Reader Questions Attack on Everett Street

Dear Roger,

I was just lining the cage of Schadenfreude, my pet badger, when the following sentence caught my eye: "Someone set off an explosive device on Everett Street on Thursday night." I know this can't possibly be true, because I would have heard about it first from you and the Alameda Daily Noose, and not from that horrible excuse for a fish-wrap that keeps showing up on my door twice a week.

Normally I wouldn't give anything written in that so-called paper a second thought, but let's just say that my . . . feelings for Captain Street intervened, and I feel compelled to confirm with the real journalists in this town that there is no truth behind this absurd story. I just saw Captain Street on his birthday, and he didn't say a word about it. Then again, for a man like that, who survived being swallowed by a whale, won a wrestling match against a giant squid, and single-handedly fended off a U-Boot, armed only with a stick of gum and a can opener, I'm sure something as minor as having a bomb placed on him made no more of an impression than having a pesky fly land on him. Oh, Captain, my big, strong Captain . . . wait, where was I?

Oh yes, the matter of the news story about the attack on Everett Street. Please, Roger, as a personal favor to me, send your best team of reporters out to get the real scoop. I just wouldn't feel comfortable asking Captain Street myself, not until I have all the facts. He doesn't like having women fuss over him, you know, and I'm sure that as a dashing, manly news man in the classic sense you can relate to that.

Fretfully yours,

Marlene Verloren