Good Grief!

I wrote this last Easter on the previous non-Blogger blog. But I'll be damned if I wait until next Easter to post it here, especially when I'm dying for content. Enjoy your reruns!

You're Dead, Charlie Brown!
Charlie Brown Of "Peanuts" Fame Dies At 59

PEORIA, IL (AP) - Charlie Brown, who rose to fame in the 1960s as the protagonist of the wildly popular comic strip "Peanuts", died Sunday afternoon after jumping off the balcony of his third floor apartment. He was 59.

According to police, toxicology tests indicated high levels of Xanax and alcohol in Brown's system. Early speculation is that he leapt from his balcony due to panic and anxiety stemming from hallucinations. Brown was found in the alley at about 10am by neighbors who heard incoherent ravings about the Easter Beagle coming from his apartment. Paramedics were called and declared Brown dead at the scene.

Police were able to reconstruct Brown's last hours from evidence in the apartment. On Saturday night Brown augmented his usual pitcher of whiskey sours with a few pills of Xanax and then dyed a dozen Easter eggs, hiding them around his apartment. According to acquaintances, Brown was unusually distraught over of a rebuffed attempt to reconnect with the Little Red Haired Girl through her Facebook profile. Police psychologists speculate that Brown was attempting to get so drunk that he would black out and forget he had colored and hidden the eggs himself. In this way, he could awaken on Easter Sunday and think that someone loved him enough to color and hide eggs for him. Ironically, upon discovering the eggs Brown became paranoid that someone had broken into his apartment overnight, leading to his anxiety, hallucinations, and eventually his fatal leap.

Friends report that Brown had become withdrawn in recent years, cowed by a continuing series of setbacks that started in childhood with his famous and ill-advised attempts to kick a football held by Lucy Van Pelt. "I don't think he ever really got over that", said best friend and renowned psychologist Dr. Linus Van Pelt. "Lucy is my sister and I love her, but she really did a number on Charlie Brown. It's bad enough to start in life as a bald kid whose father is a barber...I mean, do I have to draw you a picture? But he was never the same after that football thing, always waiting for life to pull the football away from him." Life did just that in 1975, when Brown's wife Peppermint Patty announced that she was a lesbian and filed for divorce. "Having his personal life splashed all over the tabloids was really the last straw for Charlie Brown", said childhood friend Schroeder. "A guy like that who's insecure to begin with? And then his wife leaves him for a woman? That's enough to make anyone nuts. And speaking of nuts, you'd have to be nuts to miss my set at the Airport Holiday Inn piano bar every weekday afternoon from two to four!" Perhaps the most touching tribute came from Brown's elementary school teacher, Miss Othmar. "Wah wah, wah wah wah, wah wahhhhh", whispered a tearful Othmar.

Charlie Brown is survived by his sister Sally Brown-Kennedy and his dog Snoopy IV. In lieu of flowers, the family asks for memorial donations to the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm.