SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Concealed by a canopy of massive eucalyptus trees that line Bennington Vale’s Andover tract is Donkey Dell Park -- a forgettable, squalid, dingy patch of grass that had its sod laid before construction of the first homes began in the late 1960s. While most residents in San Narciso visit the county’s sprawling recreational areas to swim, play tennis, exercise, ride horses or just enjoy a warm day in a beautiful setting, the teens of Bennington Vale seldom stray from Donkeydell Park. Despite its unfortunate name -- the origins of which have remained a source of dispute and mystery for decades -- Donkeydell endures as a nostalgic oasis for neighborhood millennials. The park happens to be the fetid, nasty place where most of them lost their virginity -- and where, according to their parents, they were also conceived. But government officials want to close it down. Local millennials refuse to let that happen without a fight.

Filthy Eyesore Rich with Filthy Memories

The entrance to Donkeydell offers little to the untrained eye. The field is a rolling swath of brown and yellow grass, the length of two football fields. Farther back, one may discover the ruins of a wooden fort, an incomplete playground with rusted fixtures, and a concrete pit that had been intended for a pool. The strange and disquieting sign still hangs. Despite repeated attempts to remove, dismantle and vandalize the marquee, it inevitably reappears in its original condition. The wooden placard depicts a hobbled jackass pinned down by a fallen tree; a farmer attempts to help it stand by whipping its haunches while pushing its backside with his pelvis. But Donkeydell has a much richer history than other parks in the country. And like most facets of San Narciso, nothing is what it seems.

Mayor Manny DiPresso, however, believes the park is exactly what it seems: a dilapidated, unfinished beacon sordid activities that is taking up valuable land the county could reallocate to more profitable pursuits, such as commercial real estate ventures or landfills.

“Donkeydell is an eyesore and just a weird, creepy place to stop,” DiPresso said. “I drove past it late one night and saw a guy with an ice cream cart out front, ringing a melancholy little bell in the dark. It was close to midnight. What could be more unwholesome than that?”

DiPresso also lamented the tragic condition of the grounds: “My understanding is that much of it was abandoned when funding was diverted to build the Lake Inverarity recreational area -- a much more impressive facility. Donkeydell is an empty, outdated waste of land. It doesn’t even get any sunlight because of the excessive tree cover. Then there’s that odor. Some idiotic city planner decided to plant Bradford Pear trees all along the periphery. So the place always smells like a gay bath house near a beach at low tide...on a humid day.”

Donkeydell also abuts the orange groves that dominate the property of the infamous Inverarity estate. The park’s proximity to this dense and otherwise inaccessible orchard has made it a haven for rapists.

“If folks stopped going there and wandering too close to the Inverarity’s land -- and we all know about the questionable breeding situation with the family’s heirs -- then the papers would quit reporting the constant discovery of mutilated remains and sexually battered girls who, for some reason, always seem to be employed by Abercrombie and Fitch,” DiPresso added. “It’s giving people in other cities the wrong impression of our suburban splendor. For God’s sake, we’re not Hollister or Fontana, but it’s easy to draw parallels with this crap finding its way into the news.”

Other prominent members of the community, who agree with DiPresso about Donkeydell being the armpit of the county, doubt the purity of his motives. They worry that DiPresso, under pressure from a growing faction of liberals, has designs to transform the park into a HUD housing zone to profit off the tax incentives.

Mike Fallopian, Yoyodyne executive and chairman of the conservative Peter Pinguid Society, lives near Donkeydell and sees no improvements arising from creating a low-income housing area.

“Nobody’s a fan of rape, but what can you do about it?” Fallopian said. “it doesn’t happen all the time. It probably wouldn’t happen at all if girls who worked at the mall dressed more modestly. I mean, this year the incidence rates dropped from eight to three girls a month. But if we start allowing poor people to live in exclusive communities, rape will be the least of our worries. We’ll be facing home invasions, robberies, property devaluation, Korean grocery stores, ethnic restaurants, and maybe Baptist or Catholic churches going up. We already have a Catholic church and a Taco Bell. I’d rather live with the occasional Donkeydell rape.”

Park Integral Part of Millennials’ Nostalgic Puberty

The adults can argue the merits or dangers of Donkeydell until they turn blue in the face, but Bennington Vale millennials claim the park as an integral aspect of their transition from children to adults.

“Apart from my priest, which doesn’t strictly count, Donkeydell Park is where I lost my virginity,” Roger Tresdon, 25, told the Evening Transcript. His girlfriend Treena, 20, described a similar experience, except with her father and not a priest. More importantly, she also had her first legitimate sexual experience at Donkeydell Park.

“Everyone I know did it at Donkeydell first. Our parents deflowered each other there. Most of us wouldn’t be here without that filthy park. I lost my innocence there too, in that muddy wood fort with Tobias Bernson. And his stupid friend Brad, but only because he said he had some meth. Which he didn’t. Although the sex was horrible, it prepared me for more meaningful encounters I would have later. All at Donkeydell.”

“You can’t do anything around this lame town without your parents bearing down on you,” Tresdon continued. “They don’t want you to grow up until the day they ship you off to Stanford or Yale. And they can’t relate to us. Donkeydell is the only place we can go to experiment, to learn, and to move from puberty to maturity. This is our rite of passage, especially since they installed those surveillance cameras in the school parking lot and under the bleachers.”

Tresdon and nearly 20 other young adults have organized a protest group to preserve not only Donkeydell Park but its legacy and influential role in helping shape their young lives.

(c) 2017. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. All articles are works of satire. See disclaimers.