Porno/Gun Fair Pays For

     Drug Testing K-12 Graders

Poweshiek: Mary Freemantle calls the plan necessary; Alfonse D'Santori calls it disgusting and obscene.

     The two Humbug Town residents continue wrangling over a proposed town council plan to raise money by sponsoring what has been billed as an erotica-firearms fair. The "Humbug Town Big Bang", slated to be held in the town square in the heart of the historic district during the Labor Day Weekend, hopes to raise $250,000 to start and maintain Humbug Town's Comprehensive Drug Testing Program for its Kindergarten through Highschool aged students for the next decade.

     "You'd think a little town like this wouldn't have such a big drug problem," says Humbug Town Highschool Vice Principal, Mary Freemantle. "But we have an incidence rate of nearly 35%. You name it and I've seen it in student lockers: pot, meth, LSD---yes, even heroine. The schoolboard has set up a task force to examine the underlying causes of drug incidence here but until then we need a strong deterrent mechanism of some kind. This drug testing program will help us begin protecting our children but the town couldn't get the Federal funding. This plan gives us the money we need."

     The idea for the "Big Bang" started out as a joke when the town council held an open session to gather plans for generating revenue. They rapidly reconsidered after examining the earnings cities that hosted Adult Entertainment Industry conventions.

     "The council only saw dollar signs and that was enough to mesmerize the rest of the town. I fought their damned proposal tooth and nail, but now everyone's in favor of it, it seems," says Town Councilman Alfonse D'Santori. Though the council approved the Big Bang by a vote of six for and one against, D'Santori continues his lively and vocal opposition to it.

     "We're robbing Judas to pay the Devil," he warned at an August 6 Big Bang organizational meeting. "We're inviting certain kinds of people to set up business here in Humbug Town. And it's going to be you same folks championing this disgusting fair that are going to scream 'Not in my Backyard!' when a Stop 'n' Wank peep show palace erects itself on your block! What kind of moral message are you sending to our children? That we're trying to save them from the destructive effects of drug abuse? They're not stupid; they'll see right through it. Yes, there'll be Hell to pay!"

     Despite D'Santori's arguments, those attending the meeting shouted him down.

     "We're basically appealing to both collectors of classic Erotica and Firearms," Events Coordinator John Thomas later explained. "But I want to make it clear, that this event is by no means one for the whole family. All the Adult Erotica Exhibitors will be in area completely isolated from the rest of the fair by an eight-foot sheet rock wall donated by Shintz Construction. And we will have someone there checking ID's to make sure that no one under 18 gets in. Of course, the firearms and other weapons will be there for everyone to see because that's safe, traditional family-oriented fun. And there'll be fireworks and patriotic music from the Humbug Highschool Marching Band. Did I mention we'll also have a beer-tent?"