Osama bin Laden Captured After Rubber Band Connecting Torso to Legs Snaps

inally bringing to an end weeks of guano-infested cave searching by American marines, along with weeks of slightly anxious channel surfing by the American public, Osama bin Laden was captured by U.S. forces on Saturday. After months of successfully dodging U.S. military efforts and covert-ops "snatch and grab" missions, bin Laden was ultimately done in by a faulty rubber band in his midsection, which snapped, causing his torso and legs to separate. Escape was then near impossible for the Saudi militant.

Reports differ as to the reason behind the failure of bin Laden's rubber band. American military personnel claim to have witnessed and awesome battle to the death between bin Laden and anti-terrorist ranger Beachhead, a former Advisor at the Covert Ops School in Central America. According to eyewitness accounts, Beachhead found bin Laden's secret sandbox base, and caught him off guard with the butt of Sci-Fi's laser rifle, which he'd been carrying ever since Sci-Fi's legs got chewed off by a dog. (Ed. note: Sci-Fi is currently carrying Spirit's arrowhead gun, since Spirit never came back from a sleep-over and Joey Dombrowsi's house and nobody really understands how that gun is supposed to work anyway.) After stunning the terrorist mastermind, Beachhead reportedly scissorlocked bin Laden's head and flipped him over onto a rock, the resultant stress snapping bin Laden's rubber band and reducing him to a separate torso, pair of legs attached by a little hook, and a free-floating crotch segment. Some eyewitnesses claim that a Beachhead pile driver was actually the culprit, but these reports are in the minority.

Taliban supporters have taken great issue with the U.S. reports, however, and are unified in their claims that bin Laden's rubber band snappage was the direct result of "the weight of the monstrously awe-inspiring Arab donger that Allah saw fit to bestow on him as a reward for his courage in facing the infidels." Preliminary coroner's reports have made no mention of such a donger, though part of bin Laden's free-floating crotch segment is said to have resembled a moderately-sized donger, according to some witnesses.

Yet another opinion is held by the American Red Cross, who's workers have gone on record saying that this tragedy could have been averted with proper rest, a little oil and far less sandbox duty for bin Laden himself.

Regardless of the cause, U.N. medical personnel are working around the clock to reattach bin Laden's legs, and may have to resort to an elasticy hair thingy or twist-tie if an appropriate replacement band cannot be found in time. A panel of impartial Arab doctors are overseeing the operation as well, to make sure that bin Laden's crotch segment is not mistakenly left out of the reconstruction process.

In a speech carried live by all major networks Sunday afternoon, President Bush called development a major victory in the war against terrorism, and added a personal message for Cobra Commander himself:

"We know you're out there, you lisping freak of nature. The American people will stand for your aggression no longer. You may have brainwashed Stormshadow, but now we have one of yours as well. You can only hide behind that weird bald guy for so long. We're going to kick you in the ass so hard you poop kidneys. You heard me. Give up now and we'll see about digging up some magic spores to turn you back into a dude, or if that fails, we'll get you into the reptile house of a nice zoo. If I have to fly out there and pull that tea cozy off your head myself the deal won't be nearly as sweet, I guarantee you. Sleep tight on your heating rock, jerkballs."

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There must be some sort of law that says I, Rok Finger, can never live next to a normal neighbor. Well, I suppose the neighbors on the other four sides are normal enough. But that doesn't excuse the fact my neighbors to the right are the most obscene excuses for homeowners you've ever seen. You have seen them, haven't you? Leaving their vehicles on the lawn, setting fire to things at all odd hours, walking around the neighborhood in full Nazi regalia. I am not kidding—these are neighbor freaks.

They are the Joneses, if that is their real surname. I'm not sure if they're Eastern European or Russian or what, but they are clearly not indigenous to the area. They claim to be from Mississippi, but their accents are the worst I ever heard. If people in Mississippi all talk like that, I don't know how they ever get anything done—nobody could possibly understand that gibberish. Come to think of it, I'm not sure they get anything done in Mississippi at all. But that's another column.

Don't try complaining to the neighborhood block association either. There's clearly a strong foreigner sympathy streak running through them—maybe they have a soft spot for those who live behind the Iron Curtain, I don't know. But they always take their side. They let them burn animals at all weird animals, calling it "barbecue," an American tradition. But you throw firecrackers at one cat and all of a sudden they're the SPCA.

Nazi-lovers, too, obviously. You'd think that would faze their liberal sensibilities, but they just became very offended and told me I was mistaken. I know the symbols of hate when I see them, good people. A vicious eagle swooping down on the poor and defenseless, and he has it all over his little stormtrooper outfit. Blue shorts and short-sleeved shirt, and that huge bag of dastardly evil he carts around everywhere. If he does work for the post office like the block association says, than how come a different man delivers my mail every morning? Caught you in a lie, Sigfried.

