Haiku/Gesundheit (Volume XLXII)

on seeing 30 seconds of jerry springer on a television with rabbit ears
(or, "funny how static changes perception")

today's show features
a butter love triangle
talk about messy

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on being hit on at the laundromat by an admitted gang banger

you seem nice enough
but you've clearly been smoking
hey, where's your laundry?

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talk about a weird night

i'm done with laundry
till i have my own machines
so what if i stink

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on almost being killed in the ghetto
(or, "thanks to the city police for shutting down an important road late at night")

there's no place to turn
so i turn south and then west
worst detour ever

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ok, so i wasn't almost killed but you get the idea

bars on all windows
and embers of death falling*
from broken wires



*We were driving late at night in honest-to-goodness gang territory — one of the most unsafe neighborhoods in the city, where weekly some innocent person (oftentimes, sadly, a child) gets caught in the crossfire of rivaling gangs. While ascertaining I maintained at least a full car length between us and the car ahead (so we could do a 180 if necessary), I then had to take evasive measures to dodge sparks — actual, electrical SPARKS — flying down from above. Washington cleverly termed these "falling embers of death." We decided at one point that our commute home was something straight out of Grand Theft Auto.