Greenport Gertie, World Famous Mermaid...

"Long Island Press; By Timothy Bolger on August 22nd, 2011
A 23-year-old man was arrested for drunken boating after he crashed his vessel into a jetty in Greenport Harbor over the weekend, Southold Town Police said.
Herbert Israel was navigating his boat eastbound when the crash occurred with three passengers aboard at 2:41 a.m. Saturday, police said."

Greenport Gertie Strikes Again!
It’s all in the story.....

“Now, Joe, we just gotta get our story right and really sell it to the authorities when they get here.”
“I dunno, Pete. Maybe we should just confess and say we’re tanked.”
“What ? And deny the cops the pleasure of hearing creative excuses and the challenge of punching holes in our story? They live for those challenges. And we’re taxpayers, we gotta make them work for their money.”
“Well, hell, Captain Morgan and I agree. You logic is unpacable, I mean deflatable, ineffible, well, we’ll just say it’s clear.”
“We need a big story, Joe. Man, we are way up on this friggin’ jetty. How about we were swerving to avoid the ferry?”
“Nope, Captain Morgan sez the ferry moves too slow, besides, they don’t run after 1:30 a.m.”
“What about the Greenport mermaid, Joe? They got a little mermaid tied to the dock at the Greenport ferry, maybe we could say that we saw her glow and come to life and flop off the dock....you know....X-Files stuff. And we were trying to catch her so that....so that...”
“So that she’d grant us three wishes. You get wishes with a mermaid right?”
“No, Joe, I think you get wishes with a genie. But hey, it’s our mermaid.....she could be Greenport Gertie, the Wishing Mermaid of ancient fishing lore...get it, fishing lore, fishing lure...it’s one of them double nintndo’s.”
“Captain Morgan says, Yes! He loves him a mermaid. Greenport Gertie it is. But what does she do?”
“She’s a siren. From the story of Ulysseus, or Ossissfuss, you know, that Greek story, the Illiyak and the Odessaurus....you know....and the sirens are beautiful women who scream at sailors so loud they can’t stand it and crash their boats on the reef jus to get away from them screaming banshees.”
“Banshees is Irish, Pete. But the Captain says, she can be a screaming Irish mermaid. You know how all mermaids wear shell for a bra? Gertie has big shamrocks, giant shamrocks.”
”Holy Moly - the police boat is here. Remember, Joe, it was Greenport Gertie.”

“....... and that’s the whole story, Occifer. We’ll swear to it on your mother’s grave.”

“Damn, handcuffs are tight, eh, Joe?”
“We almost had it, Pete. They were buying the story until you blew it.”
“What? What did I say?”
“Everybody knows giant shamrocks don’t grow underwater, Pete. You should’ve stuck with regular shamrocks.”