esame Street’s resident expert on numbers and counting, Count von Count, shocked onlookers at the North Hollywood Police Station last Thursday after being arrested on several counts of domestic abuse. Led into the station by numerous uniformed officers, the Count peppered the staff and his accuser, long-time spouse and fellow Muppet the Countess von Lexya, with counting-themed verbal abuse for close to an hour while officers attempted to obtain prints from his uncooperative felt fingers.

“Zat’s two! Two times I tell you, bitch!� the Count yelled across the station as the Countess was speaking with detectives. “Vat do you do ven she just von’t listen?�

The marriage has been a rocky one since the Count married Miss Lexya, a counting-impaired female Muppet created by Jim Henson in 1974 in an effort to bring attention to learning disabilities and spread tolerance among the nation’s youth. Friends of the couple and other Sesame Street regulars were doubtful of the union from the start, due in part to bitter memories of Count von Count’s disastrous failed marriage to backwards-counting prodigy Countess Dahling von Dahling. While some considered the opposites-attract pairing to be adorable, many feared that violence would inevitable result, given the Count’s volatile temper in counting-related matters and Miss Lexya’s utterly inept grasp of the numbers one through ten.

“Zat’s three, three fingers I use to slap your stupid face!� the Count yelled across the police station to the Countess, waving his felt fist in the air.

Since becoming the Countess in 1986, Miss Lexya has filed several reports of domestic abuse, but has never pressed formal charges. However, prosecutors received a break with the news that the Countess does plan on pressing charges this time around, though she’s not sure how many.

“Vait, how many is zis?� the Count questioned, holding up the middle of his three fingers and belligerently waving it in the air. “You must tell me, I canno see zis. Zat policeman did step on my glasses!� The Count continued to flip off the entire police station until advised by his legal counsel to desist.

Similar charges are being considered against puppeteer Marc Sanders, who has been operating the Count since 1991 but claims no part in the alleged domestic abuse. “You can try to talk the Count down, but once he gets his felt up, you’re better off just staying out of his way,� Sanders warned.

“Totally,� agreed fellow puppeteer and long-time Sanders girlfriend Maureen Baker, who also happens to operate the Countess/Miss Lexya puppet. “This may look bad now, but it’s clear that the Count only did what he did because he loves the Countess so much,� explained Baker, who recently received a black eye when she carelessly walked her Miss Lexya puppet into a doorknob.

Reaction among the other Sesame Street cast members was split, with some lamenting the Count’s tragic failings, and others bidding good riddance to an anal-retentive tyrant known to be extremely demanding on the set.

Fellow Muppet and longtime Count friend Dr. Bunsen Honeydew perhaps summed it up best. “The Count isn’t always the easiest chap to get along with,� admitted the myopic sadist. “But everyone would agree he’s the kind of friend you can really count on! Get it? Haha!�

“Me meep,� agreed Honeydew’s submissive man-child Beaker, nervously attempting to fake a smile.

n a brief ceremony Saturday, American soccer player Nathan Horne, killed in action during March in Iraq, was posthumously decorated with the Two Shits medal by a ranking Pentagon officer, Gen. Wilbur Finletter.

The Pentagon had received some criticism from soccer fans in light of recent accolades given former NFL player Pat Tillman, also killed in action, and celebrated as a god among men and all around nifty human being for giving up football to fight in a war otherwise disapproved by the public at large. Critics charged the U.S. military and national media with anti-soccer bias for its worship of Tillman while Horne went unrecognized for his valiant service and awesome death.

Horne's father, Reggie, summed up the position: "Nathan left a potentially-lucrative, at least it would have been overseas, career in soccer to serve his country. The fact he was killed in action should mean something, at least since he was a well-known athlete and not just one of the other faceless war dead."

A starting kicker or something for the Dallas Burn, which is apparently a real national league soccer team, Horne met his death when his convoy was attacked outside Baghdad March 26. Witnesses believe Horne tried to save the lives of his fellow soldiers, jumping into the air and attempting to deflect an incoming RPG with his head. Horne and the other soldiers received some posthumous awards, but Horne's father says none of them count since they weren't covered by the media and no one was invited to the ceremony.

Gen. Finletter tried to amend the error with a small ceremony in a mostly empty high school gym in Horne's hometown of Avacado, Texas. A medal known as the Two Shits, and reserved for those killed in action who appear much more important upon reflection, was reportedly not made up just for the ceremony. Finletter gave the award to Horne's widow, Iris, and two minutes of silence (one for each Shit) followed, except for the sound of freshmen playing dodge ball on the other side of the gym.

"If it didn't seem like we cared when you died, sorry and all," said Finletter, clearing his throat with a slight cough. "Let our presence here today, as well as the frumpy little medal we handed out, signify that we really do give two shits. Amen."

