Thu, 19 May 2005

the safety kings
I hadn’t been to sleep in a while, and thus tried to keep as low a profile as possible in the course of my day, but I couldn’t have been too low profile as an old man with a santa claus beard and a crown made from reinforced tin foil walked up and introduced himself as Nate Tetlow, Safety King. He told me I looked like just the right kind of person to fill in for him as temporary Safety King while he drove his sister to the hospital so she could get her foot looked at. I asked him what was involved in being a Safety King, and he said it’s simple, you just jump in if there’s a particularly unsafe situation and correct, and also advise those who would seek council as to safety-related issues. Safety Kings also get asked to sign on as witnesses for various things, such as marriages and loan applications, as they have the solid community-minded demeanor that inspires trust, but that probably won’t come up, he told me, as I’m only going to be gone for a couple hours. I should have realized that my sleep deprivation made me a poor choice for Safety King, but on the other hand I didn’t have anything else to do (except sleep, and I was trying to stay up until at least dusk, so I said sure, and he gave me the crown and ran to his Jetta and tore ass toward North Cedar in an absolutely unsafe manner. I spent the day watching the neighborhood, my crown riding low and my demeanor kinda zen-gunfighter as I warned kids about kites and powerlines and explaining to a guy in a pea-green track suit how it was I was a Safety King and not, as would be grammatically correct, a Safety Queen (my logic on this is that there is no proper Safety Monarchy, and I am not wed to a Safety King, so overthinking the parallels is just silly; if you wear the crown you’re a Safety King and that’s that). I waited for Nate for about six hours, and he never did show up, so until such time as he contacts me I am considering myself a full-time Safety King, and offer my services in this regard to loyal readers and interested third parties.
(12:14.05.19.2005) [/ana] #