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On the first day of Christmas,
Washington County gave to me,
An immigrant who wants to scare me.

Yes, with the dawn of 2010, another election year was at our throats, and this one was even better than usual, because with it came the birth of a local Tea Party branch, a group of activists who believe the problems of unemployment, the recession, foreclosures, the Middle East, education, the environment and the federal deficit can all be solved by keeping Hondurans out of Washington County.

The attack is led by Del. Christopher B. Shank, who challenges state Sen. Donald F. Munson on the charge that he is “too effective.” Shank also accuses Munson of failing to set up a booth at the Washington County line and personally bludgeoning any non-American citizen who attempted to cross.

Shank defeats Munson after promising to go to Annapolis and show off in front of the big-city TV cameras by demonstrating that he can say the name of “Washington” without inserting the letter “R.” Munson reacts to the loss with dignity and grace and by threatening to give everyone who voted against him a wedgie.

Actually, two might be generous. Despite White House contentions that the housing crisis had “turned the corner,” Washington County remained in a hopeless abyss.

Half of the people in the county wanted to buy a house, while the other half wanted to sell a house. And somehow, the keenest minds in government and the banking industry fail to figure out a way in which these two groups might mutually benefit each other.

“I’m stumped,” one banking CEO said. “There’s a guy who wants to sell his house on Washington Street and someone who wants to buy it. But our loan department tells me that they can’t see what one has to do with the other. And these are our best people. Heck, it was their idea to give away a free Snuggie to anyone who opens a new checking account, so you know they’re good.”

The Washington County Commissioners react to the housing glut and all this excess housing inventory by, no lie, passing a tax credit to encourage home builders to build more houses. Surprisingly, this does not solve the county’s surplus-housing crisis, leaving the commissioners to go out and try to solve the county’s dropout problem by giving year-round day jobs to high school students.




On the third day of Christmas, Washington County gave to me,
Three feet of snow
Two housing starts
And an immigrant who wants to scare me.

It started in December, and by February, foot upon foot upon foot of snow encapsulated everything in a tomb of white. There was so much snow that Hagerstown’s weather observer was seen running around in the flakes outside his weather station as he cackled with laughter and yelled “fly, my pretties!”

The snow allows Hagerstonians to participate in their two favorite non-yard-sale-related activities: 1. Taking the chairs that someone has set out to reserve a parking space and breaking them over the heads of the people who put them there, and 2. Shoveling the snow that surrounds their vehicles into the middle of the street and causing massive traffic tie-ups until a plow can come along and push the snow in front of their cars again.

But not everyone is so happy about the weather. A number of people from out of the area are stranded in Hagerstown, providing them with their first glimpse of the city. Their sentiment is shared by one guest of a local hotel, who told The Herald-Mail, “By 5 o’clock, I’m getting out of here, no matter what.”



On the fourth day of Christmas, Washington County gave to me,
Four squawking gulls
Three feet of snow
Two housing starts
And an immigrant who wants to scare me.

That would be seagulls, as in the kind that swarm over any landfill within a hundred miles of the ocean. And Washington County will probably see many more of these birds, since the Washington County Commissioners once again failed to enact a countywide recycling plan.

This disturbs many residents, who point out that there are actual bison herds that have adopted curbside recycling by now, and wonder whether Washington County will ever enter whatever century it is that we’re in at the moment.

The commissioners do listen to a plan from a company called RecycleBank that projects a 20 percent increase in county recycling, which would add as many as 10 years of life to the county landfill. It “rewards” frequent recyclers with coupons to retail stores.

However, the commissioners reject the plan, saying they are holding out for a rewards program that includes SpongeBob SquarePants pajamas and secret decoder rings.

The commissioners continue this policy of bewilderment in other areas, too, including a $400,000 grant that they are forced to forfeit when they are unable to agree on plans for a local development property. The money instead goes to Garrett County, with the hope that next year, Garrett County will trade the grant back, along with a player to be named later.

“Luckily, I guess,” one county development official says in amazement, “Garrett County is sitting on a project that is ready to go.”


On the fifth day of Christmas, Washington County gave to me,
Five Robocalls
Four squawking gulls
Three feet of snow
Two housing starts
And an immigrant who wants to scare me.

American democracy has been around for two centuries plus, but every couple of years, Washington County demonstrates that it is still struggling to get a handle on the process. This year, in the name of every 5-year-old who has ever dreamed about using nuclear weapons to kill a gopher, Washington County Republicans decide to wipe Democrats from the face of the county, using high-tech, ugly campaign smears usually associated with Swift Boat veterans in races that actually mean something.

