[275] in Humor
HUMOR: Dave - Mussel Bra (1992)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (abennett@MIT.EDU)
Wed May 18 10:46:58 1994
From: abennett@MIT.EDU
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Wed, 18 May 94 10:44:29 EDT
Date: Tue, 17 May 94 13:17:55 PDT
From: ckleinja@Novell.COM (Connie Kleinjans)
The Great Zebra Mussel Bra Mystery
by Dave Barry
In this crucial election year, with the nation's economic future hanging
in the balance, it is more vital than ever that you, the American
voters, be informed of recent developments concerning the Giant Mystery
Zebra Mussel Brassiere.
As you no doubt recall, we recently reported that the New York State
Department of Environmental Conservation was trying to determine the
ownership of a very large brassiere that had been pulled out of Lake
Ontario with a colony of zebra mussels clinging to it. Zebra mussels are
a new environmental menace that is spreading around the country at an
alarming rate, similar to law-school graduates except that they (the
graduates) have no formal code of ethics.
When we last reported on this story, the DEC had the Mystery Brassiere
under observation, with no clue as to who the owner was, except that
she'd never need a life preserver, if you get our drift.
Shortly after our report appeared, we received a letter from a Mr. Bob
Isaacs of Tonawanda, N.Y., who claims that "the bra in question probably
belongs to my friend Candy." Mr. Isaacs states that in the summer of
1989, he and Candy were in a small motorboat on the Erie Canal and
Niagara River, and "to make a long story short, her brassiere found its
way onto my head."
By way of supporting (Ha ha!) evidence, Mr. Isaacs enclosed a color
photograph that clearly shows him driving a small motorboat while
wearing a brassiere the size of two regulation beach umbrellas on his
head. As a taxpayer, you have to ask yourself why the U.S. Coast Guard
is frittering away its resources guarding the coast when this kind of
activity is taking place on our inland waterways.
Anyway, Mr. Isaacs states that eventually the brassiere was lost
overboard, and he theorizes that it was carried downstream to Lake
Ontario, where the zebra mussels, often referred to by marine biologists
as "The Lingerie Perverts of the Deep," got hold of it.
Judging from the fact that his letter was neatly typed, we decided that
Mr. Isaacs was a reliable journalism source, and we were willing to
consider the Mystery Brassiere case solved. But just then, without
warning, we received a flood of letters from alert readers drawing our
attention to a new report in The Watertown (N.Y.) Daily Times written by
Christopher Taylor, who has been covering this story like shrink wrap,
and who should, in our opinion, win a Pulitzer Prize in the prestigious
Bivalve-Encrusted Undergarment Reporting category.
The story, headlined STRIPPER CLAIMS OWNERSHIP OF ZEBRA MUSSEL
BRASSIERE, states that a striptease dancer named "Busty Heart," from
Norway, Maine, claims that she recognized the Mystery Brassiere from a
newspaper photograph.
"That's my bra," she is quoted as saying. She states that she wore it
for an appearance last April at Lou's Cordial Lounge in Rochester, N.
Y., where the bra was raffled off. "One man told me that he was going to
put it on his boat as a sail and it could have blown off," Miss Heart
points out.
We have here a photograph of Miss Heart, and we will note for the record
that the brassiere she is wearing, a size triple-M, makes the brassiere
on Mr. Isaacs' head look like it belongs to Rainbow Brite.
So we called up Gerard C. LeTendre, who, as the Supervisory Aquatic
Biologist at the New York State Department of Environmental
Conservation's Cape Vincent Fisheries Research Station, is responsible
for keeping an eye on the brassiere. He was aware of Miss Heart's claim,
and in fact had seen a photograph of her.
"This is a big brassiere," he said, "but it would be a tight fit,
getting her into it."
We told Mr. LeTendre about Mr. Isaacs' letter, and he confirmed that it
was biologically possible for Candy's brassiere to have drifted down
into Lake Ontario.
"That's just as logical as anything else," he said.
So it looks as though the only way we're going to get to the bottom of
this thing, as a nation, is to have the Senate Judiciary Committee hold
live televised hearings, featuring probing cross-examinations of the
various claimants by Sen. Ted Kennedy, and culminating in a dramatic
courtroom-style re-enactment of the motorboat incident wherein the
Mystery Brassiere is placed on the head of Sen. Orrin Hatch. Wouldn't
that be great, voters?
Of course there could be problems. There is the danger that the mussels,
upon exposure to the Washington humidity -- which is actually denser
than Lake Ontario -- would escape from the bra and multiply like crazy,
spreading into vital government agencies such as the Bureau of
Unintelligible Prose, attaching themselves in overwhelming quantities to
filing cabinets and duplicating machines and slower-moving federal
employees. The entire government could grind to a halt until the
Pentagon could gear up to move in there with Emergency Tactical Field
Brassieres. It's a chance we're willing to take.
(C) 1992
