A hunt for a naked man launched a three-day murdering spree that spread across two cities.

No, that’s not the top headline of today’s Andalusia Star-News; it’s the headline to my week. And before you ask, no actual human beings were harmed in the making of this column.

It started Friday, just before the middle school’s Veteran’s Day program. For the better part of two days, the newsroom had been running around like chickens with their heads cut off covering “Absolutely Andalusia: Homecoming 2010” events. That all came to a stop when the call came across the scanner of a naked man at the corner of MLK and Sixth Avenue.

My boss said, “We haven’t had anything that interesting in the paper in a while.” As I agreed with her, I grabbed my notebook and camera and headed out the door.

In the newspaper business, that story was what we call a “Gee, golly Martha” story. Let me explain – old man sitting at the breakfast table picks up the paper and exclaims, “Gee, golly, Martha! You see that nekkid man on the front page?”

Well, out the door I went. My mother and I had switched vehicles so that she could pick up my girls from school that day, so I was driving the S-10. I spotted the ambulance in the parking lot of Hook’s BBQ, so I parked and looked around.

No naked man.

As the ambulance pulled out of the lot to head down Sixth, I quickly slid into the driver’s seat to crank the trruck. Click-click. Crap.

CasualtyNo. 1 – a Chevrolet S-10.

Four hours later, I made it back to the office after being drug by a Ford F-150 and a chain down to Wing, but that’s a whole other column.

Now, on to the second fatality.

Saturday was the last day of soccer (thank you, Jesus) and the HC 2010 air show. Armed with the office camera, I attempted to memorialize both.

It was a no-go, and casualty No. 2 – a Cannon Rebel XS.

The trend continued Saturday evening, when I lost my closest work friend in the world – my Blackberry.

All I have to say about that murder was it was completely and totally 100 percent my fault. You know how folks say, “It’s all fun until someone gets hurt?” They’re right. That birthday party was great until my phone slid out of my jacket pocket and fell keyboard down, into a cup of Mountain Dew.

I shed a tear over that one. Granted, it was a tear of frustration, but it was still a tear.

Since then, I was feeling pretty good about things since I hadn’t killed anything since Saturday. That was until I got into the office Tuesday and my boss said her iMac had died.

I think it might have been a virus….she caught from me.