The Republicans arrive a bit late to the party, seeing as the Washington County Democratic Party has already been brutally gutted by — the Washington County Democratic Party, which couldn’t even be bothered to field a serious candidate in numerous races.
This alarmed the leaders of Washington County’s Republicans, who were spoiling for a fight, but found themselves without any meaningful opponents — until they saw a lone hapless Democrat standing on the otherwise empty wastelands of the County Commissioners ballot.

Republicans respond with a largely incoherent robocall, with unfathomable logic and sentence structure normally associated with English as a Second Language classes. But the desperate, high-stakes, smear tactic works — the Democrat is obliterated, leaving Republicans in full control of the powerful government body that will be responsible for drawing up the county’s next weed ordinance and modification of its leash law.



On the sixth day of Christmas, Washington County gave to me,
Six bears a shopping
Five Robocalls
Four squawking gulls
Three feet of snow
Two housing starts
And an immigrant who wants to scare me.

In the early 1800s, the forests of Western Maryland were filled with bears. We decided this was a bad thing, so we killed them all — which we decided was also a bad thing, so we did everything we could to repopulate the forests with bears so we could kill them all over again.

But the bears seem to be gaining the edge, and nowhere is this more apparent than in Hagerstown, when a bear shows up at Valley Mall. Authorities speculate it was a youngster in search of a new forested territory that might have been confused by the sign that said “Dollar Tree.”

Wildlife experts are not entirely sure which stores the 200-pound animal was interested in, but their best guesses include Bear Bryant, Baeropostale, Bair Cuttery and Paw Locker.

In other bear-related news, a Russian governor on holiday tours Hagerstown’s Arts and Entertainment District and warmly pronounces us his “sister city” after noticing that, like Russia, every other person he sees on the street is holding a paper bag wrapped around a bottle of vodka.



On the seventh day of Christmas, Washington County gave to me,
Seven librarians smooching
Six bears a shopping
Five Robocalls
Four squawking gulls
Three feet of snow
Two housing starts
And an immigrant who wants to scare me.


Do a Google search for “library” and “speed dating” and you might think the results would be scarce. But no. It is a new concept sweeping the globe, and as usual, Washington County is leading the trend. Called “Speed dating with a Literary Twist,” or “Read Dating,” the Washington County Free Library announces a wine-and-cheese fundraiser where single folks will have a few minutes to chat with another person about books before a bell rings and he or she moves on to the next participant.

So it’s like Evelyn Wood meets Fabio.

Everything goes well at first, until a single man becomes a little too fresh with his John Irving and gets an annotated Doris Kearns Goodwin thrown in his face. And clearly, the library did not anticipate that a woman might show up in her P.J. O’Rourkes and walk on the Oscar Wilde side with someone’s P.G. Wodehouse. Library officials give her the Charles Dickens, but it is too late, because everyone wants to take a Samuel Pepys at her David Mamets. Events spin out of control as one reference librarian chalks “helter skelter” on the card catalog and another, fueled on chardonnay, tips over a chair.

After such a wild evening, library officers meet briefly before deciding to tear down the current library and build a new one.



On the eighth day of Christmas, Washington County gave to me,
Eight leaders leaving
Seven librarians smooching
Six bears a shopping
Five Robocalls
Four squawking gulls
Three feet of snow
Two housing starts
And an immigrant who wants to scare me.

It might be called the greatest disappearing act in Washington County history. Carolyn Motz left the airport. So did Allegiant Air and its cheap flights to Florida. Northrop Grumman flew the coop. Maryland Theatre Executive Director Jay Constantz exited stage left. Maryland Symphony Orchestra Executive Director Andrew Kipe scattered on the seven woodwinds, Hagerstown Finance Director Al Martin closes the books on the city, John Howard fires the last shot an Antietam National Battlefield and James F. Kercheval votes against being seen with the other Washington County Commissioners anymore. Washington County Public Schools Superintendent Elizabeth Morgan takes a pass on Washington County.

No one really knows what is going on, but everyone is nervous. It’s exactly like the scene in “Men in Black” where all of the aliens are leaving the planet because they fear that Earth is about to be destroyed by an Arquillian death ray.

After thinking it over, however, everyone goes back to business as usual.



On the ninth day of Christmas, Washington County gave to me,
Nine Smithies sniping
Eight leaders leaving
Seven librarians smooching
Six bears a shopping
Five Robocalls
Four squawking gulls
Three feet of snow
Two housing starts
And an immigrant who wants to scare me.

Hagerstown and Washington County schools join in a fledgling program called “Choose Civility,” which teaches “respect, consideration, empathy, and tolerance as our fundamental values, enhancing the community’s quality of life.”

