MICHELE DUTCHER - ENTRY TO ALL THINGS DUTCHER

Hello fellow slackers and slacker seekers.  I am an author of sorts, living in Old Louisville and have written six mini books about the lifes and loves of me and my slacker loser friends.  The books can be accessed on this website.  My oldest son is going to help me make sure you CAN get there from here.  It may take a while, but i'll try to fix it all up ASAP.  I sold these minis by the hundreds for five bucks flat, but offer them to you, the savoy e-users for gratis.  enjoy fellow slackers

Q. How do you get an author off your porch?

A.  Pay for the pizza.

               WORKER BEES AND BOTTOM DWELLERS

The man next door is the perfect example of a good American worker bee.  The man next door is maybe 68, and he is: retired from a solid local company; he served for four years in the military during the Korean Conflict; he has a plump wife who is consistent with a stable American lifestyle; he is balding and chunky; and he is always casual-polite whenever I walk past.

By 8 A.M. on this fine Sunday morning, the man next door has been working in his garden for two hours tilling the soil again and banging little wooden signposts into the earth.  These wooden stakes will show his visitors what kind of vegetables will be growing there.

I am not a good American worker bee.  I am a bottom dweller.  People like me suck up, fight over, and squander whatever is left over or left behind by good people like my neighbor.  To give an example: me and the Lost Boys infest the mansions in Old Louisville left behind by the millionaires of the early 1800s.  These stately homes were built for families when the higher-ups had ten kids apiece.  Stone, brick, stained glass, fireplaces, hardwood floors, and oak staircases: all this was left behind by the rich before they swept further out of the city with their Caddies and their BMWs.  Much as rats swarm into boxes left behind by people, bottom dwellers have turned these houses into apartments and

                    Me and my Peeps, We live there for Cheaps.

For a bottom dweller, the time between 8 A.M. and 1 P.M. on any Sunday morning is dead space.  This is especially true in a Southern city like Louisville, KY.  Being part of the Bible Belt means you can’t buy a drink, or go to a mall, or play with the computers at the library until after church lets out.  Everything in Dixie is closed up tight until one fucking o’clock on Sunday.

At 8 A.M. I still can’t sleep because I didn’t have enough money to drink on last night.  If I don’t drink, I don’t sleep.  So I pry myself out of bed.  I throw on an oversized tee shirt that’s only been worn once since washday (which was three weeks ago), a blue cotton skirt, and black combat boots, and I tromp down the stairs in a stumble.  When the sunlight hurts my eyes, I slide my cheap sunglasses over my eyes.  I wave politely to the worker bee next door and I make a silent vow to not do anything today that is profitable.

Around 8:30 I walk into the coffeehouse at Hill and 4^th.  See, that’s wrong.  Nobody in the Ville would say, ‘Hill and 4^th’ – it’s always ‘4^th and Hill’ or ‘3^rd and Ormsby’ or ‘1^st and Broadway’.    I don’t know why it’s like that, it just is.  That’s like the other things we know around here.  Things like:

1.     No bottom dweller ever works on Derby, no matter how much you need the money.

2.   When all else fails, selling plasma on Crum’s Lane is an acceptable way to finance a dime bag.

3.   Nobody goes on a date after forty.  We don’t go to the Prom either.

4.   You don’t mix two different kinds of alcohol, unless it’s Tequila and beer.  I don’t know why, it just is.

5.   If you see blue flashing lights, just walk the other direction fast.  It doesn’t matter if you’re clean or not, just walk away.

6.   Don’t fuck men your rat pack doesn’t know.  Every new guy says he’s single, but he’s just looking for some strange on the side.  He might as well go to 4^th and St. Cats and pay for it like everyone else.  This will keep the girls on 4^th Street in business so they can buy pampers for their rugrats.  This is one way we barflies can support the local economy.

7.    Always pay your rent first.  Whatever you spend the remainder of your check on after that is your business.

8.   Don’t fuck your friend’s man, even if they’re on the outs.  They’ll be back together in month and you’ll be on everybody’s shit list.

9.   Following #8 directly: don’t start no shit, won’t be no shit.  (This is the whole of the Law and the Prophets.)

10.  A lot of the time, living alone is a whole lot better than living with someone – no matter what ‘THEY’ say.

11.  If you leave your bike chained to a tree overnight, it’s your own fault when someone steals it.