Wink reporting for duty as requested in a rather stern email I received from Commandant Nudge last night while holding up the bar at Lucky’s. He accused me of slacking. I lied and said I was working on my post.

Now I can come clean. I had nothing. NADA. No comprendo the assignment. Then CNN came on the telly and just like that, I was golden.

Seems someone stole Ronald Reagan’s arm. I don’t know who this guy is, but someone was pissed. It looks more like it was ripped clean off.

With the economy in Europe, this amount of copper could buy something on the Riviera.

With the economy in Europe, this amount of copper could buy something on the Riviera.

I tipped my glass with one arm and did a little Wiki-recon with the other and discovered Ronald Reagan was a former United States president. The copper statue is actually of two famous people. Ron and one of the Popes. Looking like they are walking in a park in Gdansk (Gdansk, Poland…not Australian for good dance) and having quite the chin wag.

Makes it hard for Reagan to say, “Let’s have a bit of a cuddle then” with only one arm.

This is a mystery wrapped in an enigma inside a fortune cookie made by a Tibetan monk using a paint scrapper. You could break a tooth trying to crack this case.

I don’t know what’s going to happen to the statue now. It doesn’t seem right to leave it in the park. Kids go to parks. And no Mom wants to get into a whole conversation about why an artist would forget to add an arm. You can’t tell them someone ripped off his arm. Hello nightmares for a week. They should take it to some highway underpass and tell kids homeless people took it to hock so they could buy food stamps. That’d be an easier sell.

The Polish government estimates repairs to be around $30,000. The artist says he could fix it for much less. This sounds suspicious to me. He’s probably the one who stole it. I’ll bet the investigation will find this isn’t the first time he’s stolen an arm.

The detectives should be checking this out:

Armless Aphrodite. This time the thief got greedy.

Armless Aphrodite. This time he took both arms. He’s getting greedy.

The missing arms of Venus de Milo have perplexed historians and museum curators for decades. Supposedly she lost them during excavation. Now we know what really happened. It’s the family business. The thief comes from a long line of arm stealers and arms dealers. He’s got arm envy. I suspect when they catch him we’ll find out he’s got noodle arms and is trying to compensate.

Maybe he’s got a fixation. Maybe he’s starting a collection. Maybe he’s got a secret room full of arms ripped from statues. Maybe he wasn’t hugged enough as a child.

The artist of the statue says he could replace Reagan’s arm in a few weeks. We now know why the quick turnaround. He’s got extra. He probably lives in a really small studio apartment and is running out of room. And maybe that explains how this happened:

Be great as a crossing guard at a four-way intersection.

Be great as a crossing guard at a four-way intersection. You’d stop traffic and still have two hands to pray you don’t get hit by a bus.

He must know the cops will soon be on to him. A guy walking around with three arms is kind of hard to miss. Someone should tell the detectives to check YouTube.  Better yet, check out his blog. It’s a bit of a stretch but artists can’t bear to be more than an arm’s length away from their art.

I think we all know this isn’t the end. I would exhibit no surprise to hear this is not the only arm to go missing. With an addiction like this it’s hard to shake hands and walk away. Especially if you’re missing an arm. Let’s hope he doesn’t escalate to this:

Ripping off arms is one thing. This is stomach churning.

Ripping off arms is one thing. This is stomach churning.

This is Wink, signing off.

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*All images via Wiki

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