Are they still up there? Hmmmm. I can’t hear them right now. Maybe the stereo drove them out, or the garlic, perhaps. I always thought those people would be trouble. Did I say “always”? I meant, uh, sometimes.

Well, this has been one hell of a week for everybody here in America, am I right? Here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, we might have been glued to the television all week if the cable company hadn’t discovered our illegal tap and pulled the plug on us. And then there was the electric company with their so-called “unpaid bills” and such. What part of abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill do they not understand? I mean, just because it’s a derelict, long-condemned building doesn’t mean it should be stricken from the grid like at scofflaw. I mean, we’re the scofflaws, people … it’s not the building’s fault that we’re squatting in it. Not really.

Anyway, as you know, over the past couple of years we’ve had some dyspeptic neighbors living upstairs in another section of the mill that we seldom visit, though it is often spoken of in legends. That notwithstanding, they have been problematic in the past with regard to, I don’t know, agreeing to little courtesies, like … not shooting us or not setting the mill on fire for kicks. (They like their kicks, these upstairs neighbors.) It was worst early on, but in recent months it had quieted down quite a bit, perhaps because of the COVID pandemic, but more likely because they got bored with intimidating us and turned their evil attentions elsewhere – to our friends squatting in the abandoned storefront across the street, for instance. Whatever misfortunes they may have visited on others, all was peace and contentment here in the hammer mill.

But that was not to last! (Dum, dum, dum!) They got all feisty with us again this week, and this time with the help of outside confederates. Now, when I say “confederates,” I’m not using that as an alternative for “friends” or “accomplices” – I mean confederates, like, the southern kind, waving the stars and bars. Those dudes as well as other denizens of the far right descended on this place like locusts. It took us a while, but we eventually worked out that they had mistaken the Cheney Hammer Mill for the federal building, which isn’t even located in our township. No matter – these MAGA hatted crazy people started scaling up the sides of the mill with those climbing cables. Not sure why they didn’t just come in through the open door and take the stairs up, but to each his own. They overran this place with as few as thirty people and started making themselves at home, except for one guy who stumbled upon our studio and started shouting “Olympus has fallen!” over and over again. (Seriously, I think these people are majorly confused about where we’re living.)

Yeah, so now we have a houseful of right-wing rioters, and nothing to offer them. My guess is that they will eventually get bored and go find someone else to kill, but until then …. hope they like banjo music!