What the thief is trying to say is...

This isn't a straightforward story.

It all started...well...it ALL started several years ago when God said, "Let there be..." and there was. But more specifically, this little tale started on August 1, 2007, when the I-35W bridge near the Minneapolis campus of the University of Minnesota collapsed:

• The bridge collapsed, killing several and critically wounding several more.


• Four years later, a memorial to the fallen and a message to the standing was dedicated.


• One or two days later, 22 letters of that message were pried off the granite of the memorial and stolen away.

This morning, the local paper printed a list of those stolen 22 letters, wondering if the thief had hidden a message of his or her own that could be made from those letters.

So of course, I put my friend, http://wordsmith.org/anagram/, to work and came up with the following possibilities. Feel free to pick your favorite:

- A Urgently Mismanaged Wow
- A Reanimated Lung Wows Gym
- Emanated A Wry, Glowing Sum
- Swung A Grimy Emanated Owl
- Lemmings Wow A Runty Adage
- Urgently Swim A Mown Adage
- Adage Slew A Ingrown Tummy
- Own A Slummy Garaged Twine
- Winnow A Musty, Garaged Elm
- Summon A Wily, Garaged Newt
- A Mismanaged Rug Went Yowl
- A Mum Gently Wows Drainage
- Town Slew A Gummy Gardenia
- A Granulated, Newsy Mom Wig
- Damage A Mewling, Runty Sow
- Nuns Damage A Wormy Wiglet