The Museum of Broken Things

The “Friday the 13th Club” met this morning at the “Hard Luck is Better Than No Luck at All Diner,” on 13th St. The club meets only on Friday the 13ths, to let the members tell about all the bad luck they’ve had since their last meeting.

Josefina Krautberg, “The German Firecracker,” known primarily for her rendition of “La Weinerrocha” at “Periwinkle’s Got Talent” shows, went first. She is the curator of “The Museum of Broken Things.” It features broken toasters, broken bikes, broken hearts, broken vows, broken promises, broken spines [mostly books], and all other things known for their brokenness. The museum is situated upstairs over the firehouse that was built in 1910.

“You know Maurice Greeley, the museum attendant?” she asked.

“That young nerd guy?” said Kate Bates.

“Yes. I know some people feel we don’t need an attendant, but I can’t always be on the museum floor when people come in, what with my broken leg. But the economy improved so much because of the tax cuts for millionaires that we were able to hire Maurice.”

“Wait a minute,” said Professor Ben “Seymour” Bottoms. “The economic improvement was because of tax cuts for millionaires? Now because they have so much more money from the tax cuts they are able to contribute to the museum so you can hire staff?”

“Oh, no. They invest their tax cut money in China. Millionaires break things a lot, but they don’t like to be reminded of it afterwards, so they don’t contribute to the museum. Our income is still the same, what we get from donations and selling knickknacks we get from the Chinese factories the millionaires invest in, but Mayor Reckonwith said the economy is better because of the tax cuts, and politicians think if they say something, that makes it true, so we were able to hire an attendant, specifically Maurice Greeley, her nephew.”

“Sounds necrophilic, or neopolitan, or narcissistic,” said Edith Whistle, on break from cooking at The Whistle and Thistle Biker Bar and Sushi Restaurant.

“I think you’re talking about nepotism,” said Pastor Patty.

“Whatever floats your boat,” said Edith.

“Anyway,” said Josefina, not especially happy about being interrupted, but assuming it was just more bad luck that Edith was there, “we had TWO patrons come in yesterday.”

“Wow,” said Paige Turner, the owner of “If You’re Reading It You’re Buying It Books Store and Counseling Clinic,” who was there to complain about Amazon’s announcement that it was now selling more ebooks than real books. “That’s a lot of people at one time.”

“Oh, it wasn’t at one time,” said Josefina. “One was in the morning and one was in the afternoon. But two in one day was more than Maurice Greeley could take. You know that window on the west side of the building?”

“The one above Pocket Park,” asked Pastor Patty, “the one named for Polly Pocket?”

“That’s the one,” said Josefina. “We keep an iced-tea Snapple out on the counter to revive anyone who is overcome with nostalgia or grief as they look at the broken things. When that second person came in, Maurice was overcome with too much social contact. He just grabbed the Snapple and hit the chute.”

“He what?” asked Charley Bob Diamond, the college sophomore who hasn’t returned to college yet, much to the dismay of everyone in town.

“That window has a chute attached to it,” said Josefina. “It was a broken invention. This was back in the days that people eloped a lot. Mycroft Golden thought it would be easier for girls to get out of second story windows if they didn’t have to climb down ladders, so he developed the second-story chute. When fathers found out about it, though, the chute hit the fan. I think the one on our window is the original and only chute that Mycroft made, out of special-strength Saran Wrap. Maurice Greeley just opened the window and the chute deployed and that young man went west.”