RIVER CITY JOURNAL: WHY BAD-MOUTH ALIENS WHEN YOU CAN BLAME DAVID COPPERFIELD?

Space visitors have enough of an image problem as it is. But Mr. Copperfield makes his living off the unexplained.

This is the way I wanted to start this week's column:

"And now the rest of the story."

But I've got some bad news for those of you sitting for a whole week on pins and needles. I know how uncomfortable that can get. However, I don't have the ending to the story I started last week.

Remember?

It was all about this mysterious green powder found in the woods not too far from my favorite hometown in the Ozarks west of here. The green powder glowed after being exposed to light. It was as bright as daylight for a radius of a hundred feet. That's pretty bright.

The problem, as reported by my favorite hometown weekly newspaper, was that nobody knew what the powder was, where it came from or how it found its way into the woods. By the barrel.

This week's edition of my favorite weekly was in the mail Thursday just like clockwork. I went home for lunch -- made a special trip -- just to go to the mailbox and get some answers about this green powder.

I looked from front to back in that paper. I had to stop quite a few times and read interesting things that caught my eye. That weekly paper is filled with interesting things. It took a long time to get from start to finish.

When I had scanned the entire paper, pausing to read most of Gladys Leach's correspondence from East Carter County, I was full of the latest news from that neck of the woods.

But I didn't know one single thing more about that powder.

Nope.

Not a thing.

Not one mention this week in my favorite hometown weekly newspaper.

Like it never happened.

Like I just made that stuff up last week.

Well, you can imagine how rattled I was, mainly since I was counting on this week's explanation to fill up this space.

It seemed mighty mysterious to me that one week a weekly paper fills up half its front page with a story about some peculiar powder that glows without a good explanation, and this week nothing.

You know what that means, don't you?

Aliens.

That's the only thing I can think of. The visitors from space have invaded -- this may not be the first time, either -- and they have taken control of all the essential services in my favorite hometown, with the newspaper, of course, at the top of the list.

Aliens. That's exactly the excuse I was going to use when the Southeast Missourian earlier this week told everyone that illusionist David Copperfield was coming to Cape Girardeau April 9. Hundreds and hundreds of people saw that and started making plans to buy tickets at the Show Me Center.

But David Copperfield isn't coming April 9. He's coming April 7.

So why did the front page of the Southeast Missourian say April 9?

Aliens.

That's who I was going to blame it on. Then it occurred to me that folks might get suspicious if we had aliens in Cape Girardeau and my favorite hometown at the same time. As you know, aliens tend to visit one town at a time. Check it out. When was the last time you saw aliens in two towns at one time?

Naturally, the only other logical explanation for putting the wrong date for David Copperfield's two performances in Cape Girardeau was magic.

After all, Mr. Copperfield is probably the world's best illusionist. If he wanted everyone to see the wrong date, he could make it happen.

So that's who I blame for the wrong date. David Copperfield was just messing around with us. It was just a warm-up for the big event on April 7. He changed the date on the front page to make us run another story the next day, which, of course, we did.

Ticket sales have been brisk. That Mr. Copperfield knows all the angles.

Come to think of it, he may be the explanation for that mystery glowing powder in the woods too. He could do something like that, you know. He really could.

So if my favorite hometown weekly paper can't come up with a good story by next week to explain the glowing powder, I think the editor should just tell everyone David Copperfield did it.

That way, my favorite hometown weekly newspaper could wrap this story up. And Mr. Copperfield would sell any stray tickets -- if there are any left by next Thursday.

And I could start wiping the egg off my face.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.