One of my favorite weird news stories made me laugh with every update I read. I neither condone nor encourage serial crimes of any kind, and perhaps the only reason I laughed so hard was because I was on the East coast. Still, we need to consider mental health and provide extraordinary ease of access to healthcare, and the Midwest could be a good place to start…

It began in the spring of 2007. A small town in the Midwest would never be the same. That’s because it went on for over a year, minus a short break, until the fall of 2008.

Maybe the church was first, but it really doesn’t matter. By the time the police chief was preparing to stake the church out at night, the problem had spread. And the chief would say to local reporters, “Hey, it ain’t funny.”

Whether it was funny or not depends on an individual’s point of view, but the chief was downright grim about it. Perhaps, to some, his attitude made it even more hilarious.

Whatever one felt about it, though, the crimes continued. To listen to a woman who worked in a store that had been targeted, it was nothing but terrorism. Pure and simple.

Then it got worse. The police chief convinced himself that more than one person was involved, and that was scary indeed.

Because when you’re the chief in a Midwestern town of less than three thousand people, you don’t want to think someone can go on night after night, staging a crime spree that you hope never makes it to the national press, because if it does, you’re not going to look too good. And the chief of police in any small Midwestern town would rather run away and join the carnival than look like he’s incapable of catching a serial criminal in his small Midwestern town.

But this chief stayed on, even when the story did break national news outlets. He stayed on, because now, maybe it was a bit personal. Besides, who knows, maybe he hated carnies.

But the crimes went on. The local schools were targeted, a rather ominous and sickening turn. On more than one morning, an owner or employee opening a storefront business had the stomach turning lurch hit them like a dose of castor oil. “This is so sick,” they would say, taking a bucket of water, soap and some rags from the back of the store to the front. One source described a woman stifling sobs as she worked, claiming it was “so humiliating.”

And so it went. In one night alone, almost every window at the hotel had been affected. Quiet during the winter, spring 2008 seemed a time when the perpetrator was playing catch-up. The whole town was in the hazard zone; no business or dwelling was safe.

By then the unsub (unknown subject) had long since been given a handle: The Butt Bandit. He never stole anything, never even illegally entered any of his targeted structures. I suppose that, what with the nature of the crime, the word “Butt” was inevitable; “Bandit” just seemed to round out the moniker nicely.

But by then he was a legend. No one could catch him. Only one witness had fleetingly seen him. The description went like this: tall and thin. That’s it. Mainly, of course, because it was a small Midwestern town, and during the hours in which the unsub struck, there weren’t many people even awake.

I’m not really convinced, nor was I back then, that law enforcement was all that keen about catching the unsub. Because, after all, that’d be one messy bust. Grease plus dirty ass plus a ton of paperwork equal one job no copper in their right mind would look forward to.

And it surely took a long time. By the summer of 2008, the unsub was more active than ever. He even repeated attacks on previous targets. The woman who stifled sobs now scrubbed away with teeth-gritting hysteria.

Because the Butt Bandit really wasn’t funny, unless you lived on the Atlantic coast like me and could just read about it, never getting used Vaseline Petroleum Jelly on your hands.

That’s right: the unsub would walk to a target, drop trou, smear his butt cheeks, and sometimes his scrotum and penis as well, then bend over and lean backward against a window, press as if using a rubber stamp, and leave a very clear print on the glass for all to see.

Finally, late into the fall of ’08, he was somehow–finally–caught in the act. Charges of vandalism (at least nine counts, which didn’t begin to touch everything that he had, uh, touched) and wrecking up the peace of the small Midwestern town. The Butt Bandit…was busted.

But sometimes, there are things you never get over. So it is with the small Midwestern town of Valentine, Nebraska. Oh, they may not wish to talk about it, but it’s never been forgotten.

I believe that in half a century, the Butt Bandit will take his place alongside other folk legend characters, becoming immortal.

I thought I would tell this to help you get your mind off Trump.

Huh? Donald Trump?

Oh, he’s going to be immortalized, too. Next to him, the Butt Bandit will be a national hero.

YEAH.