ride-to-be and self-kidnapping victim/perpetrator Jennifer Wilbanks
copped to several charges on Saturday, including illegal self-confinement
and terroristic threatening to your own persons. The missing Georgia
"runaway bride," as some less respectful newspapers have dubbed Wilbanks,
disappeared and reported herself kidnapped on the day of her wedding,
only to turn up later when she managed to escape from herself and phoned
her lucky husband-to-be, whose name we withheld out of respect to the
poor bastard.

Police found and arrested the abductor, Wilbanks herself, and held her in
custody as they built a case. Rather than face herself in court during a
lengthy trial, Wilbanks confessed to all the crimes she was accused of,
in hopes of getting the whole thing sorted out before her big wedding.
But Wilbanks didn't forgive herself so easily for her downfall.

"I also want to let myself know that I won't forget what I've done to
myself anytime soon," warned Wilbanks, in a statement released by her
lawyer, who may be Wilbanks herself in yet another impressive role. "Do
I hear that? I won't be getting away from me so easily. I'll let
me forget about me for a while, but one day, when I least expect it,
I'll turn around, and I'll be there. And I won't be happy."

Wilbanks refused to answer questions as to whether she was threatening
herself with bodily harm, and other reporters just laughed when this
correspondent tried to get them to back up his questioning.

With the abductee/abductor refusing to answer questions, the commune
sought out an expert on self-abduction, Audrey Seiler, a Wisconsin
college student who tried to kidnap herself in April of last year.
Seiler disappeared from her off-campus apartment March 27, 2004, and
was found four days later, telling police she was abducted by a man
with a knife. Seiler confessed to kidnapping herself only when police
discovered a videotape of the young woman buying a knife, duct tape,
rope, and cold medicine all in one purchase, though this reporter can't
picture a weekend coming and going without buying all of those items.

"I know in my case, it just came out of nowhere," said Seiler. "You're
walking along, you think everything's fine and dandy, then—bam!
You jump out of nowhere, put a hand over your mouth, and force yourself
into an alley. I had my car with me, which was lucky, so I forced myself
into the trunk, then had to get out and actually drive myself to the
hideout. But I kept a knife on myself, so I wouldn't try anything funny.
It's really scary. I've known myself for a long time, but I've never seen
myself like that before."

Seiler also admits she wasn't sure what made her kidnap herself; at first
she thought it was just a sorority prank or something, but then recalled
she hadn't pledged any sorority at all. At that point, she began to doubt
her mental stability.

"The police never understand," said Seiler. "They always think you can
wait for a moment when your back is turned and escape. But you're
paralyzed with fear, afraid of what you'll do to yourself. That's why I
didn't want to tell the police who had really done it."

As for the case of Wilbanks herself, the most recent victim/perpetrator
of self-kidnapping, Seiler had some thoughts on what might motivate her
to such a twisted crime.

"I really, really liked that Runaway Bride movie. She probably
did, too. She probably thought she'd kidnap herself, hoping a cool
Richard Gere-type, only not so gay, would come to her rescue. It never
works out, trust me. I was inspired by the movie Excess Baggage,
but it's never as fun as it looks. Spend a few days out in the woods by
yourself and it takes all the charm out of being held at knifepoint."

raqi terror chief Abu Musab al-Zarkawi, known alternately as "The Commish" or "Chief Proudblow" to bored American journalists, made headlines this week by not being captured, inspiring the envy of millions worldwide whose lack of achievement failed to attract any media attention whatsoever.

American soldiers report that they thought they had el-Zarqawi in the bag after trailing a car with his distinctive vanity license plate "KABOOM3" for fifteen minutes one day back in February, but lost the Iraqi dissident when he ducked out of the car and sprinted into a back alley. The soldiers continued to give chase on foot, but were foiled when al-Zerqawi pulled off one of his famous Bugs Bunny disappearances.

"We thought we had the target for sure when we cornered him in that alley," explained Capt. Lance Dank. "But then he ducked into a door in the alleyway, and when we opened the same door, there was just a brick wall there. It was the weirdest thing. Like the Twilight Zone or something."

"Or a cartoon," added Pvt. William Stussenweld. "That kind of thing happens in cartoons sometimes. I've heard."

The resulting non-story took the world's newspapers by storm, pre-empting the news that U.S. president Bush had almost choked to death on a hot dog, but did not because in the end he decided to eat some applesauce instead.

In other news, scientists in Vancouver nearly cured cancer on Thursday, only to find they had instead created a new flavor of hickory-smoke-flavored dogfood. The rock band Jimmy Eat World also almost wrote a great song, and actress Bette Middler nearly delivered an Oscar-worthy performance on the set of her latest project, the chick flick tear-jerker Runaways.

