Month: July 2017

He has smote them with nor’easters and category V hurricanes. He has sent plagues of mosquitoes large enough to carry off a 3rd grader, sent endangered birds to close their beaches and nesting turtles to close the ones the birds didn’t handle. He has used His Power to choke their vital waterways with sand and recently cut power to the entire village.

But apparently He is not done testing the tribe of Hatteras. Not by a long shot.

“Oh, I’ve got a few more things up my sleeve,” God told the OBX Report in an exclusive interview. “I hope they can handle it.”

God’s testing of the people of Hatteras harkens back to the time he put Job  through a series of trials to measure his faith. The Celestial Oneness acknowledged He was conducting a similar experiment with the people of Hatteras, but was not as certain that they will be able to hang with Him as unwaveringly as the man from the Land of Uz.

“I mean I’ve really been throwing it to them lately,” God said. “Job got some boils and lost a few cattle and honestly he probably knew it was Me doing it all along to test him. The Hatteras people? They blame it all on the Audubon Society and the CCA.”

God said that the rewards for keeping faith with him would be “pretty sweet” but would not provide any spoilers other than to say it would be a “a lot more awesome than Shelly Island.”

Nags Head – Steven Stallings from Chestertown Maryland is totally okay after his calculated dismount of his son’s skimboard. Steven used to make his own skimboards when he was young, and thought he would show the kids that he still has it. He did indeed.

We asked a nearby spectator, Jan Janowski, what she thought of his display.  “I didn’t know sand could be so loud when something hit it,” she said shaking her head apparently in awe.

Mr. Stallings refused any help and waved off the attention as he “just chilled for a moment” on the beach after his one and a half second ride. After about five minutes of “chilling” the lifeguard checked on him only to find out he was “100 percent okay.”

“I was concerned for the man,” said the lifeguard on the scene, “I have never seen anyone hit the sand with both their back and face at the same time. I offered to get him a back brace, but he managed to roll to his stomach and lurch over to his beach chair.”

When asked for an encore performance by his son, Steven replied, “No one time is all you get. If I kept showing you,  you would steal my moves. You are going to have to wait to next year.”

“If you can walk next year,” his wife added.

 

They live along the tide line, right where the waves wash over the shore, scuttling briefly through the receding waters before burying themselves back in the sand. Long believed to be completely harmless, for years children have played with them, fishermen use them as bait and cats chase them as they dart through the surf.

Call them “sand-fleas,” “mole-crabs,” or their proper scientific name “emerita taipoida” these little clowns of the tides have been a part of beachgoers’ fun for years, but last Wednesday that all changed with the first recorded attack by a sand flea on a human being.

Scientists now believe the mole-crabs are, in fact, an evolved pre-larval stage of the insidious xenomorph, the spindly creatures responsible for the destruction of the USCSS Nostromo and the Hadleys Hope colony. They call the new animals “eggs with legs” and warn people lying on the sand close to the ocean will “more than likely” be attacked by the mole crab. The crab attacks by latching onto the victim’s face and forcing its proboscis down their throat. After depositing a larval version of the xenomorph in the victim’s stomach the mole crab falls off and is consumed by seagulls. The victim then has 48-72 hours to finish enjoying their vacation and complete their bucket list before the juvenile xenomorph bursts through their chest.

Dr. Ash with the Center for Disease Control leads the team studying the problem.  He speculated that the mole crabs had not attacked humans before now in order to “lull us into a sense of complacency.” Currently there is no known way to remove the mole-crabs once attached, however a combination of baking soda and Diet Coke has shown some promise.

Since Wednesday’s incident there have been 63 reported attacks along Dare County’s beaches. Visitors have been moving their beach gear further and further back from the tide line in response to this new menace.

“I mean, we paid good money to vacation here,” said Joan Lambert from Washington, D.C. “We came here to enjoy the beach and by golly that’s what we’re going to do.”

