In their opening game of Artists League Baseball season, the Pittsburgh Warhols defeated the New England Rockwells by four identical runs in different combinations of garish colors.

Sir: I was reading the signs along the sidewalk for the first time today. Now, I know that I ought to have read these signs every day, because they are placed there by our municipal government for our enlightenment and contain vital information of import to every citizen, but I have a life. But today I was stuck waiting for someone who never showed up, and I’m calling off the engagement, Rita, so if you read this good riddance, so I had time to read the signs.

Did you know you can go to prison for loitering? At first I thought it said “littering,” and of course everyone agrees that someone who drops a paper cup on the sidewalk should be put away for fifteen years. But no, it said “loitering” was punishable by fine or imprisonment.

As I understand it, loitering is the crime of remaining stationary longer than the cop who observes you thinks you ought to be wherever you are. For example, the signs say you can go to prison for “loitering” on the benches at the intersection of Murray and Darlington. Normally you would think that sitting in one place would be the purpose of a bench, but if you do it you’re loitering. I suppose you’re meant to fidget from one bench to another, but how many times a minute do I have to move? If you move six times in one minute but the cop thinks you should move eight times, off to prison you go.

Well, no wonder we’re spending so much money on incarceration, when everyone who isn’t an Olympic sprinter can end up in prison for sloth. Our jails are stuffed with people whose crime was inertia, and we’re paying tens of thousands apiece to house them at the public expense.

Now, I am not an unreasonable man. I do not like to point out a problem without having a solution to suggest. My proposal is a sensible one that solves the problem of expensive and overcrowded prisons while at the same time preserving the criminality of loitering, which appears to be a dear and treasured American principle necessary to maintain our hallowed tradition of freedom. We shall keep the crime of loitering on the books, but simply move the location. Instead of making it a crime to loiter on a bench along the sidewalk, we shall make it a crime to loiter in prison. Upon conviction, the penalty will be instant expulsion. Since I understand that the conditions in our prisons are favorable to loitering, I expect the prison population to be diminished by a considerable percentage just in the first year. —Sincerely, Dr. Hasdrubal M. McClutch, Associate Professor of Ancient Semitic Languages and Pickleball, Duck Hollow University.

In spite of repeated protests and even threats of legal action, members of the Daughters of the American Revolution were once again refused admission to the Allegheny Brass Band concert at DFIW Braddock Memorial Hall last night. Security guards referred all questions to Mrs. Effingham, President of the Daughters of the French and Indian War, who said in a prepared statement that she didn’t want a bunch of Janey-come-lately riffraff treading mud through her nice hall, and if they don’t like it they can go back where they came from.

Bozar the Clown was arrested again yesterday afternoon, charged with failure to possess a smartphone in a public place. After an hour in the room with the television, Mr. Bozar confessed that he had thrown his smartphone into the Monongahela from the Smithfield Street Bridge, which added two more charges. The magistrate ordered him released on $50 bail on the condition that he would go home and immerse himself in social media on a laptop computer, desktop computer, or tablet until such time as a new smartphone could be procured for him at his own expense. When, however, Mr. Bozar confessed that he did not have any social-media accounts, the release was revoked and four more charges were added.

Owing to inclement weather, the inauguration will be held in the old Hecht Company warehouse on New York Avenue.

1. Motorcade to the venue is lost going around Logan Circle for 34 minutes.

2. Motorcade reaches venue; argument about protocol with warehouse security guard.

3. Musical prelude by the East Sioux Falls High School Marching Band.

4. Poem: “I Am Overwhelmed by the Importance of This Occasion,” by incoming Poet Laureate Irving Vanderblock-Wheedle.

5. Musical selection: “No Motherland Without You,” performed by special guests the People’s Revolutionary Glee Club of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

6. Inauguration. (N.B.—In order to avoid bogging down the proceedings with crusty boring ritual, the President-Elect has asked that the Oath of Office be omitted on this occasion.)

7. Silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.

8. Cheeseburgers!

9. Inaugural Ball, featuring the Syrup Tones, Silver Spring’s most famous Guy Lombardo cover band.

The slander suit against artist Eli “Bonkers” Johnson was dismissed today in the Thirteenth District Superlative Court, in spite of the artist’s admission that he had spoken the words deemed slanderous by the plaintiff.

According to the suit brought by the Buckingham & Sanders Artist Pigments Corporation, Mr. Johnson had defamed the company’s product, and caused material harm, by stating at an artists’ conference that he “could not speak the name of that color without spitting.”

Mr. Johnson (appearing pro se) admitted that he had spoken those words, but argued that, in American libel and slander law, truth is a defense. In an unusual move, he invited Judge Ronald H. Gramophone to speak the name of the color in question. After three unsuccessful attempts to pronounce “Phthalo blue” without a considerable amount of spray, His Honor dismissed the case.

Dear Sir: I should like to take the opportunity of this forum to ask your readers to consider how unkind a single thoughtless joke can be when it is at the expense of an innocent toiler in the public interest. I know that social media are full of jokes and memes about registrars of deeds, but have you ever stopped to consider how the men and women who perform that function, so vital to civilized life in civilization, are affected by the constant barrage of mockery at their expense? I walk down the street, and I hear the suppressed snickers. I know everyone I pass knows that I am a registrar of deeds, and I see them leaning over to whisper the latest registrar-of-deeds joke in the ears of their friends. When I drive down the road, I see the buses full of laughing children, and I know what they are laughing about. I see the smirks on every face as I walk through the supermarket. I hear the broccoli laughing at me behind my back. I know the whole canned-soup aisle is just waiting for me to pass so they can jump on Instagram and share pictures of the back of my head with mocking captions added. I won’t even go into the toiletries section after what the shampoo said about me. I challenged the pumpernickel to a duel once, but the coward gave me no response. So anyway, couldn’t you people have a little consideration? That’s all I want. That and for the Greek yogurt to keep its smart mouth shut. —Sincerely, Lancelot Fribble, Yohogania County Registrar of Deeds.

The Brenneman Corporation has filed its response to the class-action lawsuit alleging severe allergic reactions to Brenneman’s All-Natural Hand Soap and Paint-Stripping Liquid. According to the filing, the product is labeled “Hyper-allergenic” in large letters on the front of the package, with an exclamation point; and if purchasers do not know the difference between “hypo” and “hyper,” their ignorance cannot be laid at the feet of the company.

In what state officials are calling the worst environmental disaster of the decade, a tank at the Brenneman Corporation’s shampoo works in Acmetonia exploded and released more than 600,000 gallons of “Unscented” scent into the Allegheny River. Reports of piles of dead fish along the shore have come in from as far downstream as Wheeling, West Virginia, and residents of riverside communities note that, even after rotting for several days, the dead fish still smell like nothing.

Sir: I was reading the real-estate transactions in the Dispatch, and I came across an item in which a parcel of land was sold by Ms. X to Mr. Y, the mineral rights not included.

I had thought we were living in an enlightened age. I had thought we had grown beyond the dark days of medievalism when property owners could run roughshod over any entity they considered a lesser being. I had thought we had amended our laws to take into account our superior understanding of the natural rights of all entities.

But no! Here in the twenty-first century, it is completely legal to ignore the rights of minerals, as if they were inanimate objects! It is quite hunkydory with the law to treat minerals as no better than mere objects to be exploited as we please!

Well, this is where someone has to take a stand. I am going to make it my business to see to it that mineral rights are respected, and I shall do it by means that have proved themselves effective. I have commissioned a specially printed bumper sticker, printed in plant-based ink no less, and as soon as I find something unobjectionable to stick it on everybody will know. —Sincerely, Esmeralda Stone, Point Breeze.