Down the Drain

Award winning news coverage!

Volume 4 Issue 4 Whole Number 40

May 2016

We find Shakespeares
skull!
As soon as we learned
last
month
that
archaeologists using
Ground Penet r at i ng
Radar had determined
Shakespeares skull was
missing from his tomb
inside Holy Trinity
Church in Stratford-uponAvon, we immediately
retrieved our team of
crack researchers from
their favorite booth at
Oscars and told them to
go to England and Find
Shakespeares skull!
Yes! they shouted in
unison. English beer!
and scattered in all
directions at once to
retrieve their go bags and
head to the airport.
After successfully bribing
TSA inspectors to let them
bring their whoopee
cushions on board the
plane, they headed off for
England.
Heres their report.
The eds.
It was late afternoon
when we arrived at
Stratford-upon-Avon, and
after checking in to our
rooms at Ophelias Inn we
immediately went to Holy

Trinity Church and

observed several seconds
of silence in front of
S hak es p ea r e s t o m b
before reconvening at the
nearest pub.
After
introducing
ourselves and ordering a
round of pints for the
house,
we
began
questioning the locals
gathered there about
Shakespeares missing
skull.
We were lucky and were
given several important
leads which we were
determined to follow up
on first thing in the
morning.
The next day, after a
hearty English breakfast,
we headed for the home of
Holy Trinitys chief
caretaker,
Malcom
McThistle, whom we had
been told the night before
was the first person to talk
to in our quest to find
Shakespeares skull.
Mr. McThistle, it turned
out, lived in a modest
cottage just behind Holy
Trinity, and was enjoying
his elevenses when we
knocked on his door.
He greeted us politely

INSIDE
THIS ISSUE
CAN SCIENCE BUILD
A BETTER UNICORN?
WE ASK THE
EXPERTS!

DRIVERLESS
MOTORCYCLES!
COMING SOON TO A
DEALERSHIP NEAR
YOU!

RANTS AND RAVES

OF THE RICH AND
FAMOUS! YOU
WONT BELIEVE
WHAT THEY HAVE
TO SAY!

Portrait of William Shakespeare

with artists rendering of his skull.

and told us he had been

warned by friends that we
would probabl y be
stopping by.
He invited us in, and
after seeing to it that we
were all comfortable
around the kitchen table,
passed around bottles of
beer
and
without
prompting said he knew
exactly
where
Shakespeares skull was
and told us the following
story.
His family, he said,
going back
many
generations had been the
caretakers of Holy Trinity.
The job was passed down
from father to son, and he,

Malcom McThistle, was

the seventh in the line to
hold the job.
It was right after World
War II, he told us, when
his great-grandfather was
caretaker, that a couple of
local lads decided to dg a
hole to China.
Its what lads did back
then, he said.
It didnt take long,
however, before the two
boys learned that digging
a hole straight down was
hard work, and so their
hole slowly went from
being a vertical shaft to
being a horizontal tunnel,
Continued on page 2

PLUS
ANDREW JACKSON
ON HARRIET
TUBMAN
HARRIET TUBMAN
ON THE $20 BILL
ALL THIS AND
MORE! RIGHT HERE!
RIGHT NOW! IN
THIS MONTHS
EDITION OF DOWN
THE DRAIN!

But seriously, folks,

Plumbing news from around the world

Ossified Petroleum
Jelly to debut in
outer space
Cape
Canaveral,
Florida Giving in to
years of requests from
astronauts and others who
have visited and worked
on the International Space
Station, NASA has agreed
that its next supply
mission to the ISS will
contain at least a years
suppl y of Ossified
Petroleum Jelly.
The plumbers best
friend and a staple of
diets of millions around
the world, NASA said it
will send a variety of sizes
and flavors of OPJ to the
ISS.
The decision was hailed
by space agencies from
England to Russia as a
step forward in the
co nt i n ui n g p e ac e f ul
working relationship of

those on board the

In t e r n a t i o n a l S p a c e
Station.

New
smuggling
operations uncovered
Washington, D.C A
report released by the FBI
last month said there has

been a spike in attempts to

smuggle 5-gallon toilet
tanks across the border
from Mexico into the
United States.
The report stated that
approximately 10,000 of
the tanks have been
confiscated by the U.S.
Border patrol in the first

quarter of this year, an

increase of 120% over the
same period last year.
The report blamed the
increase on the fact that
nobody likes the 1.5
gallon tanks mandated by
law in many states
because theyre inefficient
and just dont work.