Kitty Hawk – EMS was activated this past Wednesday to an area restaurant in response to a child suffering a panic attack due to soda withdraw. The child, 8, had been on vacation, for the first time to the Outer Banks, from Ohio. Thanks to a quick injection of Fructocan the child’s life was saved.

“Thank god we had those Fructocan injectables on hand. I thought I was going to have to perform an onsite Pepsiotomy,” said EMS Paramedic, Sandra White, “If it had been another ten minutes he would have been a goner. According to the parents it had been eight entire minutes since his soda was refilled. It’s seeing stuff like this on the job that make it hard to sleep at night.”

The server responsible for neglecting the child’s soda was immediately taken into custody for negligence, and is being held in lieu of a $100,000 bond.

The wait staff manager, Becki Saunders, had a few thoughts on the matter, “I get it, we have all been there, sometimes the kids just don’t stop drinking the soda. You fill it up, and they drink it down again. You are busy, they are running you, part of you starts to think you are doing them a favor if you don’t fill it up. You have to shake those thoughts out of your head and do your job. What if doctors or the police or the president just stopped doing their job. That is how society falls apart. It’s sad to see a good server break like this.”

This is the third time this Summer the EMS has had to respond to soda related incident at a restaurant. Calls have been made by politicians and local leaders to better educated our service industry to how important proper hydration is for children of parents who let them drink soda.

The child’s parents didn’t want to comment, but they have set up a GoFundMe to help cover the costs of their son’s recovery.

In 11th grade Sarah Daniels won the PNC Science Fair at Manteo High School with a solar powered oyster shucker. In 12th grade, she finished first in the North Carolina Young Geniuses competition with her invention of a self-anchoring beach umbrella that doubled as a metal detector. Her yearbook was filled with well wishes from students and teachers, all predicting big things for the bright young lady from Avon. They weren’t wrong, but even the most optimistic might be forgiven for not realizing how right they were.

This past spring Daniels, now in her third year at the College of the Albemarle, launched “Apparel for Your Apple” a one-woman app development studio for iPhone (She also develops for Android devices but is “not thrilled” with the platform.)  She’s struck gold with her first commercial release, “Silencio Totalis,” which blocks spoiler posts across a wide array of social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and AskJeeves. The app utilizes individualized plugins to block spoilers for shows users don’t want any details about. Currently the “Game of Thrones” anti-spoiler software leads all plugins with over $58 million in sales. (Plugin prices vary:  .99 for less popular shows like “24:Legacy” and 5.99 for more popular programs like GOT). Daniels is so confident in her product that she offers a full money-back guarantee if any spoiler-information gets through her app’s filter.

If Silencio Totalis sounds like a Harry Potter spell, it’s for a good reason

“I remember when the Half-Blood Prince came out,” Daniels told the OBX Report. “Before I saw it somebody on MySpace babbled about how Dumbledore died. I was so bummed. Totally messed up the movie for me. I wanted to develop an app that would help people not have that same negative experience.”

With her new found wealth, Daniels says she can finally afford what passes for “affordable housing” here in Dare County. She plans to move out of her parents’ home and into one of the new Run Hill SAGA apartments this Fall.

Cape Point, Hatteras – For years Hatteras residents have prided themselves on being the actual Outer Banks due to their geographical position. Sometimes they even call themselves the real Outer Banks, or refer to the other islands as the Inner Banks. Unfortunately now that Shelly Island has popped up off the point, the’re basically the same as Manteo or Colington.

The North Carolina Geographical society has already declared it the official Outer Bank, and the management of Cape Hatteras National Seashore is updating all their maps.

People down there are not taking it well.

“Leave it to the park service to take one more thing away from us,” said Charrell Harrell, “I can’t wait to hear about the birds that nest on this island.”

“I heard they were building a Wings on it already,” joked Jim Austin.

“Nah didn’t you hear? It’s in international waters, so they gonna open a casino,” his brother Tony replied.

