WKYT meteorologist Micah Harris was abuzz with excitement earlier this week when he paid a visit to The Botany Bay, innocently hoping the employees there could provide him with some expert tips for the vegetable garden he plans to grow later this spring, completely oblivious to the fact that the Botany Bay is actually a store that specializes in, well, you know.

The staff at the Botany Bay (conveniently located at 420 E New Circle Road, because, well, you know) seemed disoriented and slightly confused. Then Harris entered the premises seeking advice about growing garden vegetables, causing the employees to become even more dazed and disorganized.

“As a scientist myself, it’s always fun when I get to interact with scientists from a different field. Which is why I wanted to pick the brain of those botanists,” Harris said. “I’m hoping to have the best vegetable garden at WKYT this year, and I figure there’s no one that knows their way around greenery better than the fine botanical experts at the Botany Bay.”

Compelled to avoid disappointing Harris, employees tried their best to provide him with the help he needed. They gave him the phone number of a local gardening center while trying not to giggle every time Harris mentioned the words ‘cabbage’ and ‘lettuce.’

“I’m glad they gave me the information for another gardening expert,” Harris told us. “I feel like I came away with a really good contact.”

After over a month on the job Lumber Liquidators employee Mark Bunyan still doesn’t completely understand what the company does. “It’s kind of confusing here,” Mark said. “I mean I come in here, push some papers around a desk and leave at five. I see some lumber come in here every now and then, but if we’re being honest I have no idea how they liquify it.”

Bunyan, who works in accounting, says he was given a tour of the facility when he started but still doesn’t seem to grasp the idea of liquidation. “We walked around but maybe they like to keep it a secret I guess? I’d really like to know, do they melt it, put it in some huge blender or something? I don’t know. Sure would like to learn how that wood juice gets made though.”

After reflecting on it for a few minutes Bunyan realized not only did he not know how the wood was liquified, he’d never even seen the finished product his company seemed to peddle. “What is liquid wood anyway? I’ve never seen it for sale. Is that sap? I don’t really know what sap is either. I might be in over my head here at this job.”

Today is International Women’s Day, and people across the globe are participating in A Day Without A Woman events to highlight the power and importance of women economically, socially, and politically. People can participate in multiple ways. Women can take the day off from paid and unpaid labor, avoid shopping for one day, or simply wear red to show support and solidarity with the cause. However, LEX 18 Chief Meteorologist Bill Meck will show his support in a different way, as he plans to avoid using the term “Mother Nature” throughout the day.

“It’s a big deal for Bill Meck to not say Mother Nature,” said one LEX 18 staffer. “There are stories from old meteorological mythology that suggest Bill was actually raised by Mother Nature.”

Meck has been searching all week for phrases to use in place of Mother Nature. He considered an assortment of synonyms, including Uncle Elements, Cousin Climate, and Family Friend Troposphere, but we’ve been told he will settle on using Old Man Atmosphere.

Other men around the LEX 18 studio will also participate in their own way. Alan Cutler plans to listen to Bob Marley’s “No Woman, No Cry” on repeat all day, while Kevin Christopher will use more makeup than usual on half of his face and then alternate between cameras reading the news by himself. Meanwhile, Lee Cruse plans to participate in A Day Without An HR Complaint.

The women of LEX 18 will be gathered at Dorian Craft’s house, where she has a marathon of HBO’s gritty crime drama The Wire planned. Steve Butera will also be there.

“I just really like The Wire,” Butera told us, “but Cutler keeps changing his HBO Go password.

Jim Gray made headlines this week by finally putting an end to one of the most notorious cartels in Lexington, the cartel running amok in Columbia Steakhouse. Gray was finally able to bring down Columbia Steakhouse kingpin Pablo “Nighthawk” Saladbar.

“They were using something called ‘Columbia Steak Express’ to distribute their product all over our good town, and that was just not acceptable,” said DEA (Digesting/Eating Animals) Agent Hank “Lamb Shank” Shrader. “They had runners taking steak and chicken all over this town. We busted a few distributors but we really needed to get the big dog himself.”

During one steakout at the home of the nighthawk, officers were shocked to find out the true ingredients of the establishment’s lamb fries. “This was just one of what we assume are many deceptions, I’m not sure what part of the lamb we thought this would be, but certainly not that,” explained Shrader.

“It’s rare to be able to pick up someone like this so we wanted to make sure we got our man,” former vice mayor Gray said. “This was a job well done.”

Winchester’s former vice mayor Tim Slate thrilled residents this week when he unveiled a brand new, stunning, above-ground Centrepointe. While it won’t be filled with Ale-8 and open for swimming until after Memorial Day the buzz is already exciting residents across the town.

We spoke with a Winchester resident who insisted his name was only Carl (and then produced a driver’s license to prove he had no last name). Carl compared Winchester’s Centrepointe very favorably with Lexington’s, “Look, we’ll get ours up and going in a couple of days, just have to get an air compressor and inflate it. Y’all Lexington folk can fill yours in with parking garages or whatever, but us, we’re gonna fill ‘er up with Ale-8, straight from the hose, and watch them pretty girls walk by. We’re not lookin’ for world equestrian games, but we wouldn’t mind some Marco Polo.”

While many residents are excited about the potential for their Centrepointe in the summer months, former vice mayor Slate has made it very clear this is not just a seasonal project. “I know in Lexington they put up a big fence and then as soon as it gets under 50 degrees or over 54 degrees they’re not allowed to do any work on it but not us.”

Slate laid out his plans for a year round Centrepointe saying, “come next winter we’re gonna toss some bass in there and have some ice fishing.” When we asking if bass could survive in Ale-8 the former vice mayor pointed to a singing Big Mouth Billy Bass on his office wall and said, “I caught that last week.”

Former Vice Mayor Slate said “this thing is going to get better and better, after we do 8 years of construction, imagine how many decks and slides this baby is gonna have!”