MARCH IS MAPLE SYRUP MONTH IN MICHIGAN

By Tim Colin
Last week I decided to go into the maple syrup business. Tourists are willing to pay a fortune for just a small bottle of Michigan Maple syrup. I figured that if I could sell a thousand bottles of maple syrup at $10.00 per bottle then I could clear $10,000.

Now a person who lives in Northern Michigan that has $10,000 would be looked up to like Donald Trump. Then, I could get a girlfriend who wasn’t so shallow that she cares only about my personality. Instead, I could get a deep thinking girlfriend who is impressed with my bank account.

Of course in order to clear $10,000 I realized that I would have to keep my expenses low. I also realized that I would need some help to do all the work. I was able to recruit an employee of this blog named Gerrard. He’s a big guy and not too bright. I decided to pay him by letting him have any leftover syrup. I told him he could lick the pots clean. This would in turn save on having to use soap and water.

Next I realized that I needed a kitchen to cook up the syrup. I was able to buy a small trailer at a police auction for only $10.00. It was a great trailer with a really nice kitchen in it. Apparently, the crooks that owned the trailer must have liked to cook stuff. The only problem with the trailer was that it made Gerrard and me really dizzy every time we were in it. Of course opening the windows and letting fresh air in helped a lot.

Getting free bottles to use was really easy. I just sent Gerrard down to the local landfill and he picked up about ten garbage sacks of catsup bottles. I even saved money on washing and sanitizing the bottles b using some old pesticides called DDT that my parents had in their shed. The only thing left to do was gather up the maple sap and cook it down into maple syrup. I had Gerrard do that work meanwhile; I produced a bunch of labels on the Humor News Nuts printer that the owner just bought so he could download income tax forms. I figured since I’m the editor of several of his blogs using his stuff for my own business was just like one of those Wall Street executive bonuses. It is kind of like “Don’t ask don’t tell”. As long as the boss don’t ask me if I’m using his stuff I am certainly not going to tell him.

Well, after I made up the labels to put on the syrup bottles I went over to the trailer to see how things were cooking. I knew that Gerrard had gone out and gotten a bunch of sap and he was supposed to be cooking it down into delicious Michigan Maple syrup. The trailer was parked out on 40 acres that used to belong to an uncle but he lost it in a game called Russian roulette. Of course the guy my uncle lost to actually lives in Russia so I suppose he wouldn’t care if I squatted my trailer on his property for a while. Besides, the neat thing about Michigan backwoods law is that if you squat on someone’s place for seven years you get to claim it for your own.

Unfortunately, when I arrived at the trailer I found the trailer and the forty acres to be blazing in fire. I asked Gerrard what had happened. Well, it seems that all the maples on the forty were in the back and Gerrard was too lazy to walk that far so instead of tapping the maple trees in the back he tapped the white pine trees that were up near the trailer. Of course the tar from the trees is highly flammable hence; Gerrard caused one of the biggest fires that Northern Michigan has ever seen.  That is is anyone was around to see it.  You see we were so back in the backwoods that nobody noticed and most likely nobody cared.

ROAD KILL RESTAURANT

By Tim Colin
I just got back from the best road kill restaurant I have ever gone too. The place is modestly called “The Tire Stake Café”. They serve the widest variety of animal stakes in the country. They even have stakes that come from Michigan endangered species like: the golden gopher, the lilac smelling skunk, the two headed square faced deer, the saber toothed tiger and even the speckled, plump rump Yeti. This food is yummy for your tummy.

Chef Hebert Hubert told me that the reason the road kill at his restaurant was so delicious was that he used only the juices of the animal itself to flavor the food. He told me that it was a little more work to suck up the juices off the payment but, the result was always well worth it. Chef Hubert also told me that none of his meat ever needed to be tenderized. He said the weight of vehicles running over the meat for a few days, along with the constant pecking at the carcass by crows and seagulls, made the meat so tender that it would melt in your mouth.

Chef Hebert was so right about the meat melting in your mouth. In fact, the meat is so tender you have to eat it with a spoon. The meat will just drip through the tongs on a fork. I noticed that there were many very elderly patrons in the café who were using straws to suck up their meals.

With such a fine cuisine you would think that this café was a really price place to eat. Actually, the restaurant is one of the cheapest places I have ever dined. The special is an all you can eat meat buffet for only $1.99. Is that not a spectacular price? They even take competitors coupons so you can really eat cheap. I asked Chef Hebert why his prices were so competitive and he told me that because his meat was so tender, he saved a fortune on knives. He said that he liked to pass his savings on to the customers.

Overall, “The Tire Stake Café” is a great place to eat. The food is priced for the common man but tastes like it was prepared for kings. There is also a certain quaint ambiance about the café. For aesthetic purposes, there are no electric lights or indoor toilets in the Café. With no doors or glass in the windows you really don’t need any lights. Furthermore, there is an authentic outhouse that sits in front of the building but, you must make sure you ask for a roll of toilet paper before you go out to use it. They won’t actually give you toilet paper but instead, they will give you a handful of leaves. It really is an authentic backwoods restaurant. After my experience with “The Tire Stake Café” all I can say is that I am definitely going back for seconds.

A NORTHERN MICHIGAN FESTIVAL WITH FUNGUS AND A PETTING ZOO

THE NORTHERN MICHIGAN FUNGUS FESTIVAL
By Tim Collin
Editor In Chief,
Humor News Nuts Publications

This year marks the 300th anniversary of the annual Fungus Festival in the little northern village of Foot Michigan. The festival is very important to this little town since it is the only source of revenue to sustain 14 residents, two ducks and a black bear named Sandy. The festival is extremely important for Sandy since she is in charge of the towns sanitation department. Sandy really cleans up after the festival and gains an average of 200 lbs. Without having to forage for food anymore for the year Sandy can slip right into hibernation even though the Fungus Festival ends May 1st. What an enviable position; only having to work one week each year and then being able to lie around in your cave the other fifty one weeks.

Now the two ducks are the featured attraction at the towns petting zoo. They are the only live animals there and are joined by a stuffed fox, a Marten and a skunk. The little kids especially like to pet the skunk even though the display is getting kind of old and the glass eyes keep falling out. The town mayor has told me that Mr. Ziegler, who owns the farm at the end of 1st street, has agreed to donate his old dog Patches to the petting zoo when the animal passes on. The mayor seemed quite enthused about replacing the skunk with Patches since Patches was born with only three legs and no tail. Hence, the mayor said they could advertise a "Petting Zoo And Freak Show" on the billboard sign near the highway. The mayor hopes this will bring in some tourist business during the off-season when the Fungus Festival is over.

As for the Fungus Festival itself, it has been a bad year for fungus growth in the woods of Northern Michigan. In fact, there is still a foot of snow on the ground all around this quaint little village. To compensate for the lack of fungus growing in the forest, the town fathers cleaned out the township treasury and hitchhiked to and from the nearest supermarket which was located some 50 miles away. At the supermarket the town fathers bought up all the packages of fresh mushrooms that were available. Unfortunately, all the whole mushrooms were sold out and the only ones available were sliced. The mushrooms were white in color so they are very hard to see once sprinkled around in the snow.

Still, the tourists that have shown up so far were not too terribly troubled about the mushroom situation. Instead, they just showed up looking for a fun time and asking for directions on how to get to the Sou Locks. Hopefully, another vehicle will show up full of tourists who are equally as enthused about the Northern Michigan Foot Fungus Festival.