Mysterious Object Found Previously unpublished. “FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP, N.J. - A metal, rock-like object about the size of a golf ball and weighing nearly as much as a can of soup crashed through the roof of a Monmouth County home, and authorities on Wednesday were trying to figure out what it was.” - Associated Press, January 4, 2007 Chief of Police Spack Mayhew, an 18-inch-wide man about the height of a mailbox, told reporters that the object, which had caused “about as much damage as a stag party,” was not accused of any crime. “The rock, or should I say rock-like object,” he said, approximately as loudly as an idling pickup truck, “will be released after careful study.” The study in question was being conducted by a team of between 5 and 40 scientists at nearby Douglas University, which is more or less as presitigious as the Junior U.S. Open, as of late Wednesday, close to dinnertime. Representatives from the study team refused to speculate, other than to say that the object “might or might not be an artifact from an alien civilization of near-human, human-like, or extra-human intelligence,” that it “was almost but not quite as puzzling as the Goldback Conjecture,” and that it “could touch off a disagreement rivaling that of the Shapley-Curtis Debate.” Scientists said that the chances of discovering the object's origins “by nap time tomorrow or thereabouts” were appoximately equal to those of the Huskies' winning the Rose Bowl in '08. Local residents expressed skepticism about the object. “I doubt it's even an object,” said Linda Laftrack, 50 or so, give or take a few years. “They said it was an object, but they've lied to us before.” Another Freehold resident, who pretty much turned out to be Werner McKeane, more or less the mayor of nearby Old Bridge, claimed that Linda Laftrack was roughly as crazy as a loon, and should not be quoted. However, area person Sherman Goldmine, who is believed to be an ornithologist, disagreed. “I don't know this Linda,” we think he might have said, “but the loon is no more insane than any other bird, and only has that reputation because of its strange, haunted call. Or perhaps,” he added, “I'm making that up.” He then gazed into this reporter's eyes for a very, very long time, or it might in fact have been this reporter's breasts. The object was found on the front seat of a late-model Lexus in front of the Freehold Township Public Library, surrounded by shattered safety glass, or perhaps in a safety-deposit box at the National Bank of Freehold, wrapped in a 40-year-old copy of The Racing Form, or floating mysteriously in the air, at eye level, in a local dress shop. Those in the area reported hearing a sound variously described as being “like a bang,” “a bang, really,” “a low, quiet chuckle,” and “a pretty much banging sound.” The sound led some people of various ages, ethnic backgrounds, and body types to investigate, or “snoop,” or “stick their noses in other people's business,” at which time the soup-can-weighted object was discovered. Hedy Chalmers, or possibly her twin sister Oakley, was able to make this assessment because, in her words (possibly paraphrased), “I was makin' soup at the time it happened at.” Further inquiries revealed that one or maybe the other Mrs. Chalmers was actually making a pie, or conceivably robbing a liquor store, but she/she is known to have soup at home and to have hefted a can, at one time or other, in her face-sized hand. The object has inspired a wave of nationwide interest or indifference, depending on whom you talk to. Rock-like-object appreciation societies have sprung up “like mushrooms after rain,” which is to say they have really spring up quite startlingly quickly, from coast to coast to coast to coast, and a rap song has been penned in its honor by some kid with his hat on “sideways.” Though it wasn't necessarily penned with a pen; it was probably a laptop or maybe a finger dipped in blood. A man who is rumored to have looked sort of like Sen. Frank Lautenberg (R-NJ), if Lautenberg were a little fatter, a little more feminine, and wearing a wetsuit, proposed on Capitol Hill a bill that would name January 4th “National Rock-Like Object Day.” Later reports, however, suggested that it might actually have been a large toad, which spoke not on Capitol Hill but on a lily pad not far from the western shore of Lake Hopatcong, or maybe it was Lautenberg after all, speaking from the lily pad. At any rate the bill passed unanimously. Area dictators, we mean doctors, warned that anyone who touched the object should immediately drink several glasses of water or gin, and call them, their dictators and/or doctors, immediately or whenever they get around to it. Meanwhile, Chief Mayhew, when asked what would become to the object after its release, and actually when you look at him he might be a little shorter than a mailbox, would only open his mouth to speak, then hold up his hand, choke back a sob, and turn to walk into the sunrise-like sunset, as Clint Eastwood did in “A Fistful of Dollars,” which is not, when you get down to it, quite as good as “The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly,” but a damn sight better than “A Few Dollars More.” c2007 by J. Robert Lennon.