Reunification

Few of you would have guessed who is the greatest peacekeeper in the world, if I didn't tell you right now it's me—Rok Finger. I do not own this title simply because I've bestowed it upon myself, and am too big and intimidating to keep people from taking it away again. I own this title now because I have brought together the two estranged neighborhoods surrounding me, with nothing but this silver tongue in my mouth. Never let it be said bodypaint didn't bring something good to the world.

Perfunctory backstory: I found out Poodlegrass, the neighborhood Ginger and I live in, is more properly called West Poodlegrass. This explained immediately why I have not been getting my mail, and I presume some hotshot over in East Poodlegrass has been enjoying that pubic hair comb & brush set I bought from eBay, but that's a rant for another time. The neighbors won't talk to me, of course, but they did mention to Ginger when she inquired about the mail trouble that West Poodlegrass and East Poodlegrass frequently had mail mix-ups.

This might have been enough for the unambitious female mind of my adoring wife, and the endless drones living around us, but Rok Finger had to wonder: Why West and East Poodlegrass? Had there been an irreparable rift between the two at some point in history? And if so, was this irreparable rift beyond repair? I didn't know what it was, but I didn't think so.

So, owning the gigantic brass balls that I do, I ventured into the hellish maw of East Poodlegrass and braved their idiot rabble and unintelligible accents to talk to their leaders—frightened and worried about what kind of bizarre government they might practice. Well, turns out they aren't all that different from us, although they do practice a strange kind of "democracy" where officials are chosen by the populace to represent their wishes as a government body that decides laws and enforces them. Quite a twist from our own secret oligarchy, eh? Red Bagel would be impressed.

Hmm. I got sidetracked. Quite unlike me. But anyhow, it turns out Poodlegrass was separated for purposes of deciding county borders. West Poodlegrass is in the traditional and respectable Pork County side of New Jersey, while East Poodlegrass resides in the forgettable and tragic Bowling County. Well, just give up now, I thought, you can't change county lines. Or could I? No, I couldn't. But I did have an entreaty for the president of the East Poodlegrass Neighborhood Block Association: "Mr. Gorblatt, tear down the wall that divides our two great neighborhoods!"

I was at this point informed it's not a wall at all, but a stalled-out train that's been parked on the tracks for a great number of months, and they were as interested in moving it as I was. What a thundering blow for freedom! All I had to do was get this train moving again.

A simple matter, of course. Whenever I want something big and ungainly removed and lack the ability to do it myself, I merely inform Omar Bricks that I overheard his old nemesis Johnshark Remnants say nobody could move it. Competitive he is, I'll give him that. By the next morning the train had disappeared, washing up off the Jersey shore and making quite a news story. But my interest ended there. I had done it: Maybe East and West Poodlegrass would still have separate names, but now residents could freely cross the tracks as they wished and exchange their correct mail with each other. Thanks all to me—and I guess Bricks gets some honorable mention in all this, if you're going to hold me to the wall on it.

What's next? I'm not sure. But I do think it's time those two Carolinas stopped all that fussin' and fightin'.

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