Fear and Loathing in Piedmont
Hard times are upon us all. It's June 2009. Though nj escaped the big layoff in December of 08, Adobe has finally cut his team too. We were so confident that with his talent and pay-grade that he'd always have good work, but we're being evicted. My deepest anxieties are made reality.
My garden was just taking shape. My dwarf trees are beginning to fruit, and I must leave them. I won't be able to walk my poofy little dog through my pretty, friendly, safe neighborhood. Miranda will never attend the excellent school district we worked so hard to enter for her. And I am a vortex of stuff. We have so many things, books, tchotchkes. Oh God. My studio takes months to disassemble, and there's no time. I need more time to pack, more time to sell stuff, more time to donate things, but today, the Repo Clowns have come, and they're serving their bright orange and lime-green over-sized repossession warrants to everyone including the Pomeranian.
A subversive website a friend pointed me to advises disobedience. Repo clowns can't resist combat, especially if there is potential for comedy, so they have a strong tendency to walk straight into traps. I'm finding that while open windows, greased bathtubs, and jury-rigged trebouchets are all helpful, the most effective trap seems to be marbles. We collage artists all have a lot of marbles. They're de rigueur, just like clock gears, plaster dental casts, and glass doll eyes. I take my crate of marbles and strategically roll handfuls of them under the feet of the onslaught of clowns. Their arms flap madly and their feet fly out from beneath them. They hit the ground padded butts first and unseen cymbals crash loudly as they hit. Their bright red noses honk with anger. Nj nets them and hurls them into oversized moving boxes addressed to Post Restante, Upper Volta.
We are safe for the moment. But tomorrow they'll send reinforcements, and if they have suction cup clown shoes, we are surely doomed.
My garden was just taking shape. My dwarf trees are beginning to fruit, and I must leave them. I won't be able to walk my poofy little dog through my pretty, friendly, safe neighborhood. Miranda will never attend the excellent school district we worked so hard to enter for her. And I am a vortex of stuff. We have so many things, books, tchotchkes. Oh God. My studio takes months to disassemble, and there's no time. I need more time to pack, more time to sell stuff, more time to donate things, but today, the Repo Clowns have come, and they're serving their bright orange and lime-green over-sized repossession warrants to everyone including the Pomeranian.
A subversive website a friend pointed me to advises disobedience. Repo clowns can't resist combat, especially if there is potential for comedy, so they have a strong tendency to walk straight into traps. I'm finding that while open windows, greased bathtubs, and jury-rigged trebouchets are all helpful, the most effective trap seems to be marbles. We collage artists all have a lot of marbles. They're de rigueur, just like clock gears, plaster dental casts, and glass doll eyes. I take my crate of marbles and strategically roll handfuls of them under the feet of the onslaught of clowns. Their arms flap madly and their feet fly out from beneath them. They hit the ground padded butts first and unseen cymbals crash loudly as they hit. Their bright red noses honk with anger. Nj nets them and hurls them into oversized moving boxes addressed to Post Restante, Upper Volta.
We are safe for the moment. But tomorrow they'll send reinforcements, and if they have suction cup clown shoes, we are surely doomed.