The Girl in the Shed

A while ago, the residents of the City of Fresno, California did something quite remarkable. They built a tiny shed on the outskirts of town, stuck an Irish girl in it, and then just started blaming everything on her.

It was actually a rather incredible innovation. Unsolved crime dropped 100% practically overnight. Mothers stopped yelling at children for tracking mud through the living room. Husbands stopped yelling at wives for putting new scratches in car doors. And nobody ever got in trouble for being late to work.

"Johnson, it's eleven-thirty!!! We had a conference call scheduled for nine--do you have any idea how pissed the client is?!!!"

"Sorry Sir, but when I went to my car this morning, uh, my steering wheel was gone. I had to walk all the way to Bob's Auto Parts for a new one--set me back, like, three hundred bucks or something too."

"Oh jeez Johnson, that's rough. Bet you that Irish girl in the shed took it."

"Gosh Sir, you think?"

"Yeah, she got Rodriguez's also, and last week hit Taylor, Brown and Gunderson. Someone really oughta do something about that damn Irish girl in the shed. Come on, I'll buy you lunch."

And so it went. Across all of Fresno, life's brutal rhythms faded and gave way to tranquility. People even started blaming things they were witnessed doing on the Irish girl in the shed. That was soon followed by male pattern baldness, obesity, impotence and the flu. Best day of the butcher's life was when he realized he could probably blame salmonella on the Irish girl in the shed.

And the citizens couldn't have been happier. But then one fateful night in August, Phillip Haverstromsky, the star quarterback for Fresno High, went up to the shed on a dare, peeked in through the tiny window and was instantly smitten. Phillip promptly demanded the Irish girl's release, claimed he was in love with her.

At first everyone thought he was just using that as his excuse for cheating on his girlfriend with the entire cheerleading squad a month before.
"Oh honey." His girlfriend cried. "I know that wretched Irish girl in the shed retroactively tricked you into sleeping with the entire cheerleading squad last month. It's okay, of course I forgive you. Someone should do something about that damn Irish girl in the shed."

But Phillip wouldn't be dissuaded, he actually had fallen very much in love with the Irish girl in the shed.

"Listen!" Phillip Haverstromsky yelled as jogged backwards to top of the courthouse steps. "I slept with the entire cheerleading squad because I was really, really horny!"

No one could believe what he was doing. They screamed out for him to stop, that it wasn't too late--he could still blame everything on the Irish girl in the shed. But Phillip was having none of it. He went on to confess to cheating on geometry tests, a half-dozen vandalisms and robbing the till at his after-school job.

When he started listing other people's transgressions that had been previously blamed on the Irish girl in the shed, they knew he had to be stopped. So they beat him to death with bats and chains and blamed it on the Irish girl in the shed. Then they all went back to being innocent and happy and never spoke of it again.

There are some who say that Irish girl is there to this day--sitting in the dirt, dreaming about the face in the window. Others claim there never was a girl in that shed at all, just a cardboard cutout of Daniel Day-Lewis in drag.

One thing's for sure though: If you find yourself shortchanged in Fresno, or feel your pocket picked and see the Chief of Police tossing your wallet in his car, consider that money well spent and get the hell out of town. Push it and you're liable to find yourself killed and your murder blamed on the Irish girl in the shed.



(p.s. If you liked this wonderful and true story, then thank you very much and you should probably, like, email me lots of money or something. If you didn't like it... well, then that goddamn Irish girl in the shed stole my weblog password and was the one who actually posted it.)