WHAT A HORROR SHOW

[schlomo]

What a Horror Show

The other day in my condo’s parking lot, I was ready to wipe up some of the filth that had adhered to my Mazda (mostly grunge deposited by birds). At the same time, I was startled to hear a young man nearby grappling with his friends. They tried to restrain him from going after a woman whom he cursed with a garden-variety heap of expletives. I didn’t discover what just what the woman had done to him; but considering the verbal violence he threatened in a flurry of F-bombs, the woman (whether his current or former girlfriend, his boss or co-worker or even his mother or sister) was depicted as a harpy who delighted in having a monstrous hold on him. For at least five-minutes, he continued his tirade, never mentioning exactly what his grievance was. The young man was unhinged—his face was flushed, his voice was increasingly menacing, and he was obsessed with his pursuit of vengeance against a formidable abusive foe who has somehow wronged him.

Sometimes, I’d like to be a fly on the wall so that I could tease out and fathom interactions (justifiable or not) between people. Yesterday, I was more like an emasculated gnat that overheard incomplete and perhaps misleading information about a complicated, contentious situation.

I felt like asking the young man to help me get rid of the bird crap, a symbol of the degenerate female who has tormented him. Scrubbing away the debris on my car could relieve his stress and begin the process of emotional healing that could well be reinforced by further cleaning within his domain.

I certainly can relate. When I was much younger, I had an ulterior motive in cleaning my house. Every dirt particle was a blotch on our democracy perpetrated by ultra-right-wing fanatics masquerading as super patriots in the John Birch Society. In fact, I once wrote a high school essay about how passionate I was about cleaning. It was not merely a chore: it enabled me to take out my frustrations against pre-MAGA enemies of the state. Cleaning anything can be cathartic. It sure makes sweeping, vacuuming, and dusting more enjoyable. I used to envision myself as the terminator against the malevolent forces that threaten our personal liberties.

Now that IVF (in vitro fertilization) has been banned in some red states, I expect that my cleaning will help me confront the dangers of our home-grown fascism that must be uprooted for America to continue to be a bastion of freedom throughout the world.