“Ma’am, What’s The Midget Wearing?” – The X Files

Back in the day of battling dailies and copy boys and clickety-clacking wire machines the bleary-eyed Über Cognescenti of our Night Copy Desk kept an electronic archive of oddities and story scraps we reporter-types had delivered to them over the course of the day.

The collection was known informally as “the Bondage File,” and was not meant for public dissemination. It was intended for internal viewing only, a compendium of the strange and unreportable things only the twisted, jaded few who’d convinced themselves they could make a living in journalism could fully appreciate.

We have decided to revive the practice, calling our archive The X Files – out of respect for that show and suburban sensibilities.

“Are We Talking Heath Ledger Joker Or Joaquin Phoenix Joker?”
Back in May, police were called to a local 24Hour Fitness in answer to a report of a man in full Joker makeup, shirtless, shoeless and carrying dumbbells – challenging startled club members to fight. Unknown if The Joker’s patented sneezing powder was deployed.

“Maybe It’s Take Your Daughter To Work Night.”
Nightlife enthusiasts are talking about the recent sightings of fetching young women – dressed in, how do we say this? – rather exotic attire, accompanying older men to local nightspots. Observers have noted that the couples seem – mismatched – based on age and clothing, and questions are being asked.

“How Are Those Meds Holding Up?”
We’re not certain where it comes from but we’re getting some pretty far out calls from folks seeing all manner of things out there – and we’re wondering how much of this stems from over-stimulated imaginations. We get the “Check out the body in the rolled up carpet” calls and “I’m sure it’s a human foot…” calls all the time but the recent “There’s a midget standing outside my house… holding a human head” message really threw us for a minute. Give up those Saw movies, people, and try some Merchant-Ivory…

“Call The Boys In Marketing – This Could Be Our Next Campaign”
Also back in May were were notified of a theft from a local Safeway – a not entirely unheard of occurrence if you have been reading us. But this time it appeared the ambitious miscreant had made off with eight cases of Red Bull – the energy… thing. A witness thought that seemed like rather a lot and was told that the alleged thief preferred the brand – and has made off with like-numbers of Toro Rojo in the past.

“The Swing Set Goblin”
A San Ramon Valley reader prone to late-night walks to clear his head reports an odd occurrence while strolling past a local park. As he neared he was met by the sound of a child laughing and the sound of a swing-set swinging. Walking past the area he confirmed the swing was indeed swinging, as if recently occupied, eventually stopping as he edged past – not wanting to disturb the midnight swinger. He swears he turned back to see it swinging again, heard laughter and resolved to change up his route for future walks on the spot, thoroughly creeped out.

Spotted anything odd going on in the 24/680? Drop us a note via our Tip Line – slugged The X Files.