**Facebook Username:** Pete "The Patriot" Kowalski From Over on Maple Street

Facebook Username: Pete “The Patriot” Kowalski from over on Maple Street

Group: Springfield Community Watch & Chat

Post:

You know what really grinds my gears? The city spent $50,000 on those “eclipse viewing glasses” for the library. FIFTY THOUSAND. And for what? So people could stand in the parking lot for three minutes staring at a cloud bank that rolled in at 1:58? Common sense folks.

Back in my day we looked at a solar eclipse using a welder’s helmet or a pinhole in a cereal box. You know, making do. Not spending the equivalent of a new used Honda Civic on cardboard glasses that the mailman is probably gonna throw away by Tuesday.

But here’s the kicker—and this is the part nobody is talking about. My neighbor Dave, who runs the Little League, pointed out his security camera caught a Hertz rental van pulling into the empty lot behind the abandoned Kmart at exactly 3:15 p.m. The van had no plates. It was there for the entire 52 minutes of the partial phase, then booked it.

Nobody is asking why a rental van with no tags was sitting in a dark parking lot during a once-in-a-lifetime natural event. Was it a stakeout? Was someone tracking birds? Or was it, as my wife says, just a guy looking at the sky? I say use your head. Common sense says if you’ve got nothing to hide, you don’t hide in the dark during the most obvious time of the day.

Wake up, folks. The eclipse was a distraction.

#EclipseGate #CommonSense #MapleStreetWatch