"It's a pig, it's a plane, no, it's a Portsmouth politician!"
I am able to report exclusively that the former Shine Time Carwash on Findlay St. has been purchased by the city of Portsmouth for a million dollars, and renamed Slime Time Peoplewash. An example of Portsmouth’s classic cinderblock architecture, the Slime Time building may date all the way back to the 1950s. Acting Mayor Jim Kalb reportedly negotiated secretly with the real estate developer Neal Hatcher to buy the Slime Time building, which will be converted to a state-of-the-art facility that will wash not cars but people, specifically politicians and reporters who do the dirty work for Portsmouth’s corrupt ruling elite, drug dealers, prostitutes, members of the SOGP, the Marting Foundation, and wheelchair-bound senior citizens, in short everyone in Portsmouth who can use a regular washing and scrubbing
The owners of Shine Time Carwash were reportedly willing to let it go for only a million dollars because they wanted to give something back to the community. “We didn’t want to sell it to someone who thought it was an eyesore and would tear it down.” The city is consulting an architectural firm in Cincinnati about the possibility of removing the red brick exterior of Slime Time to reveal the cinderblock underneath. The plan is to turn Findlay Street into an architectural showplace, unpeeling its buildings down to their pristine unpainted cinderblock frames.
When city auditor Trent Williams heard of the city’s purchase of the Slime Time facility, he said incredulously, “It’s only going to cost the city a million dollars?” Even though he was the last to learn of the sale, he did not take offense. “That’s only half of what Marting’s cost,” he said. “It’s a steal.” In a secret memo to City Clerk Jo Ann Aeh, leaked by someone in the Ku Klux Klan, City Solicitor Kuhn wrote, “Screw the public! The purchase of Slime Time is perfectly legal.”
Acting mayor Kalb will release a statement that says, “It’s time Portsmouth moved forward again. Just as the renovated Marting building will serve as a city hall and the former Adelphia Cable building as the new police station and Kenrick’s store as a visitor center, the Slime Time building will no doubt make Portsmouth a cleaner and more attractive city, especially if the council passes an ordinance making couches on porches, dogs under porches, and chickens on top of porches illegal. I predict our citizens will wonder how Portsmouth has gotten by as long as it has without a facility like Slime Time.” The mayor's mantra has become “It's slime time!"
City rescues Slime Time landmark from wrecking ball
Lawyer Clayton Johnson was allegedly the first to propose the city purchase Slime Time at a secret public forum held in his office at which three council members, Neal Hatcher, and the carwash owners allegedly were present. Footage surreptitiously taken by Joe Ferguson from the back of a second-hand reconverted Adelphia van and shown on Moe’s Forum reveals that there were no lights on in the offices of Johnson and Oliver when the late-night time secret public meeting allegedly took place. “Johnson always operates in the dark,” Joe explained
“The Sentinel crowd throws so much crap at public servants like me that a facility like this is an absolute must here in Portsmouth,” council member Marty Mohr said. Eager to rid himself of his reputation as Portsmouth’s crappiest politician, Mohr is said to be one of several council members who are jockeying to be first to use Slime Time before facing voters in next November’s recall election. Mr. Clean is how Mohr hopes to emerge from Slime Time.
“The Slime Time Peoplewash will be a Portsmouth landmark,” predicted Steve Hayes, a die-hard cinderblock preservationist. “I hope the omission of the Slime Time building from the murals is an oversight that will be remedied in the future,” he added. Neal Hatcher told the Daily Times, “The Slime Time building ranks right up there with the Adelphia building as a cinderblock landmark in our community. You don’t see much of that classic cinderblock architecture anymore.” Zeke Mullins of WNXT praised the purchase. “It sure makes a fella feel purty good there’s still fellas like Steve [his boss Steve Hayes] who cares about something beside making money. Imagine what some of those Italian quattrocento fellas could have done iffen only they'd a built some of those big churches in cinderblock stead of marble.”
“The Slime Time building is one of the most patriotic structures in Portsmouth,” Howard Baughman said at a recent city council meeting. “Not long after 9/11, its owners patriotically painted the Slime Time facility red, white, and blue,” he explained. The head of a Portsmouth VFW Post was quoted in The Community Common as saying “demolishing the Slime Time building would be like burning the American flag.” Councilman David Malone said he plans to lead prayer sessions in front of the Slime Time facility each alternate Monday before council meetings, unless there is a secret meeting in the city clerk’s office he must attend beforehand. Malone is already working on his first Slime Time sermon, called “Cleanliness is next to Godliness.”
Finally, an unconfirmed report out of Washington says that Rep. Rob Porkman, in one of his last acts before leaving the House of Representatives, will attach a rider to a space appropriation bill to help finance a speedy conversion to Slime Time.
(For those who tend to believe everything they read in print, I feel obliged to point out that there is about as much truth in this posting as there is in most local news stories in The Portsmouth Daily Times.)
