I live on an interesting street. Three years ago it was a middle-class neighborhood. These days you’d be far more likely to find a goat in someone’s driveway than a BMW. Needless to say our tiny little community has slipped into the depths of the lower-middle class. And with that particular segment of the social class comes an endless supply of neighborhood antics. Some antics are benign enough, like the guy who’s so wasted that he decides to take a nap in an adjacent driveway. Others are a bit more risky, like the time my one neighbor discovered that lighting your grass on fire is not an accepted method of lawn care. And then some antics are just so bizarre that they require a critical examination.

That’s exactly the case here when just three days ago the property just two houses down from me had a little incident with a mobile home that was haphazardly placed at the end of their yard. I won’t ask why the home was there to begin with, I’m assuming it was either a rental or a meth lab, but I do know that not all mobile homes are actually mobile. Therefore tying a rope to the front end of the home and hooking the other up to your fifteen year old pickup truck is bound to end in disaster.

And of course the ratio for disaster in such circumstances increases exponentially when the parties involved:

1. are drunk

2. are listening to rap music blaring so loud that the distorted rhymes sound as if the artist suffered a stroke

3. have mullets

Clearly then this was the perfect storm of residential catastrophes. And it didn’t disappoint. The old truck revved its engine a few times, purportedly to loosen the home off its foundation, and then the driver gunned it. At this point, had the home had wheels, it likely would have jostled loose and slid out onto the street. However as cinderblocks have terrible mobility, the house just sort of ripped in half instead. This of course was followed by a hodgepodge of expletives and head scratching on their part and more than a little snickering on mine.

Nevertheless, now where a neighboring home once stood, there lays a yard full of aluminum and rotted wood permeated by the effervescent smell of cat urine. I wish I had a firm grasp over enough adjectives to properly describe what aluminum, rotted wood and cat urine combined smells like but I suppose, “not good” gives you a general idea.

It goes without saying that after reading all this you might assume that someone in my position would feel inclined to complain about this incident or at least report the debris left behind. But truthfully I’m pretty happy that there’s now one less house on my street to worry about. So unless the neighbors suddenly start living in tents (which is certainly possible), I consider myself a pretty fortunate guy right now.

Starting on April 1st FishTanked will return to normal weekly production. A new strip will be released on April Fool’s Day to commemorate the original launch date and following that a new comic will be released every week on Mondays.  To fill in the gaps, there will be blog updates, commentary and stories throughout the week. We’re almost there…

FishTanked originally debuted on April 1st, 2002. Since then it’s languished. I’ve never come remotely close to producing regular updates  - that is, unless a few comics every few years meets your criteria for regular. For the most part I’ve had good reason for the infrequent updates. There was that time my business burned down, the time I ended up in the newspaper linked to terrorism, the twelve times I tried to complete my college degree and even the time I decided to completely change every facet about my life and packed my bags and moved 1200 miles away to Florida on a whim.

But things have calmed down considerably since then. I’ve finally graduated, landing myself a B.S. from the New York Institute of Technology (that’s a B.S. in English by the way, top that.) I’ve also settled into my new home, nothing’s burned down recently and my life doesn’t feel like it’s getting the best of me on a regular basis. I’m older, pudgier, and wiser.

And so on April 1st, 2009 FishTanked will return. For how long? Who can say? Maybe a week, or two – maybe even a few years. We’ll have to see how it goes. But either way be sure to tune in for my first new comic in an incredibly long time.

After several years in and out of repeated retirement, FishTanked will be back in action very shortly. So to the three of you still visiting this website every week waiting for an update since 2002, just hang in there a little bit longer. We’ll be back soon.