The issues that are important to some people. I’ve heard all of the complaints. Politics are big right now.

“You liberal pieces of s*^&! You’re giving Trump a bad name!” (We’re not. He’s doing just fine on his own)

“You conservative a**wipes! Why don’t you give Bernie any love?”

(We do. Just as much as everyone else. But it doesn’t matter. Our system is broken. Another post. Another time.)

Conspiracy theorists are fun, and an early-rising bunch of folks they are. No time to sleep when the government is poisoning you with chemtrails, right? Better get up at 4:00 a.m. and call the local news station to yell at them and let them know.

“Hey, your weather report this morning failed to mention all of those airplanes in the sky trying to kill us.” Sorry. Maybe next time.

“And a high today of 75 with temperatures sinking into the low 50s tonight. And if you’re going outside, make sure you wear your gas mask because a secret Government run program aimed at making us all sick and dependent that many people have participated in, but no one has ever been able to provide real evidence of, is ramping up with extra chemtrails expected this week in the Palouse. Show those country folks what’s up, ya know? North Spokane, don’t worry, your poisoning is scheduled for next week.”

Every time that phone rings, it’s like playing Russian Roulette. Most times, I just hear the click and a sigh of relief falls over me. But every now and then, there’s a live round in the chamber. At least I wish there was.

But today, was a new breed. A new kind of madness that I have not encountered. A passionate gentlemen who takes the size of his hail very seriously. A gentlemen who was upset at an exaggeration of the phrase “golf ball-sized hail.”

To weave into this story, let me start with a phrase from a man I despise just a little less than this hail hard on, Cris Collinsworth:

“Here’s a guy”… who sees a tease on the local morning show that makes a sort of tongue in cheek reference to some “golf ball-sized hail” video.

I will admit, the hail was not golf ball-sized. The anchors even admitted this after reading it on air. But this guy, no doubt sitting in his grimey, sweat and spaghetti-o stained recliner, balancing a giant bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch on his belly, hears this, stops chowing down, maybe even does a spit-take, and audibly declares to no one but himself and his cat (who I guaranteed wishes he could escape his life with this troll), and says “THAT’S NOT GOLF BALL SIZED HAIL! WHERE”S MY PHONE BOOK (He still uses a phone book)! I’M GOING TO CALL THOSE MORONS AND TELL THE PERSON WHO ANSWERS THE PHONE WHAT A DUMB F*&^ HE IS!”

Cinnamon Toast Crunch Troll: *Picks up the landline phone (it hasn’t been cleaned in… ever. It is caked with dirt, dried bodily fluids and dead skin from his many other noble crusade phone calls to local news stations… it rings. A tired and sluggish person who is in to work 2 hours early (me) answers the phone*

ME: – “Hello

CINNAMON TOAST CRUNCH TROLL: “Do you idiots even have a golf ball around there? Those are MOTH BALL sized hail… NOT golf ball-sized hail! Do you even know what a golf ball looks like?”

ME – “No.” (I know you’re not supposed to “feed the trolls” but I didn’t want to put up with this. I’m sick, and lacking coffee.)

CTC Troll: WELL THAT’S. NOT. IT! That’s moth ball-sized hail! I know what golf ball-sized hail is because I still have one in my freezer from the storm three years ago!”

*Wait… pause. Did you read that? You did. It didn’t surprise me one bit when I heard it. I know who this testicle is. He’s the kind of guy who when it hails actual golf-ball sized hail,  he goes outside, grabs one of them, and puts it in his freezer. Why? What would be the purpose? When will you ever need that again, you worm nut? There are a few reasons I can come up with.

Scenario #1: Today’s scenario. In case one day he needs to call a local news station to call them on their exaggeration, and they in turn call him on his alleged ownership of said golf ball-sized hail and he needs to provide proof. Can you imagine?

ME: “Sir, I don’t believe you. That’s not possible. I’m afraid you’re going to have to prove it.”

He definitely would. He already bought a used hand-held cooler at a yard sale last summer for just an occasion. After four connections on the bus, he would show up at the station, walk in with the cooler with the importance of a donor heart heading for transplant, plop it on the counter and wait for me to come out into the lobby. He would open it up and like the briefcase from Pulp Fiction, I would see a glowing, gold light and immediately become speechless at the sight of an actual piece of golf ball-sized hail. That’s how it has played out in his mind. In reality, I would say, “Hmmm. Cool. You were right. Thanks. Bye.”

Scenario # 2: When his friends (read: mother) comes over to his trailer just to make sure he’s remembered to flush his toilet and feed the cat on a regular basis, and he needs to show her what he’s accomplished in life.

Mother: “CTCT, why don’t you get a job?”

CTCT: “I have a job mother! It’s calling up news stations and yelling at them! And business is good! I’m really making a difference in the world! And besides, my hail-collecting business is going really well right now! Check out this golf ball-sized one I grabbed after the storm three years ago!

*He opens the freezer and pulls out the golf ball-sized hail next to his severed rodent head collection*

CTCT: See! One day I’ll need this to prove my worth in life and who will be laughing then!?”

Those are the only reasons for saving hail. That’s it. No other reason.

Besides, even if you save a piece of hail, what happens in a freezer? It collects additional ice. Chances are this butthole’s golf ball-sized hail started out as the moth ball-sized hail he considers so elementary and over the course of three years, and a steady rotation of TV dinners and severed gopher heads going in and out of the freezer, it collected enough ice to become golf ball sized. It’s a fake! He’s a phony! I know this. I just didn’t have the energy to call him on his lie.

But I have to hand it to him. His three year plan paid off this morning when he got to call up, yell at me and call us out on our inadvertent exaggeration.

I can’t help but wonder though… Now what will he do with his prized possession? What will become of his golf ball-sized hail? I know this human hangnail and I already know the answer.

He is going to save it. He’s going to save it and wait for us to have an even bigger hailstorm. He will sit and wait for us to refer to it as “cantaloupe-sized hail” on air. He will smirk, then calmly set down his bowl of generic CTC, pick up his phone and say, “You MORONS! Do you even have a cantaloupe? That’s golf ball sized hail! I know what cantaloupe-sized hail is because I still have one in my freezer from the storm 18 years ago!”

That’ll show us.

He’ll then hang up the phone, leave the half-eaten bowl of CTC for his new suicidal cat (which will leave it untouched out of fear of catching a disease and general disgust for the person who was just eating it), catch a bus down to the cemetery, and gloat to his mother’s grave (Which will definitely have a tombstone that reads: “Beloved wife, extremely disappointed mother”) and say, “I did it again mom! I showed those local news bastards just how wrong they are!”

Everyone has a different passion. Everyone has different issues they consider important. Everyone knows the news is a liar. Today I talked to the man who will not stand for exaggerations in hail reporting. Today, I talked to CTCT. And it made me chuckle with rage.