NORTHERN MICHIGAN TRAILER PARK LIVING

By Mystic Madam Misty Merkel
I predict that winter is going to last a really long time this year for people in the North while people in the South will have a wonderful time soaking up the sun.

You know the saying “The grass is always greener,” well believe me it is true.  I received a postcard from the sisters Christie and Twisty Merkel and they are down in Miami.  They said the sun is so warm and the grass is so green that a person could forget that a place like Kalamazoo Michigan even existed.   Well I just threw out that postcard and I’m going to pretend I never got it.  They are just really rubbing it in because I’m stuck in a trailer park way up in Northern Michigan this winter and I don’t have the money to even get to the balmy Michigan weather they are having down in Detroit.  I don’t think they even have a foot of snow down in Detroit and with my finances I can only dream about getting that far south.  In fact with my finances I can't even dream about turning the furnace up to 60 degrees.  I have a wood stove but it's hard to maintain much of a woodlot when you live in a trailer park.  I do raid the dumpsters sometimes in order to find some furniture to burn but the pickings for furniture are pretty slim.  I tried burning plastic bottles that I got out of the dumpster but the fumes made me see double and my head felt like it was detaching from my body.  Usually, I only have these problems on New Years Eve. Of course on New Years Day I wish my head was detached from my body that way I'd only have a headache and not the stomach and bowl problems that excess wine gives a person.  I get so gassed up I feel like had spent the night at an all you can eat taco bar.  .

Another irritating thing about the weather up here right now is that part of the roof on my trailer caved in.     It happened to be my bedroom so this morning I woke-up with wet sheets and snow in my face.  Then, when I rolled out of bed and my feet hit the floor the flow gave way under me and I ended up standing with my legs in the crawl space and the rest of me standing up in the bedroom above the floor line.  I was so disgusted that I sat down on the floor behind me only to have my behind smack down to the crawl space because the entire floor in the room was too sopped with water to support me.   Finally, I made my way to the hallway and was able to find some solid floor to climb up on.

I should not be surprised that my floor collapsed with all that water on it.  A few years ago when I was getting out of the tub the floor gave way underneath me and I am not a heavy woman.  The woman a couple of trailers down from mine was sitting on the pot once and the whole thing went right through the floor.  She was a good fifty pounds heavy than myself so I could see her floor giving way underneath her but, I never thought it would happen to me.  I guess it’s that cheap glue they use in that particle board that just does not hold up under water.  My next floor is going to be made out of something water proof because leaking roofs and pipes are what trailer living is all about;  not to mention living with the constant fear of cave-ins from both above and below.

THE LEPRECHAUN IN THE TRAILER PARK

By Madam Mistress Misty Merkel
I believe I have a leprechaun that lives down the street from me. His name is Mr. Mackey. He claims to just be a janitor at the hospital but, I have caught him doing things that are very leprechaunish. After watching him for several months I have concluded that Mr. Mackey has strange habits which mean he must be something other than a normal person.

One thing about Mr. Mackey is that he is a hermit. He just sits around his trailer drinking beer. He has a big beer belly and must weigh at least 300 lbs. He certainly does not fit the description of any of the other men living in this trailer park. Most of the men have beer bellies but, they don’t waste their money on food so, except for their bellies they stay really skinny I once asked him what he liked to eat and he replied that his favorite meal was corn beef and cabbage. Well, that stuff is just typical leprechaun food. I figured that with his meal of corn beef and cabbage he most likely had a salad dish of four leaf clovers.

Mr. Mackey is also only about five feet tall. Everyone knows leprechauns are really short. In addition to being abnormally short, Mr. Mackey always wears a green pair of dress pants and a green shirt with black horizontal and vertical stripes on it. He holds his pants up with a pair of green suspenders. I watch my neighbors all the time and I’ve never seen Mr. Mackay wear anything else but, his leprechaun uniform.

One time Mr. Mackay had been drinking beer outside all one Saturday afternoon. When it got dark out he got out a cassette tape player and started playing Irish gig music. He then did a river dance right in front of me. His head of red hair and long red beard were just a flopping around. He seemed to come by the dance quite naturally. As big as he was he was a very graceful dancer. I almost asked him over for a cocktail but, I was afraid that when he sat down he might devastate one of my kitchen chairs I didn’t want him to know that I had such cheap chairs. I guess that they are made out of something called “fiberboard”.

Finally, I know that Mr. Mackay must be a leprechaun because all leprechauns have a pot of gold. It took me a while to find his pot of gold but, finally I spied it out at the back end of his trailer. It was disguised as a port-a-potty. I figured that inside of it he must have been keeping his stash of gold. I have been tempted to lift the lid but, I am not quite that nosey. My neighbor Maxine however, is the nosiest person in this whole trailer park. She did sneak to the back of Mr. Mackey’s trailer when he was working. She told me later that the pot was full but, not with gold. She never did tell me exactly what she saw in Mr. Mackey’s port-a-potty.