Internationally, lasting peace came so close to breaking out in Palestine that you could smell it Wednesday, only to swing back the other way when some dick blew up a children's hospital with a nail bomb. Japan also almost made news this week, when government officials announced they had perfected the world's first crash-proof commuter rail system, then suddenly got very quiet about the whole thing and refused to talk about it.

Closer to home, the commune was nearly recognized for its Pulitzer-level reporting this week, only to be disgraced at the last minute when the fickle fates decided instead to award the organization for its tireless efforts at truth-saying with the Golden Tit, a sexually-arousing trophy acknowledging excellence in the field of completely fucking up news stories beyond all recognition.

Asked about the secret of his success during a recent satellite telephone call that al-Zarquawe placed to our offices in hopes of getting the commune to stop spelling his name wrong, the Iraqi terror chief was philosophical.

"You just have to take it one day at a time, don't try to do too much. In fact, don't try to do anything. The press attention will come to you, my friend. Pluck up, your time will come."

I knew one of these seasons it would happen, and that day is finally here: Every team in Major League Baseball stinks this year. Just plain stinks, every last one of them. Sure, somebody still has to win every game, but this year it's less about winning and more about not losing quite as badly as the other team. And I don't have to tell you it's as painful to watch as the rodeo at the Special Olympics.

Granted, some fans see fit to remind me that it's still early in the season, and that for at least a few teams, early suckocity will be transformed into mere mediocrity by season's end. But I don't buy it. Suck is a stink that stays on you for months, if not years, like gas station cologne. And this year, the entire league stinks like "Consternation for Men."

The bitterest part of this pill is the fact that at least a couple of these teams were supposed to be half-way decent this year. The Red Sox just won the World Series, for crying out loud, giving their fans unprecedented high hopes about not having their whole miserable lives remind them of smoking a turd like a cigar for a few short months this season. So naturally, they turned around and "re-vamped" their pitching staff by signing one guy most known for a goatee that looks like a thatched doormat and another so old and out of shape that he recently went on the disabled list with a pulled finger. And the Sox had to fire their team doctor after learning that Curt Shilling made it through last year's postseason on an ankle held together with glitter glue and spunk. Gross, I know, and I didn't even tell you whose spunk it was.

But truly nobody can statutorily rape high hopes like the New York Yankees. Fielding a team so expensive and inept it should qualify as a socialist government program, the Yankees seem determined to prove just how much caviar a drunk can barf up on the national stage this year. Some see this as the inevitable result of the team's policy about not signing any players who are too young to remember M.A.S.H., but personally I'm more likely to blame it on the fact that the team's run by a character from Seinfeld. Learn your history, folks. That never ends well.

Who else is sucking? Take your pick. The Cubs? Like you needed to ask about the Cubs. That team could field an entire roster of Jesus Christ clones and still find a way to have the whole lot of them go down with sandal splints and blown elbows from high blessing counts and excessive water-to-wine conversions. They've got the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost all on the 60-day disabled list, and I don't think the Holy Ghost will even be back for next season.

Houston's entire team has been too focused on the Social Security debate to keep their minds on the game at all this season, and San Francisco has been crippled by the fact that they traded the best closer in the game for a catcher who could get kicked out of the Hell's Angels for being an asshole. Also, they just got news that doctors found a Fraggle living in Bonds' left knee. I don't know what that says about the whole steroid debate, but those designer Jim Henson Mupplements he's been taking are starting to look mighty suspicious.

Washington? The joke this year is that they gave Washington a team, but haven't given them any equipment yet. Still, those guys are doing pretty well considering they've been using milk cartons for gloves and are playing in their street clothes. Minnesota fell for the old "The season starts on May 1st" gag again this year, so they're already twenty games back, with some serious catching up to do. Atlanta? Fags. Sorry, but they are a bunch of fags. Read the team's press kit if you don't believe me. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Sure, a few teams may have decent records so far, but don't kid yourself. The Dodgers? The White Sox? Check the records a little closer guys, it wouldn't surprise me if at least one of those teams was being run like Enron and is just writing off dozens of losses as "extended spring training" or some other dodge. You'll know I'm right if they're still 16-6 in August.

But contrary to what some may assume, you won't hear me complaining about the state of things. Not more than usual anyway. I actually kind of like it when teams suck major egg, as a fan it gives you more to talk about. Blathering on about who's pitching great or who just hit a home run so far it killed a hang glider gets real old, real fast. But the details of pathetic performance can be dissected on into infinity with no loss of enjoyment. Just ask a Cubs fan.

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