“This ain’t no joke yall,” was the response from their other brother Austin, “People come down here to drive on the Outer Banks beaches. No one wants to tell the family about fishing on the Inner Banks. We aught to blow that stupid island up like we did that Nazi submarine that came ashore in ’42.”

“Don’t worry brother, no one is gonna go out to Shelly Island to fish on account of it already being overrun with coyotes,” Jim chimed back in.

Local Government to start shutting down anything with OBX in the name

Since it is technically false advertising to call a business on the inner islands OBX, the local governments have begun to contact locals using the acronym in their name.

“Nobody wants to shut down OBX businesses, but the law is the law. After we take care of the businesses.” said an unhelpful bureaucrat who wouldn’t give their name.

After businesses being updated, next comes license plates. It is projected to cost the state millions of dollars in materials and man-hours to replaced all those OBX plates. Any car decals in the shape of the Outer Banks must add a new sticker to represent the island.

At the same time anyone with OBX in their username or email that does not live on Shelly Island will be forced to change their name.

This will be especially painful for those with Outer Banks tattoos as they must come in for the small island to be added to their tattoo.

Residents and visitors to the Outer Banks have heard tales about infamous Blackbeard, but very few know of his less successful protege, Brownbeard. Brownbeard, though fierce and skilled at pirating,  had a short career as a buccaneer, never acquiring the crew or reputation of his mentor.  Scholars and historians have argued on the reasons for this, but the majority of them cite his eccentric mannerisms.

Brownbeard wanted to follow in Blackbeard’s footsteps, but he also wanted to put his own unique spin on it. He still wore the same clothing, and grew a beard, but the changes came in the hair and beard accessories. Blackbeard was known to wear burning fuses to terrify his victims with his demon-like appearance. Brownbeard went for a similar, but more visceral approach. Here is famous nautical historian, Andrew Wallace, describing it:

Brownbeard, having learned the power of scaring your prey into surrendering from Blackbeard, spent hours in preparation of his visage. His main concern was to take a ship without having to engage in close combat which would put him and his crew in mortal danger. Blackbeard used flaming fuses in his hair to invoke a sort of fear of the Devil to pacify his opponents, and Brownbeard used a slightly altered tactic. He also added fuel into his hair to set it alight, but instead of using expensive fuses, he used natural and plentiful human excrement. He would massage into his hair and beard, and then set it aflame. Other ships could smell it from leagues away. Not only was his ship never boarded, the English Navy would pretend like they hadn’t seen it.

This tactic of covering his hair in feces was unheard of at the time. No other pirate before or since has attempted it. Survivors of Brownbeard’s attacks were known to complain they could still smell his burning pooplocks for years after.

Brownbeard’s reign of terror on the high seas was a short lived one. After one Summer of plundering, his own crew mutinied and killed him. Instead of keeping the ship and treasure, none of them wanted to touch anything. They scuttled the ship in the sound and put to rest the legend of Brownbeard forever.

The location of the ship was not actually lost. People just didn’t want to touch his poopy treasure or risk being haunted by his ghost. Researchers now are fairly certain the remaining feces will have washed off, but are donning hazardous environment suits for the excavation just in case.

In similar news, Dusty Hills, a local dirtbag cook, has decided to go as Brownbeard for Halloween this year. He already started growing out what looks like the rudiments of a beard, but could just be caked on dirt and grease.

With the approval of early alcohol sales passing in every Dare County township except Nags Head, the Prince of Darkness, Satan, has finally booked a vacation to the Outer Banks.

“Really, it was the only thing holding me back,” the famed soul-snatcher said. “If you can’t have a Mimosa before noon, why bother?”

Satan’s spokesman, Theodore Cruze, stated that his royal evilness has rented a 22 bedroom McMansion in Kill Devil Hills for the first week of August. He will be travelling with his usual entourage including Martin Shkreli, Dr. Walter Palmer, Stephen Bannon and Kanye West. The group’s plans include drunken jet skiing, drunken hang gliding and drunk surfing.

