I've given in. I've joined up. I've finally taken responsibility for my life. I've started a business. I'm my own man now. Yes sir. Alright. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Ohhhhh. Yes.
For a very modest fee, I will sit on your front porch and dip your lawn statuary into different colored pots of paint, then leave them to dry.
It's booming. It's all word of mouth. I never knew what I was good at. Never knew my place. Now I do. I'm a citizen again.
I sit there with gloved hand, carefully dipping your gnomes and whistling frog ornaments into gray paint. Or yellow. Some people have a preference. That's fine.
And I always dip them under face first. I'll hold a rabbit ornament, I'll hold its head under the paint and count: One-Agatha Christie, Two-Agatha Christie, Three-Agatha Christie…all the way to ten. Then up, rotate, and back in for more.
And oh the children watch. From indoors. I insist they be taken inside first. And they gather at the picture window and monitor everything I do. It's better than Christmas. “This could be your life someday,” I tell them by holding up a sign, “You could have a purpose.” And oh, how they smile and clap or get real quiet.
They watch as I dip squirrel statue after squirrel statue into stinking army green paint and then lay them atop each other in a shallow gave dug by their parents.
And I have success because I wanted it. I wanted to do this. This is what I, of sound mind and body, chose to spend my days doing. Drowning inanimate yard totems in paint.
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