For now, I and my leprechaun neighbor are just neighbors but, who knows. Maybe we will become friends someday and maybe someday we might be more than friends. Maybe I’ll get better chairs and invite Mr. Mackey over for a corn been and cabbage dinner. Maybe after I’ve filled him up with a big meal he’ll share his pot of gold with me.

MISTY MERKEL GETS HER PSYCHIC LISCENCE

PSYCHIC NEWS
By Mistress Misty Merkel
I am officially a legitimate psychic now. I purchased a license from the State of Michigan.
Evidently they are the people who have the sole power to regulate psychic abilities. Well, now that I’ve paid them off I won’t have to fear for that knock on the door in the middle of the night. If I do get a knock on the door in the middle of the night I’ll know it’s just inebriated neighbors and not the psychic enforcement cops.

I hung my new license up on the living room wall. It has the word “Legitimate” right on it in big, bold letters. Maybe it will help my business out in the long run. Anyway, I’m going to predict that the government will start taxing everything and cut benefits on everything. High taxes and no benefits. I wonder where does all the money go. I’m going to have to get out my crystal balls and look into this mystery. I only hope I can find them. One of them I think is in the coat closet but, I have no idea where the other one rolled off too. Maybe I’ll have to get out my magic Petoskey stones and give them a rub.


ENTERTAINMENT NEWS
By Mike Colin
I’ve been to busy to see any movies. I guess Avatar is still doing pretty good. Unusually the winter is a slow movie season. Mostly just chick flicks and tweeny bopper movies come out this time of the year.

I guess O’Brian is out and Leno is back on The Tonight Show. It seems that people stopped staying up and watching their local news which came on before The Tonight Show. I didn’t think anyone ever watched the local news at night. Don’t most people have some kind of life? If I’m home at night I watch a movie or comedy show or even a cartoon. Sports scores I can get off the internet. In fact any interesting news is on the internet.

I hate to say it but local newscasts are so watered down with mundane stuff. They never tell you about what is really going on in the area. You never hear about alien spaceships, the yeti, big foots, The Frankenmoose, alien abductions, Lizard Boy or, any of the other things that are really important to people.

PSYCHIC NEWS NUTS: FIRST CONTACT

By Madam Misty Merkel
The Trailer Park Psychic
Things have been heating up here in Northern Michigan. It is not just the weather but, stuff really started happening last week which could change the course of history for my trailer park. I was told by some scientist from NASA that what happened to me could change the world forever.

To begin with, everyone knows that recently Congress made everyone give up their free TV unless you bought a converter box from one of the companies that buys nice gifts for Congressmen, or pays for their vacations. Anyway, these boxes are called “perverter boxes” but, no one in my trailer park has figured out how to get a perverter box to work yet. I think this was a big rip-off since the perverter boxes cost a lot more than the coupon the government sent out. Everyone has been thinking that these perverter boxes are a big rip off then, old Chuck Birdsill came up with an idea. He said we should use aluminum foil to try to get in the new airwave signals: the same way we used aluminum foil to get in the Fox Network 20 years ago.

Chucks’ initial idea was not new. Everyone in Northern Michigan has been buying up aluminum foil to try to get a reception on their now, worthless TV sets. No one in my trailer park has to lock their doors anymore since the only valuable thing people here ever owned was their TV set. Now everyone hopes someone comes in and steals their TV so at least they might get some insurance money. Most of the people aren’t buying any insurance yet until after someone steals their Television. Everyone knows it is stupid to buy insurance before something happens. Why pay out all that money unless you are going to get more back on a claim you file as soon as you take out the policy?

As I said before, Old Chucky Boys’ initial idea was not at all original but, ’as several people who had tried to use aluminum foil pointed out. No one got any signal. But, someone in the trailer park with some smarts (probably one of those stuck up community college people) did have I think, a pretty good idea.

The idea was to build a giant tower made up of aluminum foil in the middle of the trailer park. We would connect the four trailers that are in the middle of the park and form our own giant antenna. The smart guy said the aluminum foil would pick up the signal and the trailers would amplify it so that everyone in the park would get to watch free TV again. The smart guy said he doubted we could pick up any local stations but, maybe we might get some Canadian stations in after all, Canadian TV is just a bunch of rebroadcast American TV shows anyway.

Within one week, we had saved up enough aluminum foil to build a thirty foot tall tower. We had a problem with sea gulls pecking away at the aluminum because most of it was recycled from our kitchens and still had food on it. We solved this by spraying the whole thing down with bathroom cleaner. This got rid of the sea gulls but, now the trailer park smells like a public restroom at a fast food restaurant. A clean one like you find in the morning not like the kind you find in the afternoon after the high school kids have been in their for lunch.

