By Catherine O'Neill

Okay, I was on my own little writer's strike. No one really noticed except my mother. But I am pleased to report we have come to terms and I'm back. It's hard to kill a bad thing, as they say in Ireland.

I missed you. I had no one to chat with about so many things. I mean I did but the people who love me can walk into another room when I'm working myself into lather or hang up. I was thinking about crossing my own picket line on several occasions.

Has everybody gone mad? Our teenagers worry about dodging bullets and staying away from heroin needles and suddenly this summer the stupidity of girls in a fishing town becomes something that's on the national conscience. What's in the fish up there?

Whatever it is way too many people have been affected by it. It's been interesting to watch the reaction to the "Horribles parade." I had never heard of a "Horribles parade." We don't have them in Dorchester. People here have other things to do &emdash; like organize crime watches.

If you haven't done it already you should go to YouTube and look at the nature of the parade floats. If they're looking for something to do up in Beverly Farms we've got plenty of community service programs here in the City of Boston that could use assistance. You know what's funny? Beverly Farms is really just Beverly. No one has to tell us why people need to pretend they are from a different neighborhood, they do it to us all the time. Every participant of the Horribles parade should have to wear a phallic ankle bracelet for the rest of their lives. They're a live, in-color, three-dimensional example that just because you're a little higher up on the economic food chain doesn't mean, ever, you are a better person, or have any class.

Do you remember when news used to be about things that mattered? And the people telling it used to have some credibility? God rest Patsy Ramsey's soul. But the media won't look at themselves as perpetrators of torture to her and her family; they'll blame the Boulder Police department. She's in heaven at the right hand of God who had to rescue her from her hell on earth.

The toll-takers. They took our money when they shouldn't have. They did a bad thing. One for me, one for you. Their pictures, mug shots actually, played prominently in our local papers. Outrage was heard throughout the kingdom. Off with their heads, cried the citizens!

It made me think of the some other folks who take our hard-earned taxpayer money. They don't call what they do stealing; they have other words for it, like double dipping, sick time and vacation buyback, and the Big Dig. They wear business suits and ties and their mothers don't cry silently in court rooms as they watch their arraignments. No, they leave that honor to the stupid folks who steal thirty, forty or one hundred dollars. My God, if you are going to risk your reputation and the livelihood of your family, do it for a big payoff. Were the toll-takers eating the same fish?

Okay, what is professional slam ball? I can't say those three words together without laughing. I definitely know those folks are eating bad fish. Who runs that league? Who is the Red Auerbach of the NSA? What are the players' salaries? Now there is nothing funny about being the victim of domestic abuse. But I'm sure there were some women in courtrooms all across the Commonwealth who wondered why they didn't feel safe as quickly as the good-looking television sports reporter.

Just some things that recently smelled a little fishy to me. At least my mother is glad I'm back.