I love reading small-town newspapers. It’s not just that virtually everything in them is new to me as an outsider. No, it’s also that more of the human drama, or comedy, as the case may be, is deemed worthy of coverage.

Here are a few examples of what Paulie Walnuts might call “mayham” from the countryside…(Stories drawn from the police blotters of the Galveston County Daily News, Lufkin Daily News and Victoria Advocate.)

Oh well, if I’m a felon, I might as well get on the sex offender registry too… A Texas City juvenile reached over a female motorist to try to snatch her purse from the passenger’s side. Scared off by the prospect of her angry and rapidly approaching boyfriend, the would-be robber dropped the purse and ran towards his apartment, where on the threshold of his home, seemingly as an afterthought, he decided to drop his pants, expose his penis and deliver a few choice words to the woman. Still in full view, the teenager then entered his apartment, which was where police found him after his intended victim led them to the door. He was charged with attempted robbery and indecent exposure.

Cartman put him up to this 22-year-old Joshua Butters of Victoria was picked up by deputies on charges of theft of property valued between $1,500 and $20,000.

What? Was that wrong? If I knew that this was frowned upon in this suburb, I can assure you, it would never have happened… A Lufkin woman reported seeing a young man masturbating in the bushes Thursday afternoon near a suburban intersection, a police report stated. The complainant told police this was the second time in the past few days she had seen the man going to town al fresco.

Can You Hear Me Now, Motherfucker? A La Marque man bit his cousin’s ear off in a 3 AM Sunday-Morning-After-Saturday-night free-for-all. Doctors have said they cannot reattach the victim’s ear, but his attacker was luckier: they were able to counteract what police said was a large amount of Xanax coursing through his veins.

We ain’t lion: This thief shouldn’t be hard to find Someone stole a bunch of plain white T-shirts and this totally bad-ass custom-made jacket from a Lufkin haberdashery. Lufkin cops have issued an APB on this one-of-a-kind lion coat. If your tip to lufkincrimestoppers.com leads to its return to its rightful owner, you could earn up to a $1,000 cash reward.

The Lone Rider of the Drunkopalypse A 63-year-old Victoria horseman was arrested for public intoxication after police said he failed field sobriety tests after dismounting from his grey steed. Neighbors said the man never hurt anybody and used to clop through the streets all the time, though he had scaled it back a bit in recent years. Although police said in a report that he could barely stand, the Victoria cavalryman claimed to have consumed only two beers. After the man’s arrest, a designated rider took the reins and steered the horse home.

Is this East Texas or East London? A Lufkin woman complained to police that her ex-boyfriend doused her with tea.

Okay, Afghanistan or Lufkin? Lufkin police came upon the sort of pastoral scene often witnessed on the outskirts of Kandahar: three unsupervised children frolicking outside with a fully-loaded AK-47.

Pancho was a bandit boys, his horse was fast as polished steel, wore his hat on his head for all the honest world to feel… Management at the Café Del Rio restaurant in Lufkin were chagrinned to discover that a man celebrating his birthday had absconded with the loaner sombrero they had furnished him. We have a feeling tequila might have abetted the theft.

– John Nova Lomax