Anyway, once the tower was done and hooked up to the four trailers, we all sat in anticipation in front of our TV sets with our French/English dictionaries beside of us in case we got in one of those Montréal stations. But, nothing happened. All the TV sets in the trailer park just had static snow on them. We were all disappointed and depressed. Every resident in the trailer park met at the great shinny metallic tower. All that work for nothing.

As we were standing around sulking, I suddenly felt a buzzing in my teeth. The buzzing became louder and louder. I opened my mouth and everyone started looking at me as a voice began to speak from my mouth “Hello People of the Planet Earth. Live Long and Prosper. We are the Receptacons from the planet Receptor. We scan the Universe for highly technical devices that can receive our signals at faster than light speeds. You earth people have finally built such a device. You must be the most intelligent beings your planet has ever produced. You should be proud of yourselves. We will now transmit the blue prints to build a device to transmit and better receive signals from our civilization. We will also be transmitting the formula for eternal life. Please stand by.” Unfortunately, at that moment the brandy and orange juice drink I had for breakfast kicked in and I started to burp uncontrollably. I was not able to keep my mouth open without belching and drowning out the message. Finally I stopped but most of the message was never heard. The last words we heard were “if you accept our offer to keep in contact with our please contact us within a week on the new device you will construct from our blue prints. If we do not hear from you we will never bother you again but, you can keep our formula for eternal life as a gift from our people to yours.´

That was it. We haven’t heard from them since. NASA spent 11 billion dollar tryig to construct something that might pick up the signal from the Receptacons but, nothing happened. It seems the reason the message came out of my mouth is because of my gold crowns. It seems they are not really gold at all. My dentist bought some gold crown stuff off the internet from some lady in china. The crown material was really made up of a composite of American garbage like old baby diapers, clunker cars and drywall. The NASA scientist told me that I had in my mouth the makings of a space age material which was what brought our aluminum foil tower to life. One scientist told me the material “made the tower light up like a beacon across the cosmos”. I let NASA have my baby diaper composite crowns in exchange for some nice porcelain ones.

Our aluminum tower never brought any other signals in. In fact, just before we tore it down a bolt of lightning struck it. The lightning leaped to the four trailers, caught them all on fire and burned them to the ground. Luckily no one was hurt inside the trailers and, the owners went immediately out and bought fire insurance so they should be o.k

SHAKESPEARE AND HOMEMADE BANANA WINE

BY MYSTIC PSYCHIC MADAM MISTY MERKEL
It is really tough now days to stay part of the middle class in Northern Michigan. Most people up here live in trailers but, to be middle class you have to maintain a residence in a trailer park and pay a fee each month to keep your trailer in the park. Well, with times being bad I have had to cut out drinking Mogen David which is my favorite wine but, for me it is very expensive. I have come to realize that if I did not give up my favorite brew which I have been drinking since I was a child, I would no longer be able to maintain my middle class life style and would be forced to leave my trailer park.

Well my next door neighbor May Bell Lean, (In my park the lots are so small that everyone is your next door neighbor), felt sorry for me so she brought over two gallons of her homemade banana wine. The wine was in gallon plastic milk jugs and had slices of bloated bananas floating on top. May Bell Lean told me that eating the bloated banana slices was good for me because they had both potassium and were each just loaded with alcohol.

Well my neighbor May Bell Lean was right. The bananas were full of potassium. They were also very potent relation elements that helped me to trance connect to the spirit world. After having about a half gallon of banana wine I suddenly heard a knocking at my trailer door. I opened it up and in came William Shakespeare. I kind of staggered so I asked him if he had been eating slices of banana that were floating in banana wine.

He answered, “No, I’ve just been drinking shots of Kentucky Bourbon with Daniel Boone“.

Now I was thinking that Shakespeare was sounding a bit queer. His speech sounded almost normal except he had a modern British accent. I just had to ask “you know Willie, you sound awfully modern in your speech compared to those awful things you wrote that teachers made me try to interpret in my last year of school which was 8th grade. I might have even made it to the 9th grade if your stories were in plain English. In Michigan if you get through the 9th grade then you have the choice of being either a lawyer or a midwife. Those careers have at least a four figure income up here and that‘s not including the numbers following the decimal point. ”

“Funny you should bring that up,” Willie said with a bit of glee in his voice. “You see in my day in order to get paid you had to get noble lords to like the crap you wrote and since all of them were so pompous I just made up words and stuck them all over the place so the lords could spend time interpreting my writings at their clubs and meeting places. I was like the modern painter Picasso. He really was a great painter but in order to make some currency he had to paint weird stuff. It’s like when Michael Angelo painted all those naked people on the ceiling of a church. Rich people; go figure?”

