I’ve been sitting on this story for a bit, just waiting for a chance to work it into a column. That time has come, my friends. It’s the tale of one Reginald Cook, 26, who allegedly attempted to rob a Shell convenience store on Elvis Presley Boulevard — three times — on the night of April 14th.
The official Memphis Police Department report states that Cook went into the station around 2 a.m. and demanded money from the clerk. The clerk told police that Cook kept reaching into his clothing, indicating that he had a weapon. The clerk didn’t buy the ruse and told Cook to scram.
A few minutes later, Cook returned, again demanding money and again reaching into his clothes as though he might have a weapon. And again, the clerk was having none of it and told Cook to leave the store. This is where the story takes a turn.
At 3:05 a.m., Cook returned once again to the scene of his Kabuki Krimes. Only this time he had a live, five-foot-long snake wrapped around his neck. Emboldened, he shouted, “Gimme all your money or I’ll unleash my attack snake, you bastard!!!” Or words to that effect, one presumes.
By this time, the clerk was getting boa-ed by the whole thing and pulled out a handgun, taking Cook and his slithery sidekick into custody.
Only in Memphis (or maybe Florida). Seriously, Cook has to be one of the dumbest crooks of all time. Who did he think he was going to fool? Anyone could see that snake was unarmed. Heh.
The cops soon arrived and hauled Cook off to jail, charging him with attempted robbery and a reptile dysfunction. After letting the snake make one phone coil, the police let him slide on his own recognizance, mainly because they were unable to get cuffs on him.
Speaking of dumb crooks and animals … How about South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, the evil creep who outed herself in her own book last week as a puppy killer. And a goat killer. And god knows what else, at this point.
Noem’s book — No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward — will be published next month, but Guardian.com obtained an advance copy and revealed the literal money shot: Noem shot and killed her 14-month-old dog, Cricket, because she was “untrainable.”
In her book, Noem describes taking Cricket, a wirehaired pointer, on a pheasant hunt with older dogs, hoping they would calm the young dog down. It didn’t work. Noem writes that Cricket was “going out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life” and “ruining the hunt.” Little did Cricket know it would be the last “time of her life.”
On the way home, Noem writes that she stopped at a farm and Cricket got out of her truck and killed some of the farmer’s chickens. Noem writes that Cricket was “the picture of pure joy” during her spree. “I hated that dog,” Noem says, adding that Cricket had proved herself “untrainable” and “less than worthless … as a hunting dog.” So, when Noem got home, she led the unsuspecting (and probably still joyful) Cricket to a gravel pit and shot her. As one does, apparently, when one is a “farmer” from South Dakota. Or Hell.
Then, since Kristi was already in a killin’ state of mind, she went and got a goat that “smelled of urine” and had “knocked her kids down and ruined their clothes,” and executed it, as well. She had to go back to her truck and get another shell, she writes, since she only wounded the goat with the first shot.
Noem is angling to be Donald Trump’s running mate. She’s fond of posting pictures of herself with dead animals: bears, elk, deer, pheasant. I doubt that she posed with her dead pup but I wouldn’t be shocked. Noem says that she included the animal assassination story in her book to show her willingness to do “anything difficult, messy, and ugly” if it needs to be done. So far, she’s had plastic surgery, dental implants, and an affair with former Trump operative Corey Lewandowski, so she’s three-for-three. Kristi Noem is scum.
Matthew Hill 
