A MOST LITERAL TOWN
As part of a statewide traffic worker safety campaign, a billboard advertisement was placed along a stretch of highway bisecting a mid-sized coastal town in the northeastern United States. Like many other such billboards, placed in the context of many other such traffic worker safety campaigns, this one read:
PLEASE SLOW DOWN
MY DAD WORKS HERE
In this case, however, rather than using the typical childlike font intended to signify, without specifically identifying, the child at risk of becoming a future orphan should drivers not comply with the advertisement’s request (in fact, it used a simple sans serif font), this advertisement featured, in the white space beneath the text, an image of an adorable puppy wearing an oversized hard hat. Needless to say, the decision to go with the puppy had only been taken by the small advertising firm to which the contract for this particular traffic worker safety campaign had been awarded in the interest of attracting the attention of the same motorists who, having seen so many similar billboard advertisements in the past, might otherwise have looked past this one. But as it happens, residents of the aforementioned town were, and still are, an extremely literal bunch; although the traffic worker safety campaign has long since been abandoned by the state for the purpose of reallocating funds to the Office of Business Development, and the advertisement in question replaced with, in no particular order, an advertisement for a pawn shop, an advertisement for an adult bookstore and novelty shop, an advertisement for a casino, an advertisement for a car dealership, an advertisement for a personal injury attorney (“call 777-7777”), an anti-abortion advertisement, a pro-choice advertisement, another anti-abortion advertisement, another pro-choice advertisement, an advertisement discouraging the abuse of illegal methamphetamines, an advertisement for a culinary tour of Italy sponsored by an area Italian restaurant (“A Taste of Italy” was the name of both tour and restaurant), and even, at a time when nobody else was paying for the space, an advertisement for the billboard itself, their search for the elusive and by-now legendary “Construction Dog” to whom they remain convinced that old sign with the puppy must have been alluding, continues to this day. In fact, during a recent visit to Pittsburgh to attend a nondenominational conference of clergypersons and other religious and spiritual leaders, the Rabbi Mordechai O’Shaughnessy was briefly convinced he had found him, working with a team preparing the infamous 16th Street Bridge for demolition. Upon closer examination, however, the affable Talmudist determined that it was actually just a very hairy man.
In recent months, Eli S. Evans has published work in several now defunct literary magazines, including Berfrois, The Bear Creek Gazette, Misery Tourism, and (mic)ro(mac). Meanwhile, a small book of small stories, Obscure & Irregular, was published with Moon Rabbit Books & Ephemera in 2021 and remains available for purchase on the internet, and a larger book of even smaller stories is forthcoming from the same in 2023.