“Well Willie,” I said, “I guess my banana wine is wearing off. You’re looking kind of faded.”

“Well, it is time for me to go” Willie replied and then he vanished. I woke up the next day sitting on the can. I guess those banana slices not only give you potassium and heavy alcohol content but, they also make you more than regular.

MISTY MERKEL CHANNELS THE MAYAN HIGH PRIESTESS FOR THE 2012 SCOOP

PSYCHIC NEWS
By Mystic Madam Misty Merkel
A lot of people are getting ready for the world to end in 2012.   One reason people believe the world ends in 2012 is because the Ancient Mayans left a calendar for us in the modern day, in which the world ends on December 21st 2012.  Of course one problem with this end of the world theory is that no one today actually speaks ancient Mayan.  Where the Mayans use to live I believe people speak Spanish so how does anyone really know what the Mayan calendar actually predicts.  So, I decided to channel the ancient Mayan high priestess to see when exactly the world would end.

Now, the name of the high priestess of the Mayans is Charlene.  Her father who had been the high priest before her wanted a boy and had picked out the name Charlie for him.  Well, his child was a girl so Charlene was the name she got which is similar to Charlie.  She did tell me that everyone called her Charlie as her nickname.

“So Charlie, when is the world going to end?” I asked.

“Well you see Madam Misty,” she began, “The world is not going to end in 2012 as most people believe.  These modern eggheads at your universities have completely read the undo of the world date wrong.”

Charlie stopped for a moment and took a sip of the Mogen David wine I had given her.  I always offer visiting spooks Mogen David wine because after being dead they really appreciate a nice sweet wine that goes down easy.  After all, the dead are used to sucking down dirt which is really bitter so a sweet wine  gives them pleasure and makes them feel like they are still alive and of course the alcohol makes them talkative.  “In fact Madam Misty the professors at your universities have misread the date we have ensconced in stone as the day the world ends.  Your brainy people have interpreted the Mayan calendar to set the date of the end of the world as December 21, 2012.  In fact, the world ends on October 12, 2021.  It seems that smart people in your time suffer from the disease our doctors use to call dyslexia.”

“That’s very interesting,” I replied. “But, What causes the end of the world?” I asked.

“The end of the world is really sad, Madam Misty.  You see in the state of Michigan there will be this pig farmer named Johansen.  Now it seems that Johansen has always entered the pig contest at the fair every single year since he was a little boy.  Of course he never got the blue ribbon for having the biggest pig at the fair.  Well, by 2021 Johansen will have a boy of his own who is entering a pig at the fair in the pig with the most weight category.  Now Johansen is determined that his son should win the blue ribbon so he devises a scheme to make the boy’s pig become really huge. You see Johansen knows that only a third of what a pig eats turns into pork and the rest of the food goes out the back end.  So Johansen decides to cork the back end of the pig up really tight so that everything the pig eats goes into weighing up the pig for the fair.  Johansen then has truckloads of baked goods that bakeries and stores have thrown out trucked into his pig farm.  The pig then began to eat.   Well, over the course of months the pig gets bigger and, bigger and, bigger until he is as big as the state of Michigan.  Now Johansen figures his son is surely going to take home the blue ribbon and might even set a record for the being the worlds largest pig.  So Johansen sets about having trainloads of discarded backed goods hauled into his pig farm.  Then his pig got bigger and, bigger and bigger until the pig was as huge as all of Canada but still, Johansen wanted to make sure his son would win the blue ribbon so he contracted for giant containerships to deliver vast quantities of discarded backed goods from every bakery and store in the entire world.  Of course the pig then got bigger and bigger, and bigger until it was as big as all of North America.”

“So Johansen’s son must of won the blue ribbon at the state fair,” I said thinking that the story seemed to have a happy ending.  “He must have been quite the happy boy.  I bet his father was really proud as well.”

“Actually no, the boy did not win the state fair and no one knows what Johansson’s last thoughts were,” Charlie continued.  “For you see before the judges at the fair could check out the final weight of the Johansen mega pig there was an incident.  It seems that someone little 2 year old girl named Sandy was playing down in Tijuana which is where the backend of the monstrous pig was situated and little Sandy decided she would give a little tug on the cork.  Of course the cork had so much pressure behind it that just a slight tug was all it took for the pig to really open up.  Well, I don’t think I need to paint you a picture of the aftermath.  Needless to say the entire earth became uninhabitable for millions of years.  Every single species of beast and flora became extinct all over the earth.  Of course after millions of years the earth was colonized by alien farmers who found that this planet had the richest soil in the universe.”

