Raindrops Keep Falling
on Ned's Head
Ned Nedmiller, Cookie Monster 

Monday, Nov. 12, 2001
Not long ago was the day when Ned was quicker than electrical intercourse. Damn the Yankees if Ned wasn’t the fastest thing this side of the mongoose races over at Lambert Field, and anyone who says different is trying to sell you a boxcar full of Injun silverware. Ned could skin a rattlesnake in a minute, paint two states in an hour, and make minute rice in 13 seconds. “Hot Damn!” is what they once said about Ned. When it rained, Ned never once got wet since he was ziggin’ and zaggin’ between those raindrops like a turkey in a pumpkin patch. As a matter of fact, one day Ned drank a pot of hot coffee and was so hyped-up he swam across the Mississippi and back without once getting wet, neither.

But some say Ned got all greedy with his speed, and that might rightly be true. One day, on a lark, Ned stole away the sun into his shoulder-satchel and tucked it behind the moon, just to see the looks on people’s faces when they couldn’t find the sun that day. Well, it was a powerfully funny scene indeed, as them roosters crowed at all the wrong times, them people were eatin’ chocolate tarts when they should have been eatin’ their breakfast hams and everyone got all in a huff. Austria invaded Switzerland and all them geese flew straight into the moon, honest to Amos. Nedder laughed until he was horse and his horse laughed until he was Ned and then the horse rode Ned through town, a-yellin’ “Otis Redding is Coming! Otis Redding is Coming!” and all the people thought that was one sour apple indeed.

From that day after not the sun nor the moon, nor the clouds nor the sea, none of them trusted Ned a lick. When it rained it rained sideways and them clouds furrowed up their brows and made sure Nedder got wetter than a seal in a vat of Vaseline. When the moon it did shine, it shined right in Ned’s eyes, and the sea lived to make Ned sick.

Ned’s refrigerator filled up with fog, and his basement got full of box turtles. All his clocks quit tickin’ and went “boink” instead, drivin’ Ned to the verge of Virgil. His toilet filled with hair and his hair all fell out and his pogo stick developed a terrible squeak and all his neighbors loved Polka. Them was the worst of times.

So Ned learnt his lesson, that life don’t move at the speed of no train, an that a sloth in a grain silo has one hell of a lot of fun, if you believe them ol’ stories. Now in these days them raindrops fall on Ned’s noggin like that drummer boy gone bad, and Ned likes it this way. The sun does a dance in Nedmiller’s pants and the sea rocks Nedrum to sleep. And excepting that hot air balloon incident, Ned and the moon get along just fine, thanks.