And those little miniature dwarf spies of theirs leave their riding instruments in the yard all day long. For quick and easy get away, should the FBI ever come in, guns blazing, to finally do their job. I've called them three times now and all I've gotten is a tap on my phone and a flower delivery van sitting outside my house. Where are those damned flowers anyway? They should have been here four days ago.

Ginger, the missus, my missus, says I shouldn't worry about it. Especially since I only go outside to throw firecrackers at passing animals. I'm inside every single hour I'm not at the commune, it shouldn't bother me, she says. But it's for her sake I'm worried. What happens when these Nazi freaks kick open the door and try to drag her away to a concentration camp? Or worse, a fat kids camp? Ginger's practically a size 5 now, she'd waste away down to nothing in one of those horrors of human nature. But I do have to go to work sometime. Red Bagel is starting to suspect that beard on Camembert isn't real, and as soon as he remembers I don't wear a beard anyway, my job may be in the stew.

So I'm going to buy a gun. Long and short of it. Hey! Long and short… barrels are long and short. That was almost a pun. But not quite.

Ignoring that, believe me, a gun is the best solution. In fact, I may buy two, since if I'm attacked by multiple opponents, it looks pretty ridiculous to slide across a floor, one gun blazing, to take them all out. And my biggest fear, other than my wife being subjected to inhuman torture, is looking stupid while killing attackers. So… I suppose I'll let you know how this gun thing works out.

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Guilt is a pretty super thing.

Fortune has taken an upturn since the last column. Actually, it took a swift downturn, plummeted into a crash, then whatever remained took an upturn. Which is usually how things go in my life. But it all started with my dad getting beat into a coma in that rumble last month.

Dad's in the hospital, head injury and all, and the only way he can communicate is to do Dave Letterman's Uma-Oprah bit from the Oscars years back. Put there by Steve, my sister's life partner, during the lesbian-old fogey turf war they had. But check it out, even though Steve clearly put a beating on dad, she's still suing him for punitive damages with the shit he called her. And on top of that, she filed a lawsuit against me for calling her Steve all the time instead of "Stephan," which she alleges is her name. I thought it was a compromise, since I stopped calling her "Marcy" when she asked me. But no. Some lesbians are pretty touchy about name issues.

See? I said some lesbians. My sister is teaching me not to make generalizations about people. Lawyers are always trigger-happy with lawsuits on about generalizations like that.

But none of this sounds good, of course, and it wasn't. Isn't, since the lawsuits are still pending—I guess they have to get in line behind my other libel suit. For about two weeks, though, I'm on whatever cloud is below cloud 9 and gets their plumbing overflow. Dad is in the hospital, but his gang is mending their wounds in my living room, mom is still sharing the same bed, and I'm having trouble making the rent since lawsuit # 1 Jayme Kristofson stole my Metallichick job. Just when things look their bleakest, I manage to pull it out of the fire again.

How I managed to pull it out of the fire was, my sister Cassandra felt so guilty about her old lady suing me and the mom and pop, so she took me out to lunch (her treat, natch). She said she was sorry it was turning out like this, and she was trying to talk Butch out of the lawsuit and whatever, but in the meantime, she was going to help me by cutting me a check to pay the legal bills. And sis hit me with this big-time check, like four zeroes, and said she'd slip me another one if I needed it, until the lawsuit thing passes. Siblings can be beautiful things, dudes.

She had plenty of suggestions on how to spend the money, of course, like telling me the name of this big fancy-pants lawyer in downtown Manhattan, apparently he's the last word in civil litigation. But I don't need to be told how to spend money, just how to come up with it. So I dipped into the lawyer fundage and rented me a place out in L.A. right near the action, so close to Warner Brothers you can hear them making the director's DVD commentaries. It's quality real estate. Pricey, yeah, but I'm not footing the bill.

Needless to say, it doesn't help my New Jersey apartment rent problem none, and mom and the gang might be kicked out on their asses, but I've prepared for that as well—I didn't give them the address of my new apartment. No midnight visits to Clarissa when the eviction notice comes.

I even had enough money left over to get a lawyer, too. He's not top-of-the-line like the Winston Price guy my sister told me to get, he doesn't own a suit or anything, but he's got to be good. His name is Jerry Nascar and he has an office as the same building as the commune, so you know he's legit. He's got a law degree from somewhere on the wall right next to the picture of this huge fish he caught, so the guy's no joke. And now, best of all, I only have to make one trip when picking up my commune paycheck and sorting out my legal issues. Life is sweet.

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