Visual Clutter

Don Parsons had never been a particularly patient man. Even in the best of times a red light would send him into a fit of fist waving curses followed by an impatient horn blast the second the offending signal switched to green. Supermarket lines were death to him, he bought a VCR so he wouldn’t have to wait through commercials, ate only microwave food, and got automatic dialing on his telephone- he especially hated it when he had to wait for himself to dial the number.

Don felt that life should be kept uncluttered, free of unnecessary trash that slowed you down, and resented society for installing so many barriers to the efficient execution of his daily duties. He lobbied long and hard for tripling the speed of the elevators in his office building, and pouted for a week when the supervisor turned him down, correctly reasoning that little old ladies and small children would be squashed flat by the G forces encountered on the upward trip. Most of his co-workers still hadn’t
forgiven him for the time (when in search of a swifter entrance and exit) he removed the rest room doors, and some considered it downright strange that he took a stopwatch along on his bathroom breaks, always in search of a more expeditious urination.

Of all the things that made Don wince, the worst was VISUAL CLUTTER.

It was hard enough to process incoming data without the distraction of dancing neon chicken-burgers, velvet Elvis bumper stickers, singing Maxi-Sponge tampons, and his personal anathema, Joey Buttafuoco room deoderizers. God! If there was ONE thing in life he hated, it was VISUAL CLUTTER.

Don, of course, worked for an outdoor advertising agency.

He designed billboards.

Monday, July 27.

It was a day gone bad right from the start. Don’s three minute egg took four minutes to cook. His
velcro shoe closures became hopelessly entangled in the shag carpet, and his bus was a full 27 seconds late. When he finally did get to work, a scant 34 minutes early, a fat woman got stuck in the revolving door and a rescue squad had to be summoned. Don couldn’t wait. He climbed the fire escape.

The day ground on. He was put on hold. Twice. A busload of Japanese tourists arrived at McDonalds ahead of him and insisted on photographing the french fries. When he got on the elevator, someone had pushed all the buttons and he stopped at 57 floors before reaching his own.

His secretary was sick. Her replacement could only speak Portuguese and Swahili.

Someone tacked a piece of paper to the bulletin board announcing the company’s annual broccoli cheesecake and watermelon lasagna picnic.

VISUAL CLUTTER.

That night, on his way home, something happened that changed Don’s life. Caught in a traffic jam for two hours, he looked out the window. Next to the bus sat an old American Motors Pacer. Purple.

Don winced.

He tried not to look, but it kept pulling his eyes toward it like an electromagnet. And worst of all, in the back window hung a small yellow diamond. He looked at it for two hours without blinking.

BABY ON BOARD.

He heard it. In the very back of his mind. It went, “click.”

Nobody saw Don for two weeks after that. He took some of his 72 accumulated days of vacation, ran
up huge bills at the local auto parts and army surplus stores, and disappeared into his garage for hours at a time.

Someone should have known. He paid his phone bill a day late. He turned off the hourly beeper on his watch. He ordered a pizza with everything... and waited for it.

On Monday, August 10th, two weeks to the day after “Black Monday” his neighbors were relieved to see Don emerge in his grey Chevy. He didn’t wave, but that wasn’t unusual, (waving being a great waster of precious time) and headed directly for the Interstate.

As he drove, he sang a little song...

I hate to see them laugh at me
It makes me spit and sputter
The time has come to put an end
To all this VISUAL CLUTTER!

O.K., so it wasn’t Beethoven, he hadn’t had time to do better.

It really didn’t matter. In the long run, nothing mattered.

Don pulled in behind a yellow Taurus station wagon. In the back window hung a matching yellow
sign... BABY ON BOARD. Don chuckled as he depressed a small switch near the turn signal. There was a barely audible hum as a partition slid back in his hood to reveal a pair of anti-tank missiles. “VISUAL CLUTTER!” Don yelled as he thumbed the button on his gear shift, and a flame shot out as the rocket sped away. The yellow Taurus exploded in a satisfying fireball that shattered windows for a block around, and rained debris down on an exultant Don (who hit the brakes as soon as he shot). Not
wanting to waste valuable time gloating, he drove on, and soon spotted a red Volkswagen Jetta dangling the incriminating yellow diamond like a beacon in its window. “Too small for the heavy stuff,” Don decided. Instead he flipped another switch that revealed a .30 calibre machine gun near the headlights. It was a little harder to avoid the crash that time, as he had to be within range to fire. Nevertheless, Don liked the spraying glass and the patterns the bullets made as they stitched through the car, which went into a wild spin before flipping over and wrapping itself around a bridge abutment.

Flushed with joy, it wasn’t long before Don spotted the next car. They were everywhere! VISUAL
CLUTTER! VISUAL CLUTTER!

Don had to laugh at this one, which declared, “CHIHUAHUA IN GLOVE COMPARTMENT.”

“Sorry,” Don said, “no points for humor,” and he laid down an oil slick in front of the hapless motorist. Don saw the man’s eyes go wide as he spun into the opposing lane of traffic and disappeared into the grill of an oncoming garbage truck. Two for the price of one! Don was elated.

He had one close call later that day, a police cruiser with a little yellow “COP ON BOARD” sign that snuck up behind him. Luckily, he still had a few anti-personnel mines left or things could have gotten a bit dicey.

Later that night as he flossed his teeth, (gotta get rid of that dental clutter) Don thought about the future. He imagined a world of Public Television, Instant Cash Machines, Freeze Dried Coffee and Water Piks. He knew he still had a long way to go, but he did have 58 days of vacation remaining, and a lot could be accomplished in that span of time.

He thought about the neutron bomb safely nestled in his trunk.

He didn’t want to use it- he’d really rather not. It had a serious defect.

Although it dispensed with offending scenic litterers quite nicely...

...it left all that VISUAL CLUTTER!