cartridge for my new printer. It’s still unopened,unless, wait… Now that I recall, I noticed it seemed much heavier than usual. Listen man, I’m on parole and I can’t afford to get mixed up in whatever you’ve got going on. A friend of mine lives next door, why don’t you see
your blue and gold, sweaty, dog-bit ass out the door and take them busted ass nike’s with yo ass! I don’t want no illegal shit up in he’a… I just done got that no good tramp that I guess you could call a man up outta here ’cause he
didn’t share my love for Michael Bolton music or appreciate my unique resistance to the effects of sleeping powder. Once the mailman was gone, I located the toner cartridge package. I opened it hastily and looked inside. My jaw hit the floor when I realized what was inside.
…
It was a key to the city of Raleigh with a small note attached. The note read: “Let he who holds this key treat it with respect, for they now have access to all within the City of Oaks.” Stunned by what I now held, I grabbed my keys an immediately made my way out the door. Almost instinctively I found myself driving towards…
North Hills, or Mid-town as I like to call it. As I approach going north on Six Forks Rd. and cross the Beltline I see a lot of construction on the east side of the road. What is this? Could it be a trendy new mixed use neighborhood on the way? Yes, I believe it is. You can take your ITB and shove it old Raleighites. OTB (outside the Beltline) is the new place to be! It’s where…
all the jealous people live. Folks like me, yes me, who yearn to be closer to
that huge metal acorn in Moore Square.
“Eureka,” I shouted, and I made a U-turn on six forks, headed back downtown.
When I arrived at the acorn I discovered a small key-sized hole at the bottom. I pulled out my key to the city. It fit perfectly inside. I gave it a turn and suddenly ….
the acorn slightly opened, just enough for me to peek inside. What I saw was unreal! An entire village of plump & merry midgets. They were all dancing around singing songs & drinking green colored something…?
One of them saw me through the crack in the acorn & quickly shuffled over to me where he sprinkled ferry dust all over me.
He seemed so thrilled that I was here, he gathered the attention of the entire village to welcome me & then said “we have been waiting for you, for a very long time.”
The ferry dust started to to make me feel tingly all over, “oh yes, it is working,” shouted the head midget as he clapped & jumped up & down.
I looked down at my hands, and yes - the ferry dust apparently had started working - I couldn’t believe it, I was beginning to…
…shrink. Ironic, for a boat psychologist, but true nonetheless. “You canoe it” I always say, especially to the short-bred. I like to heighten the excitement.
Yes, I said boat psychologist. I know, it’s an unusual discipline, but some folks would keel for my job. It’s a sound practice, I tell my patients, (and I get paid even if they arrive as nuts and leave and dingies). “Yachts of luck” I tell them. Of course, they never get it.
Most will return to the sea. Some will haul people and cars, some will run aground and have one last drink at the Sand Bar. Then, and only then, will they pray for the ferry dust fairy to deliver them from alcohull. They know they have rum for improvement, and they plan to…