As I was checking my fan mail yesterday….. What? You didn’t know my blog has a fan club? Well, of course it does–it’s a very popular destination on the web, and I most certainly do have a fan club (Hi, Michelle!) Anyway, my fan…s wrote yesterday and inquired as to whether POW/MIA flag man was the same one who has the living room on his front porch, and sleeps out there like some old homeless guy. He is, indeed, but the “living room” has grown to a cross between a yard sale and a train wreck, and I realised that complain as I have, I’ve never posted a picture. Not that any picture (particularly one surreptitiously taken as I pretend to be shooting my own house) could possibly capture the ambience of this decor, but I did my best. So, adoring fan….s, may I present….Yard Sale House!

I took this from across the street, and although it fails to capture the gory details, you can get a good idea of the amount of clutter here. There’s a sofa on the left (complete with mismatched blankets and pillows) and on the right, a table and chairs, plus a gas barbeque (which would be fine on its own). I like the little flower border along the walk, but a few little flowers can’t atone for all of that junk, clutter and plastic. Overall, the effect is a yard sale gone very, very wrong. Do bear in mind that our houses are close to the street, no fences, and that NOBODY ELSE IN THE ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD HAS A MESS LIKE THIS. Hey, fuckwad–this is your front, PUBLIC porch, it’s not your living room and we don’t want to see the crap you bought at Wal-Mart. Our neighbors are, for the most part, elderly people who keep their property neat and don’t bother anyone. If you drove down our street and saw this, you’d immediately think of Sesame Street, as in “one of these things is not like the others”. We understand that you’re probably just over-enthusiastic because you couldn’t decorate the blocked-up 1979 Trans-Am where you used to live, but back it off a little, willya! The black rectangle on the left of the door isn’t really there, that’s where I blanked out the house number to protect the innocent (me, since this goddamn mess is next door).

Here’s a shot taken from my front porch. It’s a bit dark, and the railing somewhat obscures the true effect, but you can see that there’s hardly an inch of space that isn’t cluttered by SOMETHING, and there’s shit hanging all over the place. One more tacky grapevine wreath and I’m not responsible for anything I do. The bicycle is fine (it’d probably get stolen if it were in the back yard), and okay, I can see a barbeque if there’s nowhere else to put it, but who the FUCK has a dining room set, a collection of mismatched folding chairs and a sofa ON THE FRONT FUCKING PORCH? I particularly like the plastic eagle, wicker basket of yellow plastic flowers and (beside it) the plastic Yorkshire terrier. The three-foot plastic palm tree with the lights on it is on the other side, so you’re spared the agony. The flags, the flags, oh Christ, the flags. Yes, dickface, we get it–you’re American, and you’re patriotic. Now could you do it with a little more style and class so I don’t have to LOOK AT THIS SHIT?

On a brighter note, SP just opened the door and the stench of the room is better than usual. Only the stale urine smell today, not the raw sewage. Yay.