The Canadian Sports Ball Massacre

I love working at a church, especially in the neighborhood we live in. Cloverdale has a sort of mild Twin Peaksishness about it. Occasionally weird stuff will happen with no real explanation to it, but you are glad you were there to see it. One such thing recently was the “soccer ball inuckshook” that set up shop on one of the curbs. I have some idea as to where it came from as there are folks around whom I know do such things, but it cracked me up nonetheless. I wish I had a picture to show you because it was sort of a “had to see it” kind of thing, but it just struck me again how I have this tendency to notice things and wonder how they got there.
I will do the best I can to describe said inuckshook and why I find it funnier than it really is. My father-in-law is great, his sense of humor just cracks me up. Once when the in-laws were visiting we were driving by a house and he said, “Oh look, it’s a witch house.” I thought perhaps there was a pentacle on the door, perhaps a goat’s head on a stake, or possibly some lost college students filming using a shaky camera, but what actually drew his eye was the inuckshook (I know this is arguably the worst spelling of that word ever but I am too lazy to look it up) sitting at the end of the driveway. Apparently this is a telltale sign that a witch is on the premises.
Back to our parking lot… I drove into the lot about a week ago and saw this… I don’t know… contraption???… sitting there and it was one of those things where you know it wasn’t there the day before and yet it seems like it has always been there. I should mention that prior to this soccer ball thingy someone had put a fencepost in the ground, pointy side up, and impale one of those rubber bouncy balls on top and spray painted it fluorescent orange. It felt almost medieval, as though the dodgeball had refused to recant and as a result was placed on a pike as an example to all the other rebellious dodgeballs and from then on they were very careful about headshots… I digress.
Let me describe said inuckshook. It consisted of a deflated indoor soccer ball (you know the bright yellow ones that look like a tennis ball and a soccer ball had kids?) in the middle with rocks strategically placed around it so it would stay put on the curb. On which it was placed. My first thought was that the sports ball persecution had not ended as I had thought, instead the individual responsible has moved from impaling dodgeballs to stoning soccer balls to death and leaving the heap as a grisly warning to all indoor balls that dare venture outside. It was gone after a couple of days, I like to think the soccer ball faked it’s death and escaped to freedom, renting a cheap motel room to shave off its yellow beard in order to blend in…
Seriously though, I am constantly amused by all the stuff that goes on around here that I never see happening. The only way I know something funny happened is by the evidence. Sure I have suspicions (fairly accurate suspicions I think) about how it happens, but I have never seen it happen, and I choose to not delve too far into it because ultimately it’s entertaining and not hurting anyone. How did it get there? I don’t know. Where does it go? I don’t know that either, I just know there are a lot of dedicated people who care about this place who put a ton of work in here that I don’t always see, but man do I appreciate it.