Not Wanted in 50 States

Last updated 07/10/2026

The restaurant was the kind of fancy place where the menus had no pictures and the water sounded like it came from El Dorado.

The waiter led a man and his date through the dining room, past several empty tables, all the way to a small table near the restroom.

The man looked around.

“Is this the only table you have?”

The waiter smiled.

“Yes, sir. The other tables are reserved.”

The man glanced at the empty room.

“Reserved for who?”

The waiter lowered his voice.

“For guests who are expected to arrive properly dressed.”

The waiter placed three menus in front of him.

“Here is our dinner menu, sir. Here is our wine menu. And here is our water menu.”

The man looked up.

“I’ll just have water.”

“Of course, sir. We have water from Mount Everest. We have polar water, bottled by polar bears.”

“By polar bears?”

“Yes, sir. They wear white gloves. They sanitize before handling the bottles. Then they fill them directly from Arctic streams.”

“We also have water from the Fountain of Youth.”

“And of course, we have water from El Dorado. It has tiny speckles of gold.”

The man closed the water menu.

“Just bring me tap water.”

I looked away from that table, and that was when I saw her walking toward me.

The woman arrived at my table and thanked me for letting her join me for dinner.

“That’s no problem,” I said. “OpenTable wouldn’t let me book a table for one.”

She sat across from me and introduced herself as Mr. Porcupine’s lawyer and handler.

They say Mr. Porcupine is wanted in all fifty states.

That is false.

Mr. Porcupine is not wanted in any state.

In fact, all fifty states have formally requested that he remain outside their borders.

He is wanted out of those states.

Every state has issued the same official statement:

“Please keep Mr. Porcupine away from us.

If spotted, do not approach. Spray with water until he leaves the premises. He’s a prick.”

“I met with Mr. Porcupine because of his animal abuse allegations,” she said. “And while I was visiting him in Alcatraz, he told me that you are heartless.”

I sighed.

“I hate admitting that Mr. Porcupine is right, because he is usually wrong.”

“So you admit it?”

“At the moment, yes. I am currently heartless.”

“But I have an explanation,” I said. “My heart is not with me at this time.”

“But I am working on it,” I said. “I am trying to get my heart back.”

“If the raven I sent after it doesn’t succeed, I will put a new engine on my broom and collect it personally.”

“Currently, my broom can only fly within a fifty-mile radius.”

Mr. Porcupine claims he is only in trouble because he tried to be a good Samaritan.

According to him, he was only trying to help a damsel witch in distress retrieve a heart she had misplaced.

“That is not what happened,” I said.

“No. Mr. Porcupine was already heading to the West Coast to find himself, like he saw in a pirated Hollywood movie.”

“The reason I’m trying to talk to you,” she said, “is because I need a letter of reference for Mr. Porcupine.”

“The only kind of reference I can give you is a negative reference.”

“That’s fine.”

“Anything helps.”

“How does a negative reference help?”

“The courts are overwhelmed with paperwork,” she said. “They’ll probably read ‘To Whom It May Concern,’ assume concern was expressed, and keep moving.”

“So you don’t need a good reference.”

“No,” she said. “We need volume.”

“We need to make Mr. Porcupine look important enough that people took time out of their lives to write about their experiences with him.”

“But those experiences are negative.”

“That is still engagement.”

“We understand how the court system works,” she said.

“That is why, on the day of his trial, Mr. Porcupine will be wearing stilts.”

“To make himself appear taller.”

I stared at her in disbelief.

“Studies have shown that people are more likely to be lenient toward defendants who are tall and attractive.”

Mr. Porcupine is a menace wherever he goes.

This is the same porcupine who once woke up an entire neighborhood and demanded that everyone move their cars so he could parallel park on a narrow street.

Because he refuses to take driving lessons.

Mr. Porcupine is now claiming he plans to use animal abuse allegations to get out of his case.

According to him, Officer Cop committed animal abuse during the arrest. Apparently, he tightened the leash around Mr. Porcupine’s neck and nearly broke it.

What his lawyer and handler doesn’t know is that Mr. Porcupine already had a prior injury from a county fair.

He was watching the Olympigs (the pig race) got distracted, fell off the benches, and hurt his neck.

So no, Officer Cop did not injure Mr. Porcupine.

It certainly crossed Officer Cop’s mind.

But he couldn’t turn off his body camera.

Apparently, they are solar-powered now and can’t even be turned off during a bathroom break.

But as soon as the jury hears “police brutality,” they might sympathize with him.

The public may even try to turn him into a saint without a background check.

Do not be surprised if one day, at a Catholic church, they plaster his face over a lesser-known saint.

The lawyer told me that Governor Nuisance was considering pardoning Mr. Porcupine.

“And if none of that works?” I asked.

“Mr. Porcupine is also planning an escape from Alcatraz,” the lawyer said.

“Of course he is.”

“But for that, the cat’s iron claws need to grow back.”

“As you may know,” she continued, “the cat courageously used his iron claws to make a hole in that man’s garage door to extract your heart.”

“Is that why they requested that I send Flintstones iron gummies?”

“Yes,” she said. “To expedite the claw regeneration process.”

“He is protecting the claws.”

The lawyer looked down at her phone.

“Mr. Porcupine is doing everything he can to keep the black cat from accidentally breaking one of his new claws before the escape.”

“Don’t be fooled by Mr. Porcupine’s sudden concern for the black cat,” I said. “He is not protecting him out of kindness. He is protecting his ticket out of Alcatraz.”

“And knowing Mr. Porcupine,” I added, “he has probably already considered using the cat as a flotation device.”

“I saw nothing but remorse in his face,” the lawyer said.

“That is because he got his eyebrows tattooed that way,” I said.

“He tattooed sad eyebrows on his face. That is why he looks remorseful. He is not sorry. He is cosmetically remorseful.”