hipping clerk Charles McKinley mailed himself from New York to Dallas in a shipping crate last week, as was reported by every major news outlet on Tuesday in the face of an apparent total lack of actual news.

Authorities believe McKinley had help from at least one co-worker at the New York warehouse where he is employed, since it is extremely difficult to nail yourself into a shipping crate from the inside. The homesick McKinley, too broke to afford an airline ticket, came up with the idea after a friend complimented him on his ability to avoid buying a car by stowing away in other drivers’ trunks in order to get around town. McKinley also remembered a similar idea working in a humorous MC 900 Ft. Jesus video he’d seen years before.

McKinley took neither food nor water along with him for the 15-hour journey, only a broken cell-phone and a Game Boy Advance for which he soon lamented not buying a backlight.

“I brought my cell phone, even though that piece of shit’s been broken for two weeks, just in case we got up in space and all of a sudden I had service again,� explained McKinley. “That’dve been sweet, because I could call up Charles and be like ‘Yo whatup dog, I’m calling you from a box in space and shit!’ There’s no way Charles would believe that, man, he’d think I was drunk or something. But he’dve been wrong. I wish I was drunk, that probably would’ve made the fifteen hours in the dark with knees all crammed up in my face go faster now that I think about it. But yeah, I brought my cell phone because I think it’s the battery that’s all jacked from the time I dropped it in that toilet at the bar, and I figure it might not have enough juice to pull down the phone calls from the satellites all the way to the ground, you know? But maybe it’ll work on the plane ‘cuz we’re closer to the satellites and all that. But no dice, piece of shit was still busted.�

Embarrassed federal officials are still trying to determine how McKinley made it through airport security, which presumably has some kind of dogs or something that check to make sure crates being shipped don’t smell like sweaty morons. Officials refused to speculate what security measures might be in place to prevent this kind of occurrence, though they neither confirmed nor denied that a funny way to test would be to drop all packages from a height of several feet to see if any of them screamed.

Upon arriving at his parents’ suburban Dallas home, McKinley busted out of the crate with a crowbar, scaring the holy shit out of a deliveryman who thought he was dropping off a huge shipment of Triscuits.

“I thought it was funny that the thing smelled like a big box of snack crackers and B.O., but I still didn’t expect some weirdo to bust out like a jackass-in the-box,� explained deliveryman Billy Ray Thomas. “And yeah, the rumors are true, I may have screamed kind of like a girl when he popped out. And then I called the cops on my cell phone because, hey man, fuck you!�

When the police arrived they arrested McKinley on an unrelated charge of passing bad checks and sneaking onto a train in a large duffel bag. Federal officials are also considering charges of “stowing away on a plane,� the violation of a law created in the 1940’s to give police characters more to do in Warner Bros. cartoons.

Asked how much he saved by traveling in the cargo hold, McKinley made it clear that his employer had unwittingly footed the bill for his low-budget odyssey. “Oh shit man, I couldn’t afford to mail a box that heavy. You have any idea what that must cost? Damn. I just traveled cross-country in a crate, Jack, do I look like I’m made of money?�

he White House, home of the White, faced a major embarrassment this week when a release by the president's private probe into the power failures of two weeks ago pointed to a most uncomfortable source—Dick. Indeed, Vice President Dick Cheney was singled out as the leading cause of the energy problem that left multiple states in periods of blackout.

It ended a troubling week for the Vice President, whose office was accused of holding out information on an energy probe Monday by refusing to turn over documents vital to the investigation. The General Accounting Office reported the administration met with a succession of energy lobbyists, to the complete and total surprise of Americans everywhere, but the extent of corporate involvement in energy policymaking could not be verified without the documents withheld by the Vice President.

The latest revelation of Cheney's involvement in energy problems could adversely affect his position on the 2004 Republican ticket. The president's probe, inserted deep inside the problem, made note of several private excesses that may have led to the undue strain on the northeastern power grids. Cheney officials confirmed Friday that the Vice President's quarters in the White House is the only one plugged into the northeastern power grid, pointing out that the Vice President's power needs "cannot be satisfied by the piddlin'-ass power grid currently supplying the D.C. area."

One of the power offenses Cheney is accused of includes the employ of an industrial-grade air conditioner used solely for the Vice President's bedroom. Some say the personal air conditioner is the only 90-million BTU unit made for personal use. Vice Presidential spokesperson Canton Canby only responded to the allegation by claiming, "The VP likes to walk around naked."

