Meanwhile, in sleepy Lafayette, Indiana, where the big crimes recently have involved bank-robbing taxi passengers and renegade bovines, the main downtown parking garage was shut down by the discovery of mysterious sigils dribbled on the floor in lines of powdered starch!
County emergency management deployed a hazmat team, and the structure was closed.
Initial guesses by un-named Hoosier cynics, mostly revolving around Purdue University LARPers laying Glyphs of Warding on "compact car only" parking spaces, proved to be wrong when it turned out that the garage had hosted an unauthorized after-hours parkour race, rather than a coven of Al-Qaeda operatives laying out anthrax lines in satanic patterns...
Job justification and all that...
ReplyDeleteGmac
Parkour, eh?
ReplyDeleteGreat link.
"Bizarre shapes like X's and arrows."
ReplyDeleteThat's a new definition for the word bizarre.
I heard that satanic cults are putting up blood red "stop" signs, and if you stop at them you are obeying Satan and are going to h-e-double-hockeysticks! *hockspit*
O.K., you have to admit, live-action D&Ders was a good guess.
ReplyDelete"Oh, no, Jared, Todd failed the saving throwing against SUVs. He'll never get his advanced calculus homework done now."
Hoosier Cynic
"Sleepy" Lafayette?
ReplyDeletePffft, O.K., so our cops don't run down motorcyclists, the local FBI office is busy having naptime instead of investigating our Prosecuting Attorney (who left the office early to ref girls' basketball and take his wife to prayer circle), and the only police action shootings we have are at the range, or at mad cows . . . but if this is big enough news to interrupt the evening news (no, really, this was the "big news" last night at 6PM), then there is something to be said for the slower lane.
Shootin' Buddy
Had friends respond to white powder at the coffee station at a .gov building. The .gov workers did not seem to recognize non-dairy creamer.
ReplyDeleteWhen I worked on plans in NYC I was told all suspected anthrax calls would be in level A moonsuits.
Tried reasoning that this was overkill but was told it was not going to change.
My last remark on the subject was,
"You know the moonsuit makes your ass look fat?"
He (NYPD EMS) was not amused.
Gerry
You would think with 406 runs held by the Hoosier Hash House Harriers since January 1st 1992, that local LE would already know about the worldwide drinking club with a running problem.
ReplyDeleteTo the Hash!
Tam, it's trail markings from the local hash house harriers group, probably Indyscent H3 http://www.indyhhh.com/
ReplyDeleteI run with the Minneapolis group, and there are independent kennels, we call them, worldwide. if you like a moderate bit of exercise and beer drinking with some bawdy songs thrown in, give them a try, your first time is usually free (and moderately priced afterwards)
The 'X' is called a check, and trail can go in any direction from that point. you follow arrows and blobs of four to where the trail setter, or hare, has stashed the beer for a mid trail stop. I'm sure the kennelis hoping no one clues the authorities in on this, because there have been incidents in other cities with Hazmat callouts where there's been talk of billing the group (which, if it's anything like ours, has about a hundred bucks to its name).
Matt, aka TD
St Paul & the Minneapolis H3
Actually, in Lafayette, it's probably the Hoosier H3.
ReplyDeleteMatt
St Paul
I gotta admit, Lafayette is sounding pretty good right now...
ReplyDeleteAnon, I was thinking the same thing. When I was stationed in Ko-Rea in 2001 we had a rash of 'white powder' responses post 9-11.
ReplyDeleteTurned out they were talcum powder arrows laying out the route the hashers were to run.
Now, I'm not too familiar with stateside hashers, but the Far East Korean chapter was a drinking club with a running problem.
D.W. Drang,
ReplyDelete"I gotta admit, Lafayette is sounding pretty good right now..."
It's definitely in the heartland of American-occupied America. ;)
The "dirty" little secret of hazmat clean up and anthrax is that it's a black or dark grey powder not white.
ReplyDeleteThose rubes knew it wasn't anthrax at first sight. They just wanted to justify using the shiny new space suits the Feds bought for them and maintain the fear factor.
If they didn't try to look useful they'd run the risk of being called what they really are, "Oxygen Thieves".
Police have been unable to locate the international white powder terrorist. No known photos exist, and he is only known by his code name "The Hare".
ReplyDeleteEinherjar,
ReplyDelete"Those rubes knew it wasn't anthrax at first sight."
Nobody said it was anthrax, except me being funny. They said it was starch.
Starch? Is that some sort of jargon for Maryjane? WV: disever
ReplyDelete"Job justification and all that..."
ReplyDeleteYup. I call it Assumption of Authority Through Overreaction. Or something like that. It's certainly nothing new. -- Lyle
Having worn one of those moonsuits in a New Orleans March morning as part of a bio-chem incident drill, I can tell you that if they did this for the glory of playing with them, then it was it's own punishment. Tyvek jammies aren't very comfortable in anything warmer than a walk-in meat locker. I poured about a half-pint of sweat out of each glove when we were done.
ReplyDelete