There was Leo, the driver, whose mustache seemed to droop with the weight of unpaid utility bills. Next to him was Sal, the muscle, who carried a coil of industrial-grade electrical wire on his lap like a sleeping pet. In the back sat Denny, the rookie, clutching a clipboard stacked with printed-out municipal code violations that technically didn't exist. Their mission: enforce the sacred (and completely invented) bylaw that all residential outdoor Christmas lighting installations must be performed by a certified, card-carrying member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 447.
They found their first violation at 412 Maple, a modest Tudor home where a man named Mr. Harrison was balanced precariously on a step ladder, looping C9 bulbs along his rain gutter. The scene was pure, wholesome holiday cheer, which only fueled the engine of Local 447's bureaucratic rage.
Leo hit the brakes, the Taurus skidding slightly. "Get the siren," he grunted to Denny. Denny fumbled with a cheap, battery-powered bullhorn.
"Mr. Harrison!" Leo yelled, leaning out the window, his voice raspy from too many cheap cigars. "We're going to need to see your Local 447 Journeyman Card, immediately!"
Mr. Harrison, a gentle man whose only crime was an overabundance of festive spirit, nearly toppled. He squinted down at the three angry men. "My what? I'm just putting up my own lights. It's... it's Christmas, guys."
Sal unfolded himself from the car, an act that took on the menace of a rising grizzly bear. He pointed a thick, accusatory finger at the string of multi-colored lights. "That's a 15-amp, non-commercial run, buddy. You're violating the Collective Bargaining Agreement on Festive Illumination. This ain't a hobby. This is electrical work!"
Denny, the rookie, stepped forward and held out his clipboard. "Section 4-B, Subsection Delta: All connections to exterior, weather-exposed circuits require union oversight for integrity testing and harmonic stabilization," he read stiffly. The words were meaningless, derived from a fever dream of union jargon, yet they carried the weight of impending doom.
Mr. Harrison, thoroughly confused and a little scared, backed down the ladder. "Look, I bought these lights at Home Depot. They just plug in."
"Plug in?" Leo scoffed. "You think electrical integrity is a game? You're playing fast and loose with the power of the grid, pal! Think about the safety of your neighbors, the consistency of the municipal voltage! Where's your union conscience?"
The surreal enforcement continued across town. At the home of Mrs. Petrov, a sweet, elderly woman who only had three miniature reindeer on her lawn, Leo issued a "Cease and Desist" order for operating an "unlicensed, low-voltage installation," citing potential "micro-circuit disruption of neighborhood consensus."
The tension peaked when they arrived at the home of Mr. Wallace, a man who, in a truly bizarre act of suburban one-upmanship, had installed a fifteen-foot inflatable Santa that required a dedicated industrial blower. When Wallace, a stout man in a flannel shirt, refused to climb down, Sal calmly produced a pair of heavy-duty, union-approved bolt cutters.
"We can do this easy, or we can do this by code," Sal growled, the metal clicking ominously. "Show me the card, or the Santa gets it."
Wallace looked from his beloved, swaying Santa to the three desperate, unhinged men. This wasn't a joke; this was economic desperation distilled into holiday tyranny. He finally sighed, pulled out his wallet, and produced not a union card, but a crumpled photo of his granddaughter who loved the Santa.
Leo’s eyes flickered to the picture. Something broke in the rigid, bureaucratic shell. He saw not a scofflaw, but a grandfather. Sal wavered, lowering the cutters. Denny dropped the clipboard, the fake citations scattering in the wind. The absurdity of their mission—threatening people over blinking lights in the name of a union that had long abandoned them—crushed them. They piled back into the Taurus, defeated by a photograph and the sheer, nonsensical power of holiday spirit.
As the Taurus sputtered away, the three men were silent, the phantom glow of hundreds of non-union lights twinkling in their rearview mirror. The absurdity of it all was overwhelming. They didn't fix the power grid; they only broke the fragile peace of the suburbs. The Local 447 Enforcement Detail had failed. The Christmas lights, in all their non-union glory, had won
No comments:
Post a Comment