It was a slow week here in Gooberville.

Nobody was raped and murdered by an ex-con sprung by former Gov. Huckabee.

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There wasn’t the run on the bank that everybody’s been expecting so the big stash of rolled quarters apparently will have to be sent back.

New housing starts remained steady at none.

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Biscuits at Hardee’s didn’t go up another nickel as the hot rumor had it they would.

There was no progress on the legislation to make “good old American” the official language of Gooberville.

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Four Goobervillians had their teeth cleaned, and of three of them, all smokers, it was said that “they waited about as long as they could.”

There was no progress in the road widening but the number of orange barrels increased as several were returned that had been borrowed for use in a school pageant.

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Fourteen books were checked out at the library and they were about what you’d expect.

Checkout-line sentiment at both grocery stores was unanimous against Britney Spears.

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There was a rumor of a coming funeral home price war but those old boys didn’t get where they are by having price wars.

Not one logtruck took the “S” curve north of town too fast and wiped out another trailer-park unit, and we nearly always have at least one of those.

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Three of Gooberville’s 19 preachers chose the same sermon topic — “How the Second Law of Thermodynamics disproves the theory of evolution once and for all.”

The controversy continued with no resolution in sight over choosing a new politically correct school mascot and team name to replace the traditional Gooberville Stud Ducks. Goobs or Goobers, one or the other continues to seem inevitable. Of course the local transposition freak proposes Boogers.

For the 312th week in a row, it didn’t snow.

No one in an official capacity asked that we be declared a disaster area although we are one.

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Not one car the whole week was tore up from hitting a deer. Highly unusual.

No one at the school killed a caged raccoon with a nail gun, or did anything else that anybody noticed.

Our tourism count for the year remained at zero in all three categories, in-state, out-of-state and from other countries.

Nonetheless there was no move to change our tourist-attracting motto from “De Soto just as likely came through here as through Malvern or Arkadelphia” to something sexier.

There was some puzzlement over why the local Wal-Mart went to selling dried fruit packaged in Turkey, but there wasn’t much.

Several residents had shade trees removed and cut up for firewood, and property damage was minimal and only one digit lost.

A letter in the local paper asked for a law saying you can’t just come up and shoot the squirrels in my yard, even if you need them for the meat, but no one seconded the motion.

Another letter-writer asked what’s so funny about St. Paul using the word “whoremonger” in his epistle to the Ephesians.

Once again, there was no big anti-war demonstration with a Hollywood celebrity yelling the loudest chants.

Only one reform-school warning was issued involving a streetlight shot out with a Christmas-present BB gun.

The water didn’t turn yellow and taste fishy as it usually does this time of year.

Twelve taxpayers assessed — or, as oldtimers around here call it,cessed.

You’d have thought with the mild spell of weather that at least one jonquil would’ve jumped the gun, but no,

Razorbacks and Cowboys fans went on grimly about their business, acting like crappy performance didn’t bother them a bit.

There were no Elvis sightings. At least not any credible ones.

Someone discovered that you could save 20 minutes on the hour if you Tivo “Judge Judy” and by nightfall the news was all over town.

The annual David O. Dodd observance, honoring the passing through of the Boy Martyr on his way to a short life of high treason and neck elongation, drew the usual number of zero observers to the roadside marker here that nobody’s ever remembered to go ahead and put up.

The goldfinches were back at the feeders with not nare excuse for their rude sudden absquatulation of the week before.

And this:

You know how in India or somewhere a water buffalo will sometimes get stuck in the mud and getting it out will involve and excite the whole village and the rescue will become a big feel-good filler feature story on Yahoo and NBC News? Well, Gooberville had two backhoes get stuck at the same time during this slow week — the odds against that are just astronomical — and absolutely nobody cared. Nobody in Gooberville. Nobody at NBC News. Nobody anywhere. Not even the backhoe operators seemed to care very much, as they could be seen standing around drinking Mountain Dews and laughing about it all.

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