Roadside Attraction 2/2

I had to move out, because one beautiful morning, I awoke to some shuffling on the porch. I looked to the front door, and a square shadow appeared among the holes there, in a kind of reverse window. Looking out, I saw a man retreating to his car.

He shouted a word over his shoulder as he walked down the sidewalk, but I couldn’t hear him well, what with the dulcet alphorns I play through a sound system on my front porch.

I shouted- “What?”

“Croutons!” I thought he shouted, again. I stood on the porch and scratched my head. The alphorns honked.

“I don’t sell croutons!” I shouted back, over the horns. Sometimes people would come up thinking that my house was a shop. He turned a bit as he stomped away, pointed at my door and shouted, I think-

“Get ‘em!”

I shouted back. “But I don’t sell anything here! This isn’t a restaurant!”

The man, who was about thirty-five, and if you ask me, looked like a real estate agent on a weekend, was walking sidewise, trying to engage me whilst retreating. He made it to his Taurus, opened the door, and shouted back at me-

“Condemned!” Now I could see his bureaucratic pallor brought out from the sunlight bouncing off the walls of my Swiss Cheese house. I felt a chill, and swung the door a bit to see the classic yellow notice on the other side, which, at least, matched. I stood in the yellow glow amidst the soothing toots and considered my next move.

I heard sniggering through the knothole in the fence. I looked over, and-

“So much effort! Better spent building a real business. Or getting a degree…or certification. In something.”

“Like what,” I asked Tom, “Actuary Science?”

“Among other things.”

I motioned back to the notice on the door.

“What’s the odds of this happening?”

More sniggering.

“I’m sure it’s in the billions to one.”

Soon the ants were finished and left because of the cold. Since then, I’ve been waiting for the house to fall down, so I can issue a claim. But, it won’t. An inspector came by, then made a run back to his office for a special AI camera that determined that the holes on all four sides of my house were so evenly spaced that they provide even more support to the house than before. How? I don’t know. I’m no Buckminster Fuller. My house is now a big yellow inverted sieve, of the best design.

The declaration of structural stability added a further crimp with the insurance claim on the house. I would say that the pace of that claim has become glacial, but that term doesn’t work anymore. The claim is moving at the speed of climate change accords.

Oscar and I sit and wait, and when there are visitors, we pile out of “Chez Rubbermaid” to greet them, with Oscar stretching and rubbing against their legs. I tell the visitors all the wretched details that I know. I ran an extension cord to the shed and brought my toaster out here. I listen to the public radio and eat peanut butter toast and apples. That’s all the nutrients one needs! Oscar even likes a bit of crust now and then, but he’s still partial to his Friskies. Of course, I vary my diet out here. But, mostly it’s peanut butter toast and apples for me.

Visits are sporadic throughout daylight hours. The visitors ask me if I still live in the house, and I tell them that I don’t, because it’s condemned. And that I can’t cheat, because, with all the holes, I could be easily seen. They ask if the cat likes living in the rubber shed. I tell them that it all was his idea in the first place. If he gets bored, there’s always the spiders. One guy had the gall to ask me how I could say that I had the world’s tallest Jenga tower if I used glue on it. That was the only time I have become indignant with a visitor, telling him-

“Glue, glue, glue. It’s the world’s tallest Jenga tower. That’s a fact. Would you deny the Empire State Building its glory for all the rivets?”

And, of course, visitors always ask if the house is actually made of Swiss Cheese. To that question, I use a response Tom taught me: That the house isn’t made of Swiss, but it’s all just one molecule away from being American Cheese.

Hope springs, though! I’ve done some research into how I can make the place a “Curiosity Corner” roadside attraction branch. First, you have to put up a plaque that says that a meteor fell on the spot, and that things have been strange ever since. Or, that a strange glow was observed. And, I feel that I wouldn’t be lying with that. A rock must have fallen here at some point, and there has to have been a time when people here were saying- “What’s that strange glow?”, although I wasn’t here to see it. Ok. Then secondly you put up a collection box and thirdly set up strange things for the visitors to lay their eyes on or participate in. I’ve been putting down a sidewalk that looks flat, but it actually goes up at an eight percent grade. So you go up the walk, and- “Hey! Woah!”, it’s taking much more effort than it should for a level walk, and you wonder if you’re having a syncope or if there was something in that Slurpee you just drank. It’s fun! I can’t wait until it’s finished and all cured to see if it fools me, even after I built the thing. Oscar helps. Tom cheers me on through the knothole.

Late last night I saw Oscar stiffen as he looked at something through a crack between the shed doors. Then, in the morning we both lifted head from pillow and tended to some early visitors. I noticed a couple of large crowbars leaning against the fence near the donation can as the visitors left. And there was a lot in the can! Like, fifty dollars, including ones and change. The only explanation I can think of is that two or more people had come by my house in the night to vandalize it, and were so impressed with the totality of the ruin that they abandoned their mission and left money and tools, giving credit where credit is due.