Beef patty breath
An upsetting turn of events, to be sure: you buy a fixer-upper, live there and do your art and make a little money and just try to keep on keepin’ on, only you fall behind with the taxes and the water bill and what have you.
The accounts go to a collection agency, then some fraudulent business organization, “oddly” named Beef Patty Breath, comes along and pays off all your debts—and then, much like chronic, meat-induced halitosis steals your appeal to other human beings, Beef Patty Breath steals your house from you, through some illegal paperwork shuffling plus a possible a lack of due diligence on the part of some beaurocrats.
Some eight years later, the Times prints a story, accompanied by this lovely photo of your old DVDs and cassette tapes, covered with parts of the roof and god knows how many species’ worth of feces.
(Look for my memoir, Species’ Worth of Feces, to be published by ECCO, Spring 2012).
