Boulder is a marvelous place, a land of wonder nestled against our majestic Rocky Mountains, a breathtaking patch of earth where the folks run and bike and pay to sit cross-legged on thin foam mats in hot, sweaty rooms.
They do that so they’ll be in good physical and mental condition on the much-anticipated day the spaceship returns to take them on the long journey back to whatever galaxy they came from.
The residents, in an almost human-like way, have formed a government and organized committees of beings who deal with community issues. They halt this work only occasionally to obtain more fuel rods to power themselves or to inspect the complex tangle of wires in the panels located on the backs of their necks.
Recently, one of these committees of Boulder beings, a group named the Landmarks Board, ordered beings in the Mapleton Hill area of town to rebuild an old shed they had torn down alongside an alley in their backyard.
The shed, according to the Daily Camera, was built in the 1920s and was likely used to keep coal and chickens. Neighbors said it smelled. Probably like coal. And chickens.
The neighbors also said the shed posed a danger to the young earthling-like people who cavort in and around the alley.
So the owners, Andy and Genevieve Horning, took down the old, stinky, dangerous shed.
This made the antennae rise from the heads of the beings from the Landmarks Board and the City Council. The Hornings have now been ordered to rebuild the shed. Same size. Same location. And, whatever this means, of the “same material.”
(If they want to use something that looks like it’s made of old wood, they could use Cory Gardner’s hair.)
“I know this is a humble building,” said a City Council member who calls himself Tim Plass. “But I think humble buildings make up an important part of our alleyscape.”
Alleyscape, as earthlings know, is not an actual English word. It is believed to have been brought here by beings that crash-landed in Roswell, N.M., back in the 1950s.
Anyway, reconstruction of the stinky old shed will force the Hornings to remove the small basketball court that they built to replace it. Several neighbors appeared at a council meeting to defend the court, saying it has become a gathering place for the young beings in the area, beings that have fewer recreational opportunities since a nearby elementary school closed.
One member of the Boulder City Council responded by covering his seven ears with his seven hands. Three others levitated and one rode off on a unicorn.
But the ruling stands. The basketball court goes. The smelly coal and chicken shed must be recreated. (On a positive note, the council made one concession, ruling that if the Hornings comply, U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn will be returned to the planet Dingbattus in the galaxy Dopeium.)
At a meeting, a City Council member with the name Andrew Shoemaker told the Horning beings this: “Frankly, everyone in this town does stuff like this. It doesn’t mean you’re bad people.”
His reference to “people” made the beings of Boulder laugh so hard that coffee came out of their facial smell-gathering ports.
E-mail Rich Tosches at richtosches@gmail.com.
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