As I sit anxiously waiting my “Zombie Nativity” T-shirt to arrive in the mail—which I got for donating to the legal defense fund of the Zombie Nativity owners, Jasen and Amanda Dixon—and you can get one of your very own by making a contribution here—I learn that Mr. Dixon is in trouble with the “authorities” again, albeit indirectly. It’s really his friend, Dustin Smith, who could potentially get pinched. The two guys put some zombie parts—it goes without saying, doesn’t it, that they were made out of rubber and plastic?—in a small frozen pond in the Dixon’s backyard. Smith then took some pictures and posted them to Facebook. How could that possibly have gotten him into hot water? Because the fictitious story he concocted for the photographs, that he discovered the parts under the ice at nearby East Fork Lake, led some nimrod to call the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, who sent somebody, they claimed, out to the lake to check for dead bodies.
I’m sure the DNR didn’t find the joke funny, but what are they gonna do, really? The pond where the zombies were submerged was on private property, and it was neither of the two pranksters who made the telephone call. Nor is there any law that things one posts on Facebook must be factual. The DNC, then, can stew, but they’re gonna have a hard time digging up any charges to file over this one. Why can’t people take a joke these days?