PIPE BOMBER ARRESTED, NATION'S MAILBOXES SAFE FOR BASHING AGAIN High School Football Players Across Midwest Ready to Return to Action

Reno, Nev. (SatireWire.com) — The nation's high school football players rejoiced today as the arrest of a suspect in a string of pipe bombings from Illinois to Texas has made America's mailboxes safe for bashing once again. "Whooooo!" said 17-year-old Mike Bedlecki of Dubuque, Iowa, one of thousands of young males who were afraid to take a swing at rural mailboxes during the bomb scare. "Tonight, 10 o'clock, the parking lot behind the Dairy Queen. Meet me there!

"And BYOBB (Bring Your Own Beer and Bats)!" he added.

The pipe bombs, allegedly placed in mailboxes by 21-year-old Luke J. Helder of Pine Island, Minn., were set to go off if they were moved. As a result, six people were injured, residents across the Midwest were warned not to touch closed mailboxes, and thousands of drunken current and former high school football players who couldn't get laid had nothing else to do.

To fill the void, many teenagers turned their bricks and bats on anything next to the road, including street signage, telephone poles, Jersey barriers, opossums, members of the Saint Louis Cycling Club, and, in some desperate cases, shrubbery and decorative plantings courtesy of local Jaycees. However, offenders reported, the effect wasn't the same.

"You ever hang off the side of a pickup truck doing 40 miles an hour and take out a row of Orange Emperor tulips with a baseball bat?" asked 18-year-old Josh Handling of North Little Rock, Ark. "It's rather unsatisfying."

"You ever hang off the side of a pickup truck doing 40 miles an hour and hit a telephone pole with a baseball bat?" added 18-year-old Kevin Sprott of Kenosha, Wisc. The all-state left tackle for Kenosha Central High School then held up his wrists to display a pair of casts. "I hope they fry that Helder guy," Sprott said.

In Kearney, Neb., meanwhile, frustrated twin brothers Calvin and Anthony Richfield, 19, dressed up as mailboxes and took turns bashing each other with a 34-oz. Louisville Slugger. Services are scheduled for Monday.

With Helder's arrest, however, juvenile life across the middle of the country should return to normal.

"This was going to be my last chance to bash mailboxes before heading off to college," said senior Kent Dandridge of Waco, Texas, who scored 21 points in one quarter in a game last fall and took out 32 mailboxes in one night last month after his girlfriend Cindy broke up with him. "Now that they nailed the guy, it looks like it's going to be a great summer whether that bitch Cindy gets back with me or not."

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