“Oh that poor little girl,” I observed.            

“The little girl was actually  the only survivor of your species” responded Charlie .  “You see the initial blast out of the pigs backend was so great that the little girl was blasted off into outer space with a methane bubble protecting her from depressurizing in outer space.  At least she survived a few minutes until an alien space craft picked her up and took her away to another world where she was raised like a little princess.”  

Well, once the wine was gone the Mayan high priestess was gone as well. I guess that according to the Mynas we are going to have to wait a few more years until the world actually ends.    But, 2021 is really not that far off so maybe we should all start preparing for that now.  I’m going to start buying canned goods to store because I’m sure toward the end of days there will be a lot of chaos which leads to food shortages.  One thing though is that I wont have to worry about expiration dates on my canned goods being beyond the year 2021.  Already most of the canned goods I buy  are at the dollar store and the dates are in some kind of code and you have to call a 1-800 number to find out what date the code references.  I tried calling the 1-800 number once but, the person on the other end of the line spoke complete gibberish which I could not understand. I think they must of been a politician moonlighting as a real working person..
 

I’VE NEVER SEEN THE FUTURE QUITE SO UNCLEARLY

By Mystic Madam Misty Merkel
I have never been so confused about the future.  I’ve tried everything to get a reading on what’s going to happen.  I tried drinking a bottle of Mogen David wine and also a bottle of peach schnapps.  I went into a  both times but when I came too out of my trance I could not remember anything.    It was like some sort of blackout.

I realized that my psychic powers were failing me.  I even called upon my old friend Dick Nixon.  He lives  only three floors above the devil so I figured maybe he’d know something.  Heaven is set up as a design of chairman Mao with seven floors and a basement.  You get to live on the floor you earned in life or get punished by being sent to the basement.  Dick told me that the basement was where all the laundry was done so it was a hideous and horrible place to visit just a like a laundry is here on earth.  Of course on the top floor (7th Heaven) all the good souls reside like Nixon’s wife Pat and their dog Checkers.    

Well, I just can’t give anyone any predictions today.  Something bad is about to happen I’m afraid and the evil spirits have overwhelmed my good spirits (Mogen David Wine and Peach Schnapps).  Maybe I’ll get my extra sight back during the Mesick Mushroom Festival which is coming up soon>  

MY INTERVIEW WITH PRESIDENT NIXON

By Madam Misty Merkel
The other day I was cleaning up my kitchen when I heard knocking at the door. I opened it and saw it was former President Richard M. Nixon. “Hello Madam Misty,” said the former president. “I was just in the area visiting one of my old Haunts when I decided to stop in and say hello.”

“Well, hello and come on in,” I said. “The place is a mess. I was just cleaning up the kitchen a little bit.”

“Don’t worry about it Madam Misty,” replied the President. “I visited Beethoven a few weeks ago and there is no worse housekeeper than a musician. All they care about is writing down notes and waving their arms around; pretending to be conducting an orchestra. Most musicians are bit nuts if you ask me.”

“Can I get you something to drink?” I asked.

“No Madam Misty you see on earth I’m just an apparition so, I can’t drink or eat anything here. But, just wait until I get back to my own dimension. The food and drinks are just great there.”

“I take it that you must have gone to heaven and not the other place,” I said.

Nixon looked down at the ground for a moment as he seemed to be searching for his next words. “You see Madam Misty,” Nixon began,” Heaven and Hell are really not what you might think. Heaven and Hell are really just concepts of how you view the world around you. You understand that after you pass over you are judged for your deeds and misdeeds in this life and are rewarded in kind. The thing is there is no absolute great place called Heaven or another terrible place called Hell. In fact, we all live in a dormitory that has seven floors. The bottom floor is where people that are not very good go and the 7th floor is what you might call heaven, hence the name “7th Heaven.”

Then I said, “I always thought the name “7th Heaven” came from a TV show. What about people that are really bad? Do they live in the same dorm?”

“Not quite,” answered Nixon. “For example, I live on the 3rd floor. It is not the top floor so I don’t have as nice view. I can watch the pretty girls sunbathe on the lawn out my window that is, if I were interested in watching pretty girls. My wife Pat would frown on my doing such a thing. No, I just take my dog Checkers for a walk everyday. But, getting back to the dorm structure you see it was designed by Chairman Mao. It seems that he did such a great job of organizing China into a world class superpower that he was given the job of designing heaven. He of course created the dormitory system with the best people living on the top floor and the very worst of society living in the basement.

I live on the 3rd floor which is not 7th Heaven however, it is not the basement. I’m hoping that my old boss and running mate President Eisenhower can use his clout to eventually move me up to the 7th floor where he is staying. I’ve heard they have a great piano bar there and Karen Carpenter performs there every day. My, she always had the voice of an angel.”