$75OFF
The Fine Print (Our lawyers made us write this. Honest!)
This coupon is valid only on future repairs and cannot be
used on prior charges. This coupon cannot be combined
with any other offers or discounts or promotions. This
coupon is not valid on calls for estimates or evaluations.
This coupon has no cash value. This coupon must be
presented at time of service. And finally (whew) only
one coupon per customer, please. This coupon expires
05-30-2016. Pentagon Plumbing NV License #58722.

If youre looking for

fast, professional,
courteous service for
your plumbing needs
please give us a call.
Pentagon Plumbings
service technicians
are available 24
hours a day, seven
days a week, and
unlike some other
companies, theres no
extra charge for
those after hours and
weekend calls!

We do:

Any Plumbing Repair!

Call today to
schedule an
appointment!

702-876-5969

Repair &
Replacements
Water Jetting
Insurance Work
Remodels
Electronic Leak
Detection
Sewer & Drain
Cleaning
Water Heaters
Repiping

And so much
more!

Like us!
Click on our
logo to go to
our website.
You know you
want to!

Twitter us!

Email us!

Pin us!

Yelp us!

Pentagon Plumbing, Inc. 5125 W. Oquendo Rd., Suite #5, Las Vegas, NV 89118
Tel: (702) 876-5969 Fax: (702) 876-0937
email: service@pentagonplumbingnv.com
NV License #58722
Donald Trump, call your plane. There seems to be a problem with the plumbing.

Call us today!
876-5969

Down the Drain, May 2016

Page 2

Adventures, letters,
A life in the
day of a
plumber
By CHIP CARPENTER
Ace Master Plumber

Last month: A meeting

takes place.
Trust. Joseph Hardy
said again looking me
straight in the eye and
sounding very sincere.
It seems, he continued
after a brief pause, That
in the past you have
helped the Countesss
family, and they trust you
to do the same again with
this most important task, a
task, I might add, which is
also of great importance
to your country.
Uh, thats very
flattering, I said, But all
I did was help ransom a
toilet
for
Mrs.
Qwpbklrstni which had
been taken by her very
own cousin, and try to
help Madam Blovotsky
with her haunted pipes
before that very same
cousin hijacked her
house.
Exactly! Hardy said
with a note of triumph in
his voice.
I looked around.
Everyone was staring at
me, especiall y t he
Countess Lumarchesi who
seemed to find this all
quite amusing. It was the
smile, I decided, a small,
playful smile, and I
thought I could detect a
twinkle in those large
black eyes.
But, I said, and I knew
it sounded feeble as soon
as the words came out of
my mouth, Im just a
plumber.
Precisely! said Joseph
Hardy. We wont have to
invent a cover story for
you. Youll be there doing
a complete examination of
all the plumbing in the
embassy. Youll have
complete access to every
square foot of the place
and youll be able to talk
t o ever ybod y. It s
perfect!
I looked at the boss. He
was nodding vigorously.
And counting dollar signs,
too, I imagined. He was,
after all, a businessman.
How could I let him
down? I couldnt. And
how could I possibly deny
a request from the
beautiful
Countess
Lumarchesi? I couldnt.
Joseph Hardy must have
read something in my face
because he said, Good! I
knew youd agree!
Had I agreed? I guess so.
And then the countess
spoke. We will put one
of our guest houses at
your disposal so you
wont have to make the
long commute back and
forth every day. She
smiled.
It was nice smile.
With that, everybody
stood up, shook hands and
began filing out of the
conference room until I
was the only one left.
So I ate another
chocolate donut.
To be continued...

advice and more!

Your opinion counts!

Letters to the Editor

To the Editor:
So the powers that be are
going to tear up the I-15
interchange
downtown
again, and we all know
what that means: snarled
traffic for years to come.
You can also bet the
project will end up being
billions of dollars over
budget and years behind
schedule.
Worse, when the project
is finally completed
maybe in our lifetime,
maybe not those same
powers that be will

discover that whatever

they did wasnt enough to
handle the increase in
traffic, and so theyll start
over again.
Wouldnt it be easier and
less expensive if they
would just stop people
from moving here in the
first place? Theres too
many people here anyway,
and if there werent so
many
people
there
wouldnt be so many cars,
and if there werent so
many cars there wouldnt
be any need to tear up that

interchange, and we could

all go to and from work
with less hassle.
As an added bonus there
would
be
less
air
pollution, too.
I think the best way to
stop people from moving
to Las Vegas would be to
charge anyone who wants
to move here a relocation
fee of like $100,000 or
something. Or maybe
more.
That
should
discourage em!.
Franklin Studebaker,
Henderson, Nevada

Answering your most challenging questions!

Ask the Perfessor!

