PITTSBURGH - The Ravenstahl administration attended a swanky floating awards dinner aboard the Majestic last night, but forgot to bring Mayor Luke Ravenstahl along. Ravenstahl was napping on the couch in his office when the members of his administration departed for the annual Vectors dinner. By the time anyone realized the Mayor was not with them, the boat had left the dock. "I did a head count right before we boarded," said mayoral spokesman Dick Skrinjar, "but I guess I accidentally counted one of the local skateboard kids as the mayor." A frightened Ravenstahl awoke to an empty City-County building at around 9:00 p.m. At first he was content to get into the sort of mischief a young man gets into when the freedom of being home alone is suddenly foist upon him. But some time after 10 o'clock, he heard a noise in the lobby. He made his way down the steps and saw that two thieves masquerading as delivery men had broken into the building. One of them resembled semi-retired actor Joe Pesci. Ravenstahl quickly ran back to his office on the fifth floor and locked the door. With a flash of inspiration, he pulled out from the closet the life-sized cardboard people that former Mayor Tom Murphy had purchased to be surrogates for the friends he never had. Truth be told, even the cardboard people wanted nothing to do with Murphy. But now Ravenstahl would put them to good use as he rigged them up to motorized contraptions in front of the frosted glass door to make it appear they were moving to and fro. When the burglars slinked onto the fifth floor, they looked through the door of the mayor's office and saw what appeared to be a party in full swing. In fact, it was just one boy.
Eventually the bad men figured out what Luke had done and decided to break into the office. The young mayor knew that it was time for him to become a man so he lured the malefactors inside and proceeded to treat them to all manner of tortures and humiliations, from covering them with glue and feathers to repeatedly striking them in the face with flying paint cans. By the time the police arrived just after midnight, the burglars gladly gave themselves up. Shortly thereafter the Mayor's administration returned from the dinner. When they learned what had transpired, they had a new respect for Luke.
"I think we've misjudged Master Ravenstahl," said mayoral spokesman Dick Skrinjar. "Tonight, he showed us he's a man."