The reexamination of Horne's death hit everyone hard. A former assistant coach for the Burn, Kyle Hooper, was distraught upon remembering the news.

"I always knew Nathan was a pretty good guy, fun to get shit-faced with," said Hooper, "but I didn't think he was a hero until recently. When all this stuff happened with Pat Tillman, I realized hey, Nathan didn't have to go over there and defend our freedom. Or defend the Iraqi's freedom, or whatever. I know freedom was involved. He could have stayed here. Hell, he was getting axed from the Burn next season anyway, but it doesn't mean he couldn't have stayed here. He didn't have to go to Iraq, like all those guys who are in the army now. He could have went on living for plenty more years and not gotten himself killed in an unjust war. But that's the kind of guy he was—never really considering his decisions."

Donations in Horne's memory, in lieu of flowers, are requested to be sent directly to his widow and family, who will otherwise have no way to support themselves. For those who would like to do more to honor his memory, the family requests you attend a little rally with a store-bought sign exclaiming how much you support the troops.

I don't know why everybody expects me to know everything around here. "Omar, what's your car doing parked in my office?" "Omar, who the fuck hired Menudo to tile the break room?" "Omar, what ever happened to that Japanese woman you had living in your house?" What am I, Google? Get your lazy ass over to the library and look it up yourself, Curious George. AskOmar.com don't run for free and when I charge, I charge in pain.

I have to admit though; the "Japanese woman" question did get me thinking. I seem to remember something like that, some kind of foreign squatter in the Bricks Manor a little while back. At first I thought I must be remembering some lame sitcom, but according to resident prick Orson Welch, The Jap of Luxury went off the air years ago.

I definitely remember the house smelling like soy sauce a lot last year, and a quick peek into the compost heap outside shows strong evidence that there was a lot of chop-sticking going on around here during the same time period. So it certainly looks like this place was all Japped up for a good couple months last year. Weird.

I decided to hit the Internet for a little research, which mostly turned up strange cartoon pornography that's likely going to screw up my Saturday mornings for the next few years. But the most useful info came from the commune itself (no shit, we're on the Internet now) in the form of my own Polio columns from last fall. That was really a trip; I was wondering how in the hell people got to our site. Turns out all you have to do is search for "Japanese cat-piss cornhole" and you're there.

So now with that confusion out of the way, I'm faced with a question: What in the hell happened to my Asian live-in cohort? Jesus, you turn around for nine months and these people disappear on you, it's insane.

The last thing I remember, we were teamed up in this rickshaw polo tournament I had organized for charity. Osaka had been building up some serious skills carting me around town during those carless days, and I was getting pretty sharp at not eating shit out the back on sharp turns, so I figured we should put those skills to use for a good cause. There was some static about a school for training immigrants to pull Omar Bricks around town like a dogsled team not being a real charity, but those whiners were weeded out pretty fast and most of them had some pretty sad sack rickshaw-pullers anyway, to say the least. Mostly scrawny neighborhood kids or hookers trying to get off the street, Osaka and I would have poloed circles around them without either of us breaking a sweat.

In retrospect I wouldn't have minded if those guys stayed on, because the poloers who did stick around were a pretty rough bunch who favored a brand of full-contact rickshaw polo that wasn't for the faint of heart. I really felt sorry for anyone who parked their car on Brown Street that day, that's all you need to know.

In the end nobody there could match the skills Osaka and I brought to the arena, but they didn't need to since we flipped the 'shaw while popping a wheelie on the victory lap after I'd scored our first goal. Needless to say the rickshaw was destroyed, which Osaka probably wasn't too thrilled about since she'd paid for it and I'd talked her into getting one of the nice ones, really the Mercedes-Benz of rickshaws, it had a mini-fridge and a doorbell and everything. After the crash there was rickshaw shit all over the street, a stray dog even made off with the portable DVD player. It was a sad scene, especially for me, because I was right in the middle of Rollerball when it happened. I still don't know how that movie ends.

Come to think of it, I don't remember seeing Osaka after the crash, she may have given up on America or been kidnapped by the Triads for all I know. Hell, she could still be at the bottom of that pile of rickshaw rubble, but I bet they've cleaned that up by now. I probably could have stuck around and found out for sure, but the cops were on their way and we only had about ten minutes to make the half-off beers at Runyon's, so nobody was exactly volunteering to hang around for casualty detail.

It's probably all worked out for the best, unless she died. In that case, Osaka, or whatever your real name was, I'll never forget you. Again. After this time, never again. So I'll only forget you once. Probably, can't promise anything. But if you are still around and have learned to read English by now, Foghat's been sleeping on a pile of your stuff, so if you want it back you'll have to talk to him. Bricks out.

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