“So, what about the basement?” I asked. “What kind of people are down there?”

“Well, Madam Misty you really don’t want to go down to the basement. Unfortunately, that is where the laundry room is located. People on the top couple of floors have lots of perks like pickup laundry service. Down where I’m at you have to do your own which means every week you have to trudge down to the basement for a few hours. Last week Hitler and Mussolini grabbed my favorite boxer shorts and played “keep away” with me. They never did give them back and they were a gift from Kissinger. They were genuine silk with red, white and, blue vertical stripes on them. They had a big red heart on the backside. He got them made special just for me in Taiwan before we kicked them out of the U.N. and invited in mainland China. I tried to get my boxer shorts back by meeting with my floor’s Resident Assistant (RA) but, he said he could not really do anything about the rowdies down in the basement. I guess I’m going to have to wash my boxer shorts in my bathroom sink from now on. I’d like to get General Patton to go down and kick the behinds of Hitler and Mussolini but, General Patton is stuck in limbo on the elevator for one thousand years. I guess he slapped some angel when he first got to the dorm.”

President Nixon looked at his watch and said,” I see it’s getting late and time for me to go. Hope to see you again soon Madam Misty and, by the way, Elvis says ’Hi’.” The president got up and made his way out the door.

“Goodbye Mr. President,” I said, “and say hello to Elvis for me when you see him.”

MICHIGAN PSYCHIC LOCATES OSAMA BIN LADEN

MICHIGAN PSYCHIC PREDICTS OSAMA BIN LADEN LOCATION
By Madam Mistress Misty Merkel
Everyone is once again trying to figure out where the worlds’ most notorious criminal is hiding. I believe that there is still a twenty five million dollar price tag on his head so; I’ve decided to use my abilities to find Mr. Bin Laden. I really need to get the twenty five million dollars so that I can put a new roof on my trailer. I’m running out of pots and pans to catch all the water that’s pouring in. I’d also like to stock up on apricot brandy for the winter. All the cheap wine I’ve been drinking lately is really giving me gas.

I knew I would need to use all my psychic and physic powers to find Bin Laden. The first thing I did was to load my arms up with gold simulated bracelets and my fingers up with silver colored rings. If you want any help from the spirit world you have to get their attention. “You need a lot of bling to get the spirits to sing,” is what I always say. I got out my best polished Petoskey stones and gave them each a good rubbing. Next I got out my two crystal balls and shook them up really well so the glittery snowflakes in side would twinkle as they fell on the plastic Santa and his reindeer that I have inside of each ball. Finally, it was time for me to trance out. I was all out of apricot brandy so I had to rely on some cheap wine. The wine was really sweet but I had to add some bourbon to “kick it up a notch” like that hairy chef guy always says. I’m just glad I found some bourbon to make my wine drinkable. Otherwise I’d have to use my vanilla extract to spice up my stuff. That stuff is getting really expensive so I only use it in an emergency. Some people use it to cook with too.

I only had about four coffee mugs full of my bourbon/wine combination (called bwine) when I suddenly began to feel mysteriously light headed. I felt the room starting to move around so I closed my eyes so I could concentrate on catching Bin Laden. I kept concentrating on finding an old man with a long white beard. Of course since it was getting close to X-mass I saw a whole bunch of different Santa Clauses. I saw a Santa in a red suit then, I saw a Russian Santa with a big Russian hat on then, I saw a French Santa dressed in a blue bath robe. He had high heels and wore lipstick. Then I realized that this wasn’t Santa or Bin Laden. This was my ex-husband Bill.

From directly above my head, a splash of water hit my face from a leak in my trailer house roof. The picture of my ex-husband disappeared. The sudden splash of rain water reminded me that I needed a new roof and would have to focus better to find Osama. Then, just as I was thinking I needed a few more mugs of bwine, the location of Osama Bin Laden was becoming clear to me. Bin Laden was neither in Pakistan nor in Afghanistan. He was not in the United States working as a mall Santa and, he was definitely not my cross dressing ex-husband Bill.

It was a cloudy vision at first but, I could finally make out that Bin Laden was living in an Arabian palace. I could see him sitting all dressed out in fine robes like the ones he is dressed up in when he sends us those nasty videos he makes at election time. In my vision Bin Laden was sitting in the middle of a great big ball room in the middle of his palace. He is sitting on a golden throne. The palace itself is extremely hot. It seems the thermostat on the furnace is turned way up. You can see sweat and drool running down Bin Ladens’ long gray beard. The whole place smells like rotten eggs. I guess eating goat meat sausages and beans everyday must make Bin Laden a very musical man. He really should get some air freshener if he intends on entertaining. The smell was so rank that it brought tears to my eyes.