Close investigation by the probe, under the guidance of Neilson "Soft Crust" Reilly, revealed that virtually nothing in the Vice President's White House quarters were not temperature-regulated. His personal pool and hot tub were heated, and his private work-out room, never used, we can guess, was cooled. Documentation also proves the VP had his sauna air conditioned and his refrigerator heated, as the best way to keep balanced temperatures to all things. Personal assistant Canby did not find the temperature regulation obsession strange.

"Well, maybe to the working man that sounds like an odd thing, but I know if I were doing work as important as the Vice President, I certainly wouldn't want to be worried about how hot or cold my fridge needed to be to enjoy a frosty beverage when I got home from the Middle East or wherever he's gone off to."

Among the more alarming findings of the probe were hospital-grade shock paddles. Canby, now sweating and in need of an industrial-strength air conditioner himself, found nothing odd about the frequently-used paddles, employed by the VP sometimes up to six times a day.

"What? So you got to be dead to want a charge from those things? There's no law says you got to be dead. The Vice President got used to the jump start you get from absorbing electricity straight into the body. There's no law against it and at the time we weren't under orders to conserve energy. Get off the guy's back. Sometimes his heart needs a little warning blast to know to keep doing its job, if it knows what's good for it."

Canby refused to answer further questions on the probe's accusations, waiting to receive the results from a probe conducted by the Vice President's wife, Lynn Cheney, under the objective to find out who left all these lights on in here.

Well, well, well, if it isn't Boguslaw Sadowski—actually, it is. Or someone who looks incredibly like him.

That's correct, good people, my old nemesis, 40 years my junior, has returned: Boguslaw Sadowski. Also known as "the mad Russian," when he gets extremely pissed off. He may not actually be Russian, but I'm not here to argue semites. All I know is he's my arch-enemy and the stakes in this game of me vs. the mob are raised considerably.

You may remember Boguslaw Sadowski posed as a woman on the internet and tricked me into paying for his flight over here from Eurasia—at least you might remember it if it happened to you. He broke my heart that day. I was all set to meet the most unconventionally beautiful woman of my life and make her my bride, only to find out I had been conned by one of the best. Sure, things work out for the better in the long run, and I met my darling Felchyana, which brings me to my current mixed-up with the mob existence. So maybe things work out for the best only to backslide into the territory of terminally fucked up once again.

But I'm rambling, which is unlike me. What's important is that although ostensibly nothing has changed, things have changed considerably. In addition to trying to find a way out of new mob family and still keep my new wife, I now have my latest worst enemy breathing down my neck.

Boguslaw is unattractive—large and burly, a pock-marked face, iron jaw, slick jet-black hair parted down the middle and a nose worn away by years of fisticuffs. The same features I found so attractive when I thought him a woman are now reprehensible and threatening. He is what the ancient Greeks meant when they coined the phrase, "a man not to be fucked with."

I wish I had that luxury. And a speedboat. But time is slippin' into the future and I'm running short on ideas. As if things weren't bad enough, now in addition to finding a way to take out Yogi and the rest of the ambiguously Russian mafia, I must contend with the world's most intimidating 5-foot noseless mobster.

I sought out Omar Bricks' advice, being something of a young ruffian himself, and I believe what he said was quite true: "A man can only be pushed so far until he explodes like a mailbox full of gunpowder." That wasn't so much his advice to me on the situation as it was a warning of what would happen if I kept bothering him for advice. But it's as true in our time as it was in his, yesterday afternoon just before happy hour.

It's clear I will have to act, and with extreme prejudice and racial epithets. But like a thick scab, I must pick my moment. Camembert is already on board, and has guaranteed he will "fight like a crazed rabbit if you drag me into this." Whether he was directing the fighting at me or our common enemy, I'm not sure, but when push comes to shove, Camembert will roll in on my side, if I push him in that direction.

My current thought is to make allies with the, let's say, "Russian" mafia while awaiting Lee's return. When Lee comes back, with his kung-fu grip and sizzling bass lines, I will finally have the backup I need to challenge Yogi for leadership of the mob. Not that I necessarily want to be a mob leader, but I've heard stories like this before—hearty and sincere white people forcing their way into gangs, taking them over, and using them as a tool for good. And if I had a Coolio song to back me up, I could even make it into a box office hit. But first thing's first.

Step one: Bide my time. Step two: Gather a bad-ass army. Step three: Challenge for leadership of the tribe. Step four: Make a hit motion picture with a best-selling soundtrack. Step five: Stop telling all my secret plans in my nationally web-published column. But that's a consideration for a more peaceful time.

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