This program is not adopted in the Town of Smithsburg, which spends much of the year fighting like cats over the politically polarizing issues of garbage collection and grass mowing. In fact, this actual sentence was printed in The Herald-Mail: “A long, tense debate over how the town of Smithsburg will conduct mowing this summer erupted during the Smithsburg Town Council meeting Tuesday night.”

And this was not even an understandable conflict, such as the age-old side-bagging versus rear-bagging question. This revolved around whether the same people who have always mowed the grass should continue to mow, or whether the mowing process should be put to bid, which might or might not be accomplished in time for the much-anticipated First Mow of the year.

After much shouting and gavel pounding, God gets sick of the whole issue and smites Washington County with a drought so severe that no one’s grass grew in the first place.


On the 10th day of Christmas, Washington County gave to me,
Ten patients convulsing
Nine Smithies sniping
Eight leaders leaving
Seven librarians smooching
Six bears a shopping
Five Robocalls
Four squawking gulls
Three feet of snow
Two housing starts
And an immigrant who wants to scare me.

In “Animal House” parlance, it took years and cost thousands of lives, but the doors finally open at the new Washington County Hospital, which then changes its name to “Meritus” and then later, to an unintelligible symbol, at which point in time people start calling it “the health center formerly known as Meritus.”

Upon its grand opening, the new hospital is immediately flooded with patients to the point that administrators frantically issue a “yellow alert,” which either means that all the beds are full or that Osama bin Laden has come in for a colonoscopy.

Hospital officials are mystified by the elevated patient levels, half-heartedly blaming “cold and flu season.”

But it is apparent that something else is at work, causing single moms to trump up the severity of their children’s sore throats and Medicare patients to exaggerate the severity of the tightness in their chests — and they are doing this just to get a glimpse of the new facility up close and personal.

This distinctively Hagerstown phenomenon — call it Meditourism — goes on for some time, until officials announce that heartburn patients will no longer be able to have their photos taken with James P. Hamill.


On the 11th day of Christmas, Washington County gave to me,
Eleven jerks a babblin’
Ten patients convulsing
Nine Smithies sniping
Eight leaders leaving
Seven librarians smooching
Six bears a shopping
Five Robocalls
Four squawking gulls
Three feet of snow
Two housing starts
And an immigrant who wants to scare me.

Yes, the Westboro Baptist Church comes to Hagerstown (reasons unknown) to spread its message of God’s love — in which God is called upon to show this love by personally biting the heads off anyone they don’t like.

Church members hotly deny that this traveling hatred show is all an act, and if we don’t believe them, we are free to ask their PR rep, makeup man, costume woman or the person taping their chants for an upcoming “Westboro Baptist Church Unplugged” CD, featuring the smash hit, “Rot in Hell, Soccer Mom.”

The best that can be said for the Westboro Baptists is that they are not choosy — they hate pretty much everyone with a pulse; if their beliefs are correct, heaven will not be large enough to field a volleyball team.

But Hagerstown rises to the occasion, as more than 100 counterprotesters shout down the insurgents and send them on their way.

The Westboro Baptists continue on to the Supreme Court, where they argue that God is OK in their book, but they have their doubts about that Jesus fellow, because he seems soft.



On the 12th day of Christmas, Washington County gave to me,
Twelve stink bugs multiplying
Eleven idiots babbling
Ten patients convulsing
Nine Smithies sniping
Eight leaders leaving
Seven librarians smooching
Six bears a shopping
Five Robocalls
Four squawking gulls
Three feet of snow
Two housing starts
And an immigrant who wants to scare me.

In what was clearly the story of the year, “Nature’s Revenge,” rivers turned to dust and instead of water they flow with a prehistoric-looking insect known as the brown marmorated stink bug.

Entomologists come out of the woodwork to appear in front of television cameras to pronounce these bugs “harmless,” which they are unless you count destroying crops, invading wardrobes, choking vacuums and wrecking intimate moments on the couch “harmful.” Stink bugs appear by the thousands, invading the lowliest trailer and most tasteless McMansion without prejudice. Even the box elders think stink bugs have gone too far.

The stink bug has no known predators except for U.S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, who introduces anti-stink bug legislation to Congress, while at the same time he sits on a lily pad and snaps them up with his tongue.

Exterminators are called to many homes, but their abatement program that calls for specially mixed poisons and holding up portraits of Harry Reid bring only temporary relief.

The final straw comes in November, when Boonsboro poll workers report seeing a couple of stink bugs trying to vote. Considering what we all went through in 2010, it might be time we gave them a crack at it.