Next, I saw in my vision 72 virgins dancing around Osama while the old man continued to drool. The virgins were not covered up in traditional clothing but, were all wearing totoos like ballerinas. In fact, the virgins were all big burly hairy guys all dancing around Osama Bin Laden to the song called “The Hustle”. This was a very bizarre picture but, I know that the spirits I consult never lie. They may tweak the truth a bit but, I am very confident that I had a true vision of Osama Bin Laden as he is today.

It was starting to dawn on me that maybe Bin Laden was where he belonged. The hot smelly foul air, the fat naked dancing male virgins; maybe Bin Laden was actually in hell. Maybe he died a while ago in the mountains and his followers literally covered him up. Maybe we should all be relieved that our planet was finally safe. And, Bin Laden had gotten his just deserts and would suffer for an eternity. The only problem was that I noticed that Bin Laden was nodding his head to the beat while he smiled at his dirty dancers. Could it be that Bin Laden was having fun down in hell?

I decided I had had enough of that trance so I shook it off and went back to drinking mugs of my bourbon/wine drink. I guess I’ll be mending my ways a bit so I don’t end up down in hell with Bin Laden and with a bunch of hairy fat male virgins dancing all around me. I had enough of that when I was a member of a singles club.

PSYCHIC PREDICTS ECONOMIC DISASTER IN 2012

A 2012 PREDICTION
By Madam Mistress Misty Merkel
People need to start taking the year 2012 seriously. 2012 is the year the Mayans, ancient Hebrews, Hindus and some others I can’t remember, said that the world would be in big trouble. It seems the planets will be lining up in such a way that the earth will be devastated by cosmic forces beyond the control of humans. There will be a number of disaster events that will happen in 2012. Last Saturday night I tranced out at the bar located down the block from the trailer park. Then, I had a vision of an economic disaster that will happen in May of 2012.

I have consorted with the spirits of good and evil and rubbed my mystical Petoskey stones until they are smooth and polished. I think I can sell them on EBay now. I should be able t get about $30.00 a piece out of them. That will pay my cable bill so I won’t be cut off. Anyway, the calamity of 2012 will occur when five giant ships loaded with tons of merchandise destined for Wall Mart Stores around the world, collide in mid ocean and sink. When all that merchandise sinks to the ocean floor, so will the world economy. The hopes and dreams of every person on earth will drown in the sudsy brine and, forever sleep with the fishes.

Earth will change that day. We cannot stop our destiny from happening no more than we can wear adult diapers and not get wet. However, we will try unsuccessfully, to prepare ourselves mentally for the day the earth will stand still. We will attempt to brace ourselves for the day our forbidden planet no longer offers the hope of living a fulfilling life of non-stop shopping and mounting credit card debt. It will be difficult for us to accept the fact that one day a creature from a black lagoon will be wearing the cubic zirconium jewelry which we had hoped to be wearing and showing off to our friends and neighbors. The tragedy will leave our minds lost in space. Our hearts will be heavy like a big blob. One day we will be forced to accept as the Mayans foretold, that our humanity will die when all our stuff takes a voyage to the bottom of the sea.

LEARNING ASTROLOGY IS THE HARDEST THING I’VE EVER DONE

By Mystic Madam Misty Merkel

My astrology classes have not been going very well.  I can’t remember all those zodiac signs let along the meanings of observing how the planets line up.  What does Mars with Mercury rising mean?  What does Jupiter  ascending with two orbs surrounding Uranus possibly mean? And, who even wants to talk about cancer?

What is really depressing me is that the State of Michigan just passed new laws which specify that you need at least a two year degree in metaphysics in order to practice astrology.  That means I’d have to take another 13 courses before I could get my license and start reading people’s astrological signs.  And get this, some of the courses I’d have to take are “Music Appreciation” and “Monomolecular Physics”.  I haven’t had mono since I was a kid and I spent most of my time sleeping it off.  I don’t remember anything else about it.

Well, I’m afraid that this psychic madam is going to have to pass on getting a degree just to practice astrology.  It seems astrology is just based upon the scientific methodology instead of just guessing what‘s going to go on which is what I do.  But, you know what.  When it comes to talking to spooks I still have them all beat.  I doubt that any of those fancy astrologers with their degrees and science will even have the spooks knocking on their trailer doors like I do.  I get visits from important spooks like presidents and movie stars and I get some real lowlifes that steal or some that are just plain stupid.



 

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WHAT TRAILER LIVING IS ALL ABOUT

By Mystic Madam Misty Merkel
I predict that winter is going to last a really long time this year for people in the North while people in the South will have a wonderful time soaking up the sun.

