We’re Number One
By now, regular readers have figured out that ‘Puter lives somewhere in the Greater Rochester area of Upstate New York.
Some of ‘Puter’s frequent readers have queried as to why ‘Puter, raging libertarian conservative, lives in deep blue New York. It’s simple folks: Mrs. ‘Puter insisted. And, all things considered, Upstate is a great place to live, except for the politics and the taxes. Heck, ‘Puter’s even gotten used to Rochester winter’s “darkness at noon” theme, where the sun disappears in November, not to be seen through the slate gray clouds again until March.
But today may have changed ‘Puter’s mind about Upstate living. ‘Puter’s county is now officially number one in the country in the ratio of assessed house value to taxes paid. The average house value is $134,500, and the average property tax burden is 2.89% of that, or $3,891. ‘Puter’s actually got it worse. He lives in a village, and thus has the following real property taxes: county, school, town, village, library district and fire district. All told, ‘Puter pays nearly $8,000 each year on a house assessed at $194,500.
And yet the national pundits wonder why New Yorkers are voting for Carl Paladino in droves? Could it be that his low tax/smaller government mantra is closer to the heart of the voter than Andrew Cuomo’s “let’s form another government committee to study the problem for five years” solution?
Nah, couldn’t be.
Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.
’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.
The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.
His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.
He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.
Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.
‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.