Has this, or something like this, happend to you?

me, too. i would have answered 'it's a stop sign. you're not going. that's my problem. and by the way, i'm not voting for you next time, you fucking dumbass.'

 

What if that mayor was an MMA fighter? Would you vote for him then? I would.

 

Reminds me of that "Cheers" episode where Carla convinced Cliff to write a scathing letter to his slob of a next-door neighbour, then Cliff had to fight the bar's mailman to get the letter back when he realized his neighbour had fallen behind on the yard cleaning because he was training for the world light-heavyweight kick-boxing championship.

 

He did not know me. But I knew of him because he was the mayor.

So I could cover my ass for honking at him.

 

Similar vein, slightly different direction:
This woman (whom we surmised was a stay-at-home mom, because it became evident that she had an abundance of spare time...yeah, it's sexist, but stay with me on this) loved bitching about our coverage of small countyline school athletics. Said we only covered them in a loss, never had anything positive.
She called me out for being biased toward intown Catholic school (in the interest of further disclosure, I'm a parishioner...I don't attend regularly, but I'm on the books).
Now, the Little Woman and I are engaged, and we're getting married in the church. So one Saturday morning, we go to the engaged couples' retreat at intown Catholic church.
Goddamn if this woman (who told us all that she and her husband decided that she would stay home with the kids) isn't leading the retreat.
I make some flip comment about hate mail, and the couple at our table says, "Who would send you hate mail?"
I laughed bitterly. Nobody understood why.

 

Why not just tell him the truth?

 

In my first job in rural Saskatchewan I tried to take a photo of a guy on the edge of town that was burning a big pile of tires. It was illegal to burn tires, of course, and the local dump had stopped taking them (you had to drive about an hour to get rid of them). The local cowboys didn't like rules, however, and tended to do whatever the hell they pleased.

So this guy piles up about 50 tires and sets them ablaze. The smoke could be seen for miles. Everyone in town is talking about it. I drive out. Stand on thew other side of the road and start snapping.

When the guy saw me he wasn't happy. He started to run towards me swearing and...carrying a pitchfork. When I keep shooting...HE THROWS THE PITCHFORK AT ME!

At this point I figured I had my shot, so I bolt. I get in my car and book-it out of there. By this point he's piked the pitchfork back up and is running after my car. Fortunately my car was faster than guy with pitchfork.

ANYWAY...I get back to the office and develop (yes, you read that right) the film. I proudly tell my ME that I got the shot and...he tells me that "it's damn well not going to run." The ME, a cowboy himself, didn't like the town's anti-tire burning policies and refused to even consider the idea that the shots should run.

The same guy also refused to cover any event involving natives, despite there being a reserve--without a newspaper--of about 2,000 people just south of the town. He didn't like the Indians, you see...

Working out there was a life experience, that's for sure.

The photo still has a proud place in my personal photo album, obviously.

 

I have "not voting" one like this.

A couple years and papers ago, I was new to town. I had the university beat so I go over the U to do an advance. Well, the head of the veterinarian department has his parking spot near the gym for some reason. So, it's after school hours (like 5 p.m.) and I quickly park in the spot, knowing I won't be long.

As I'm walking into the gym, the department head pulls up and starts screaming at me. Don't park there, that's my spot, I'm sick of you damn kids parking there, blah, blah, blah. Just yelling.

I look at him and calmly say "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm from the newspaper. I'm just grabbing a quick quote. Just relax, I'll move (long pause) And by the way I won't vote for you as mayor either."

He was running for mayor in the next month's election. I knew because I'd seen and read so much about him in our paper. But he didn't know me from Adam because I was a) still sort of new to town and b) in sports.

His face turns beat red, he throws the car in park and he gets out and starts apologizing.

I just say "As a public figure, you'll always be on the clock. You should be more careful."

 

Yes. He did.

As a follow up, I also had my own radio show in that town. It was a one-hour show focussing on the U's sports. So, a week after he won, I had him on the show. He was an old hockey player and soccer player. It was funny then.

 

I'm sitting in the pressbox at the local university, watching (on my day off) day two of a men's and women's soccer tournament doubleheader. The host school is the only local school in the event. I'm trading war stories with the SID, who I've known for about a year since we were both new on the job, when the school's new AD ccomes storming in the box, storms past me and charges over to the SID and starts bitching.

"Goddamn morning newspaper only gave us three goddamn paragraphs on four games. I swear they're such shitheads over there. They're morons, not worth a damn. There's not one reporter there who knows his ass from a hole in the wall -- yadda yadda yadda . . . "

SID stops hims and says, "Jeff, timing being everything I'd like you to meet Joe Reporter from the morning newspaper. He's the guy who did the preview, game story and column on the football game last weekend. He'll be back Tuesday to work on a feature on the cross country team if you want to invite him to lunch and get to know him."

SID immediately went onto AD's shit list but became me hero for life.

 

Ty, we need to include your town in best towns for an A$* kicking.