You know the saying “The grass is always greener,” well believe me it is true.  I received a postcard from the sisters Christie and Twisty Merkel and they are down in Miami.  They said the sun is so warm and the grass is so green that a person could forget that a place like Kalamazoo Michigan even existed.   Well I just threw out that postcard and I’m going to pretend I never got it.  They are just really rubbing it in because I’m stuck in a trailer park way up in Northern Michigan this winter and I don’t have the money to even get to the balmy Michigan weather they are having down in Detroit.  I don’t think they even have a foot of snow down in Detroit and with my finances I can only dream about getting that far south.

Another irritating thing about the weather up here right now is that part of the roof on my trailer caved in.     It happened to be my bedroom so this morning I woke-up with wet sheets and snow in my face.  Then, when I rolled out of bed and my feet hit the floor the flow gave way under me and I ended up standing with my legs in the crawl space and the rest of me standing up in the bedroom above the floor line.  I was so disgusted that I sat down on the floor behind me only to have my behind smack down to the crawl space because the entire floor in the room was too sopped with water to support me.   Finally, I made my way to the hallway and was able to find some solid floor to climb up on.

I should not be surprised that my floor collapsed with all that water on it.  A few years ago when I was getting out of the tub the floor gave way underneath me and I am not a heavy woman.  The woman a couple of trailers down from mine was sitting on the pot once and the whole thing went right through the floor.  She was a good fifty pounds heavy than myself so I could see her floor giving way underneath her but, I never thought it would happen to me.  I guess it’s that cheap glue they use in that particle board that just does not hold up under water.  My next floor is going to be made out of something water proof because leaking roofs and pipes are what trailer living is all about;  not to mention living with the constant fear of cave-ins from both above and below.

MADAM MISTY MERKEL: A NIGHT AT THE OPERA

By Madam Misty Merkel
The weather is going to remain hot and dry and unfortunately, I predict a record number of forest fires this year. Global temperatures will continue to rise and the North Pole will disappear. That’s not my prediction. It’s just as I sit here I’m reading the global warming prediction off the back of a cereal box. I guess this global warming thing means that igloos will be a thing of the past just like the VCR. I always wanted to build an igloo to live in. I guess I’ll never get the chance. I also need a VCR since I have about 500 tapes of old TV shows I’d like to watch again someday.

I am predicting that Interlocken Arts Academy will have a great season this year. That has some really cool concerts with a variety of musicians. A lot of arts places just play like opera music. I once had a friend named George that insisted that I go to an opera with him. I went but when I got there I wished I hadn’t. Everyone there was dressed up real fancy and I just wore a pair of slacks and a blouse. I figured everyone would be looking up at the stage and not at each other in the audience.

As far as the music goes they did have some pretty good tunes especially, the music that the orchestra played before the singing began. For me the entertainment was pretty much over once the singers took the stage. For one thing they didn’t speak English. George told me they were singing in Italian. He told me that most operas were sung in Italian or German. I told him that if they were singing in a language other than American English they needed a screen up on stage with sub-titles in English. I’m part German but, except for the words to “Auld Lang Seine” I can’t speak another word of that language.

Another problem I had with the singing is that the singers all sang different stuff at the same time so ,even if you had an Italian to English translating manual in your hand you could never flip though the pages fast enough to look up all the different words that were bantered about at the same time. It wasn’t long and I was getting a headache. My head ached even more since the two characters that seemed to be constantly singing (a man and a woman), seemed to hold on to their high notes way too long. If they did that where I live the dog catcher would be right their to haul them off to the pound. Those opera singers needed to take some singing lessons from Willie Nelson. He knows when to let go of a note at just the right time.

Finally, George noticed that I was getting real fidgety so he explained the plot to me. It seems the opera was about a husband and wife and they were fighting. Of course I guess in Italy people sing at each other when they fight. Where I come from they yell and throw things at each other like empty beer cans. Most people have a lot of empty beer cans sitting all around their house so, that makes the empties the most convenient thing to throw. Of course no one would ever dream of throwing a full can of beer at someone because it might pop open and then a whole can of beer would go to waste.

The end of the opera was really depressing. It seems everyone just killed themselves and that was the end. I could kind of understand why they did what they did. After sitting threw the whole show I was starting to think of doing the same. Actually, I really wanted to kill George for talking me into going to the opera. I did not understand the words at all or the plot very well. On top of that I was humiliated since everyone stared at me because of the way I was dressed. I was also humiliated in one other way. You would think that in a big room like that no one would be able to hear someone like me out in the audience blow their nose. Well, everyone heard me and I think I got “Shushed” by the whole audience.

P.S. I have a suggestion for the opera operators. They should let the audience bring in pop and pop corn during the opera. The operators could make more money and like during a boring movie, at least the audience could keep itself entertained by eating. That’s just some food for thought.