The Lord of the Underworld said he’s going to check his “bad boy” persona at the Wright Memorial Bridge and just wants to come here to have a good time like everyone else.

“I might throw a few plastic bags in the ocean to choke the sea turtles,” he admitted. “But not too much worse than that.”

In related news, legendary country singer and professional violin exorcist Charlie Daniels will be appearing in concert at the Waterside Theater for a special performance on August 2nd.

Experts from the Smithsonian Institute have identified the mysterious item that washed up on Shelly Island Friday morning. The cylindrical, barnacle encrusted object was spotted by a fisherman early Friday and caused an immediate evacuation of the newborn island out of fear the object was unexploded ordnance planted by time-travelling ISIS terrorists in 1789.

The Naval Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team-6 arrived on scene to blow stuff up in order to protect the public. Upon detonating the mysterious object with explosive charges the NEOD Team-6 found bits of glass and shredded parchment in the debris field. The parchment was reassembled and a partial document was discovered with the headline

“CR_B_Y

PA_T_Y

S_CR_T

F_RM_LA”

A list of ingredients appeared to follow the title, but damage to the document made an exact reading impossible. Experts from the Smithsonian Museum’s division of Culinary History were dispatched to the scene. Professor Sheldon J. Plankton attempted to take possession of the parchment, but he was thwarted by Professor Eugene Krabs, who claimed the document as part of his important research on the famous Virginia Dare Cookbook, the first cookbook known to be published in the Americas.

“I believe this is the formula for the famous Croatan Patty,” said Professor Krabs. “Or maybe a different, equally important 16th century patty. In either case, it’s mine.”

For the past ten years, Kill Devil Hills biggest (or at least most famous) fireworks fan has been “Riley” a 51 year old Loggerhead sea turtle. Like clockwork, Riley has crawled up on the beach near Avalon Pier to dig a nest and lay her eggs on July 4th. Unlike typical Loggerheads, Riley hangs around her nest for several hours until the Kill Devil Hills fireworks show begins.

“It’s kind of like a starter gun for her,” says wildlife specialist Michael Dundee with the National Park Service. “She heads back toward the ocean, watching the fireworks the whole way. Of course, being a turtle, it takes her awhile to get there and she’s usually just getting her front flippers wet by the time the finale starts.”

The turtle’s behavior was chalked up to a curious coincidence, that is until this year when the KDH fireworks show was postponed until July 7th. As she had in years past, Riley crawled up on the beach, dug her nest and waited. And waited.

And waited.

The next morning, Riley was still waiting, sad turtle eyes scanning the sky for signs of the pyrotechnic show. NEST officials eventually posted caution tape around the turtle to keep ignorant but yellow tape-adverse curiosity seekers from taking pictures of their children on the back of turtle’s shell.

“We tried everything to get her to go back in the water,” said Dundee. “We even set off some South of the Border fireworks we seized off some tourists from Columbia near her, but she wasn’t having it. She wanted the real thing.”

For the next three days Riley barely stirred from her perch near the dune. Her condition slowly deteriorated as she remained out of the water, refusing to drink or even eat, despite the helpful visitors who tossed her Gummi Bears and Cheetos. NEST officials briefly considered moving Riley to the NC Aquarium but realized that would require that they physically touch the turtle, which would violate their Prime Directive.

Finally, on the night of July 7th, the Kill Devil Hills firework show began. Riley’s eyes sparkled with joy as the brocades, dragon eggs and pistils burst overhead. Scooping up a mouthful off Gummi’s, Riley began her labored journey back to the ocean to the applause of the hundreds of well wishers and drunken revelers around her.

“It was a close call for Riley,” said Dundee. “I hope next year KDH will get their act together and have their fireworks show on time. Do it for America. Do it for the kids. Do it for Riley.”