I thought I’d take a moment to illustrate how different types of people, from normal people, descending to Whitewater’s politicians and bureaucrats, might describe a simple automobile accident.
NORMAL PEOPLE: We were driving along, not paying attention to the road, and our car veered off onto the shoulder. We hit a rock, and got a flat tire.
SLIGHTLY ABNORMAL PEOPLE: We were driving along, doing our very best, and a gust of wind pushed the car to the shoulder of the road, and a hard-to-see rock punctured our tire. It was eerie.
PREDOMINANTLY ABNORMAL PEOPLE: We were driving along, and somehow, we’re not sure how, we wound up by the side of the road. We noticed the car had a flat tire.
COMPLETELY ABNORMAL PEOPLE: We were driving along, listening to William Shatner’s rendition of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, and a spaceship from another world locked our car in a tractor beam, and forced the car into a rock. The creatures operating the spaceship said they disliked us, and used a phaser to blast a really big hole in one of our tires.
WHITEWATER POLITICIANS AND BUREAUCRATS: We were driving along, as we always do, in complete conformity with the 232 guidelines of the Municipal Road Safety Handbook, Third Edition.
Just as we were remarking on the importance of building a better community for our fellow residents, a squirrel jumped from the edge of the road, onto the hood of our car. We quickly refreshed ourselves on suggestions in the City Manager’s Guide for Squirrel Evasion and Familiar Quotations.
(We always try to read a few pages each night, before drinking a glass of warm milk, and thinking good thoughts about our town’s progress.)
The squirrel was red — a telltale sign of an anti-government radical — and had no collar or name tag. We don’t appreciate untagged squirrels, no mater how much we love all animals.
The squirrel deliberately threw himself on our windshield, obstructing our view of the road. Despite our most valiant and highly special efforts, we drove off the road — through no fault of our own — onto the shoulder. While easing our well-maintained and extremely professional-looking vehicle to a stop, we lightly impacted a large stone object. The aforesaid object caused a gradual reduction in tire pressure, commonly known as a flat tire.
We will circulate a community bulletin on safe-squirrel procedures, and depending on the volume of questions we receive, may authorize a task force to address seventeen possible responses to squirrel-induced flat tires.
