Sound "like a waste of time?" Welcome to New Albany, circa 2008.

It’s hard to argue with the year’s top five local stories, as selected today by the Tribune’s editorial team and recorded by Daniel Suddeath.

YMCA comes to New Albany

Battleground state

Mayor vetoes smoking ban

Wacky weather

Secret committee considers closing schools

Although we didn’t reach any firm conclusions at the time, NAC covered this ground a few weeks back: Open thread: What are the local stories of the year?

After deep thought and the helpful convergence of my usual holiday alcoholic binge, which is just the sort of cerebral scrambling necessary to make sense of New Albany, I’ve concluded that the top-ranking story of the year -- lost amid council president Jeff Gahan’s continuing urinary tract vendetta against the Constitution (redistricting) and his divisive and diversionary anti-smoking chimera -- was the city council’s decision to “ban” novelty lighters.

Nothing that occurred in New Albany last year touches so many rich veins of dysfunctional symbolism than G-08-04, as previewed in an April NAC posting: Wouldn't want one of those things going off near a meth lab, would you?

More recently, my colleague Bluegill provided a transcript that brutally summarizes why the novelty lighter ban was so significant. It deserves a marquee slot.

A recent hardware store conversation while standing in the checkout line:

Mrs. Bluegill: Hey, look, lighters made like fishing poles. Aren't those supposed to be illegal?

Cashier: I think they banned them in Kentucky or something.

Me: They banned them here, too. It has something to do with how they're displayed...

Mrs. B:...so that kids can't reach them until they get home.

Cashier: Really? No one told us anything.

Me: I don't remember the details. It seems like the law's oddly worded, so that selling them a certain way is illegal but that it's OK to buy them.

Guy behind us: I wouldn't worry about it. It's completely unenforceable. It's not like they enforce anything anyway.

Cashier: That sounds like a waste of time.

Guy: Yeah, they do that a lot. Kind of like the smoking ban.

Cashier: We have a smoking ban?

Guy: No, the Mayor vetoed it. It was unenforceable, too.

Cashier: Jeez.