Local Locos

Local Locos
by Pat Hart

As a purveyor of fine crimes I try to stay alert to the local crime scene. Over the years I’ve noticed that truly bizarre crimes are rarely one of a kind occurrences but seem to come in clusters.

Here are three examples:
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The amateur, cut-rate sex change procedure is no bargain. In Butler an “at-home” sex change operation goes awry (what a surprise!) and the patient dies. No question that Doctor Tammy, a repeat off-ender, needs to go to the slammy but lawyers, judges, and wardens can't agree on which penal facility best suits “Tammy” as he/she no longer has a personal penile facility.

Death need not be the end...
Whether it’s due sentiment or personal profit the clearly departed in our region are not always getting out of the house and properly buried. Sentiment. Two elderly sisters toddled around Squirrel Hill in their vintage togs for years. And then suddenly there was just the one. People worried that the other old gal was ailing. Eventually, the missing sister was discovered, tucked up in her bed, covered with many, many blankets and yet still cold as she was extremely dead. The culprit was sentiment, the living sister couldn’t bear to part from her lifelong partner.

Profit. Death is cruel. Death separates us from that which we hold dear, a sister from a sister, a husband from a wife, a son from the monthly pension check his mother receives… A mother’s work is never done as one lout proved by not putting his deceased mother to rest but keeping her on ice as he continues to collect her check.

Uneasy rests the sleeping man
About four years ago there was a rash of wives shooting husbands as they slept on the family sofa. The first time I was shocked, the second time a little less so, by the third time I had a question, which I asked my own husband. “You never hear of a woman shooting a man who’s doing the dishes or vacuuming. Why do you think that is?” He had no comment, I don’t think he heard me over the roar of the Hoover.