Dear Perfessor,
What causes thunder and
lightning and rain?
All Wet
in Henderson
Dear All Wet in
Henderson,
That is a reall y
interesting question, the
answer to which, as
always, is really quite
simple.
When the sun comes up
in the morning it heats all
the water in the oceans
and rivers and lakes. The
water evaporates and rises
into the atmosphere where
it eventually comes
together and makes
clouds.
As the clouds get bigger
and bigger and heavier
and heavier they begin to

descend toward the earth,

where the greater
atmospheric pressure near
the Earths surface begins
to squeeze them and they
start leaking. Thats rain.
At the same time the
clouds are getting bigger
and bigger and heavier
and heavier, they start
bumping and rubbing
against each other. The
friction caused by all that
bumping and rubbing
creates static electricity,
When the charge of the
static electricity gets
strong enough
it
discharges, and thats
what we see as lightning.
As you might expect, all
those clouds bumping and
rubbing into each other
also makes noise, and
thats the thunder.

Now, as the clouds

continue to leak they
become smaller and
smaller and lighter and
light er. When that
happens they start to rise
higher and higher into the
atmosphere
until
eventually there is not
enou gh at m os pher i c
pressure to squeeze the
water out of them. And of
course being smaller and
lighter they stop bumping
and rubbing into each
other and stop creating
thunder and lightning.
So thats where thunder
and lightning and rain
come from.
Scientists call this whole
process the hydrologic
cycle, and its always
happening somewhere on
Earth.

Continued from page 1

Shakespeares skull found!

which is when they got in
trouble, because after
several weeks of diligent
excavating, a large clump
of dirt fell on top of the
head of one of the boys.
Only, it werent dirt,
see, Mr. McThistle told
us with a grin. It were a
skull partially wrapped in
a piece of rotten burial
shroud.
Terrified, the boys
scrambled out of their
tunnel and never went
back in again.
Several years passed
when Mr. McThistles
great-grandfather noticed
that the marker over
Shakespeares tomb inside
the church was cracked
and was beginning to fall
in.
He fixed all that, Mr.
McThistle told us, But
not wanting to disturb the
bones any more than
necessary, he didnt dig
down any further than he
had to make the repairs.
More years passed, and
by now the two boys had
grown to manhood,
though one of them, it
seemed, still
had
nightmares about what
had happened in that
tunnel, and the nightmares
kept getting worse and
coming more often.
Finally, almost unable to
sleep at all, he went to

confession and admitted

all, and with the
permission of the man the
priest, a keen local
historian, retrieved the
skull and after measuring
the depth and direction of
the tunnel, realized the
skull had to have fallen
from one of the tombs
inside Holy Trinity.
He handed over the skull
to the caretaker of Holy
Trinity, Mr. McThistles
grandfather, who realized
at once that the skull must
have
come
from
Shakespeares tomb and
that the tunnel under the
tomb explained the
subsidence of the floor
inside the church and the
damage to Shakespeares
grave marker.
However, not wishing to
disturb the grave again,
Mr.
McThistles
grandfather put the skull
on a shelf in his work
shed, where, according to
Mr. McThistle, it rested to
this day.
After some hesitation,
Mr. McThistle agreed to
let us examine the skull
with the understanding
that we could not take any
photos.
Disappointed that we
would not be able to
document our find, we
never the less agreed and
were taken out back

behind the cottage to a

somewhat dilapidated
shed.
It was dark inside the
shed, it being lit only by a
single bulb and what little
light could make it
through the dirty
windows.
From high on a shelf at
the rear of the shed, Mr.
McThistle pulled down a
burlap sack, set it on a
workbench and opened it.
Inside was a skull, which
he gently pulled out and
held up for all of us to see.
Shakespeares skull!
he said.
We were fascinated, but
had to ask the obvious
question: How do we
know
its
really
Shakespeares skull?
Because, he said, Its
writ right here on top,
see?
And sure enough,
someone had written in
black ink on top of the
skull
the
words
Shakespeares skull.
Well, that was good
enough for us, and after
persuading Mr. McThistle
to forget about his
elevenses, we all gathered
at the nearest pub to
celebrate our discovery
before our investigative
team headed back to the
airport for the journey
home.

The Birthday
Box
A special happy
birthday wish
goes out this
month from all
the crew at
Pentagon
Plumbing to
the President,
CEO and
Chairman of the
Board Mike The
Boss Stokely
and to
the indispensable
Lori Berry
Yaaaaaaay!
(Applause!)

