What I Want to Know

A local TV news program has a promotion that goes something like this: "We want to know what you want to know." I don't quite get their point, but I'm guessing they want their viewers to pitch questions about what's going on in the community.

Okay, I'll bite.

Could you send your TV news crew to the house down the road and find out why it's vacant only two years after it was built. What happened to the teen-aged boys who ripped around their acreage on dirt bikes, happily keeping this entire farming area abuzz with noise and dust? Why did the homeowners leave the entire place in weeds instead of doing some landscaping? I want to know.

And by the way, can you ask the retired farmer across the field why he allows his elderly donkey to run loose? We nearly hit "Eeyore" one day as he dozed, standing up, in the middle of the road. We've dubbed him Eeyore because we kind of like the old guy (the donkey, not the neighbor) and hope he doesn't end up on someone's bumper. People drive altogether too fast past the farmer's house, despite his "Please slow down" signs. Is Eeyore really clever and agile enough to escape his fence, or is the farmer letting him out on purpose to act as a mobile speed bump? I want to know.

This same farmer and his family seem to drive only white sedans that are usually parked in his yard with the trunks open. Could you please find out what's up with that? I mean, was there a body in there and they're airing it out? You never know, he could be the local hit man. I want to know.

I'd also appreciate it if you could get some information from that neighbor who's a member of the volunteer fire brigade but keeps lighting fires in his backyard. "It's just a fire pit," he claims, but I'd swear it's an illegal burn barrel. If I can't have one, neither can he, okay? I suppose it's safer for him to have one than for the average guy, but still... I want to know.

I'm dying to know why another neighboring farmer cuts the hay in his rented fields, gussies it up into those enormous wheels that look like cinnamon rolls on their sides, and then leaves the rolls to rot. They look like something the ancient Romans would light on fire and roll down the hill to get rid of nosy neighbors. Okay, so don't do too much investigating on this one.

Finally, investigate this: Where is the badge of honor that should have been bestowed upon my husband when he ran over a cat the other day? Not for hitting the poor little thing, certainly, but for stopping, tenderly picking it up, and rushing it to the vet for help. This same man will swerve for deer, dogs, squirrels, quail, and just about anything that's in his path.

So when somebody like my husband goes out of his way to get medical treatment for, and find the owner of, what turned out to be a stray cat, why isn't there some kind of recognition? Can you find out who is supposed to appreciate, comfort, and praise him for his compassion? Oh, that would be me. Never mind.