I’m sort of oblivious to the latest fashion trends. Which sometimes gets me in a lot of trouble. For example:

Recently, in my local tavern, I was talking with some people, when a woman joined our group. I immediately noticed she had a bird feather tangled in her hair. No one else in the group made mention of it, but I figured they were too timid to bring it up, for fear they’d offend her by pointing out such a flagrant disregard for personal hygiene. So, I took it upon myself to remedy the situation.

My taste in everything except beer, whiskey, and second wives is highly questionable.

This was the week when famous documentary filmmaker Ken Burns discovered America used to have something called “Prohibition,” which was a constitutional amendment prohibiting teenagers from having sex.

Oh, wait, that was actually a different constitutional amendment called “Abstinence.” Prohibition was intended to keep teenagers from drinking alcohol and then having sex.

I know what you’re thinking. You're thinking I’m devoting much of this posting to the case of the students suspended from Medomak Valley High School in Waldoboro for wearing breast-cancer-awareness bracelets that said “I (heart) boobies” just so I can use the word “boobies” a lot.

By the time I noticed the thing growing under my front porch, it was bigger than a basketball. It had sort of a sickly yellow color in daylight, but at night it pulsated with a blue-green glow. A couple of days later, it ate a squirrel. Then, it absorbed most of the neighbor’s kid and one of those Smart Cars. It sometimes sent out strange waves that interfered with satellite TV reception and the navigational systems of passing airplanes. Most alarming, at night, it sent tendrils under the front door, down the hallway and into the liquor cabinet.

Comedian: Where does a guy from Portland sit down?

Sucker: I dunno. Where?

Comedian: On his butt, of course.

Sucker (picking up blunt object): This is gonna hurt you almost as much as that hurt me.

All joking aside (consumer alert: author is lying), there isn’t much humor in the question of where Portlanders will plunk their derrieres when they tire of walking on the city’s new Bayside Trail.

Unless you happen to think artists are funny.

Which I do.

The Portland Sea Dogs left town this week, narrowly avoiding sheriff’s deputies seeking to enforce a court order to cease and desist impersonating a baseball team.

And now, another frantic first-person account of the terrors and deprivations experienced by an actual Mainer during Tropical Storm Irene.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Maine has one of the highest divorce rates among men in the United States. 

Higher than Nevada.

Higher than California.

Way higher than New York.

In fact, Maine men split from their spouses more frequently than residents of any other state except Arkansas, where it’s legal to marry close relatives and farm animals. Maine women do considerably better, preserving the bonds of matrimony at a rate well above the national average.

Indiana Faithfull, come back to Maine. All is forgiven.

We no longer care that you’re Australian.

We’re over our hurt that you played this past season for a school located elsewhere.

We don’t even mind that you’re named after another state.

The fact is, we need you here, right now. Because Maine has fallen seriously off the pace in producing athletes with funny names.

Sorry, that’s politically incorrect. What I meant was team members with oddball monikers.

Still no good?