Bella Donna
Lovelace
apprehended!
By Marlow Archer
Crime Beat Reporter
After
months
of
searching, and finally
agreeing to pay an invoice
submitted by Vincent
Lumbago for information
on the location of Bella
Donna Lovelace, Down
the Drains former gossip
columnist was taken in for
questioning after being
found at a Boulder
Highway motel where she
was living disguised as a
merchant sailor on leave
from a tramp steamer out
of Hong Kong
According to the task
force investigating the
break-in and vandalism of
Down the Drains offices
last August, Lovelace was
grilled for 18 hours under
hot lights, but would not
admit to having any
involvement in the breakin and vandalism.
She repeatedly declined
an offer of having an
attorney present, though
claiming she was a citizen
of the Republic of
Belarus, she did request
the presence of a
representative of the
Belarus embassy be
present.
The request was denied
because the only Belarus
embassy in the United
States is in New York.
In addition, according to
a representative of the
task force, Lovelace
offered up an alibi for the
night of the break-in, an
alibi that was, apparently
air tight.
Unable to hold her on
any charges, Lovelace
was released with a
warning to be available
for further questioning
should the need arise.
We still think she did
it, a disappointed
representative of the task
force later told Down the
Drain.

Down the Drain, May 2016

Page 3

The Really Important Stuff!

Down the Drain

Is published by Pentagon Plumbing, Inc.
Editor-in-chief Applications being accepted
Deputy Editor-in-chief Reginald Phipps mum
Copy Editor Carmel Comma Sutra
Assignment Editor Gowanna Getouttahere
Society Page Editor Alice Hashtag
Travel and Leisure Editor Reginald Phipps
Fact Checker Al Gore
Assistant Fact Checker Brian Williams
Additional Fact Fabrication and Verification by The Group for the Advanced Study of Statistical Oddities, Irregularities, Anomalies and Impossibilities
Business Reporter Yale Princeton
Construction and Building Correspondent Roger Red Tag
Crime Beat Reporter Marlow Archer
Environmental Correspondent Washoe Evergreen
Fine Arts Correspondent Venetia Impasto
Food Critic Candy Pye
Gossip Columnist Applications being accepted
History Correspondent Marcus Aurelius Tacitus
International Affairs Correspondent Mac The Knife Machiavelli
Investigative Reporter Doug Deeply
Assistant Investigative Reporter Doug Deeply, Jr.
Legal Correspondent Blackwell Coke
Media Correspondent Tweety Byrd
Medical Correspondent Sue Tchurme
National Affairs Correspondent Brinkley Huntly
National Affairs Reporter Homer Bogart
Resident Conspiracy Theorist de Grasse Noel
Science Correspondent Abigail Sciuto, Jr.
Sports Reporter Big Bob Kahuna
Demolitions Consultant Candy Pye
Dog Whisperer Toto Baskerville
Office Manager Loosey Arnez
Receptionist Tiffany Whatevs
Complaint Department Wendy Whiner
Fashion Advisor The Gaga
Relationship Advisor Taylor Swift
Spiritual Advisor The Ghost of Groucho Marx
In-House Therapist Lady Heather
Psychic Consultant Madam Blovotsky
Computer Services and Expertise by provided by The Gigglebits Computer Gals
Photo Editing provided by The Cutting Edge Scissors Company and Elwoods All-Purpose Glue
Rehabilitation Services provided by The Rehab, Relapse and Rehab Group of Wickenburg, Arizona
Leftovers, munchies and midnight snacks provided by Moms 24 Hour Diner and Ping Pong Emporium
Jewelry by Jodie
Makeup by Gor-Don
Hair by Mr. Clean
Mani-pedis by The Cats Meow Veterinary Clinic
Bunny Slippers provided by Bunny Slippers for All (At Fashionable Malls Everywhere!)
Artwork provided by My Sisters Refrigerator: A Unique Boutique for the Elite
Musical Soundtrack by
Cyndi Lauper
Emilie Autumn
The Pretty Reckless
Hole
Strawberry Switchblade
Alison Sudol
and
Olivia dAbo

This space deliberately left blank for future use

and for children to color on

Down the Drain

is owned, operated, managed, imagined, inspired, created, written, produced, published and copyrighted 2016 by Pentagon Plumbing, Inc.
However, permission is granted by Pentagon Plumbing, Inc. to redistribute this newsletter at will with proper attribution.
For advertising rates, queries, submissions and, of course, service requests, call, write or email Pentagon Plumbing, Inc. using the contact
information below.
To unsubscribe to this newsletter, please send an email to: james@pentagonplumbingnv.com with the word unsubscribe in the subject line. Well
cry when we do it, but we promise well take you off our subscription list. No knock-knock jokes, please.
5125 W. Oquendo Rd., Suite #5, Las Vegas, NV 89118
Tel: (702) 876-5969
Fax: (702) 876-0937
email: service@pentagonplumbingnv.com
My

My
My God,
God, its
its full
full of
of pink!
pink!