DOWNTOWN PONCHATOULA COMES TO LIFE
PONCHATOULA, Louisiana — Hay and twine covered the ground in downtown Ponchatoula early Monday as local officials were left scratching their heads at the large amounts of fruits and toys mysteriously piled onto the back of Old Number Three, the locomotive that has served as a popular tourist attraction for the antique city.
“I reckon the smell of sugar plums will be gone by the end of the week,” said Sam Sterns, the owner of one of the many antique and craft stores in the area.
Sterns discovered several of the scarecrows on display outside her store had been moved around, but nothing had been stolen, she told HAN.
While Police Chief Bry Layrisson attempted to piece together the puzzle of one of the city’s most bizarre occurrences since an Italian-American was elected mayor, one resident claims to have witnessed a group of teenagers simply “pulling a practical joke” around 2 am last night.
This theory was immediately ruled out by Layrisson because city laws require all residents in bed by 9 pm and lights out by 9:30.
“The most plausible explanation is that the there was a big party with scarecrows and dancing clowns and giraffes and marching bands and wooden deer and pumpkin people and gum drops and and…,” exclaimed the police chief as he tried to catch his breath.
Layrisson’s enthusiasm was short lived as word of the so-called pumpkin patch party reached students in nearby elementary schools, whose demands for immediate field trips to the downtown area led to unrest.
The conflict reached new heights as rioting kindergarten students burned their unsigned permission slips on the playground.
Failed attempts by neutral intermediaries to settle an agreement between first graders and school faculty before the end of recess left the police chief no choice but to telephone parents, putting an end to the conflict.
1 year ago