One more for the basement box

We are having way too much of a good time fiddling with the first commandment of the average citizen: thou shalt not poke fun at the government.

In the unlikely case anybody from government reads this, please imagine the whole K-Landnews team dressed up as clowns as we work on this post, white makeup, red squooshy plastic nose, huge black plastic glasses, rainbow wig, and shoes size 100 or so.

[TheEditor requested this clarification, we grudgingly oblige: the makeup, plastic nose and wig are strictly professional accoutrements as exhibited on the website of the World Clown Association and/or similar associations in other countries. In no way whatsoever are these accoutrements designed to, intended to, or planned to render impossible, interfere with or in any fashion obstruct any legal or illegal attempts or processes related to automated facial recognition executed under any or all pertinent or impertinent provisions of the possibly non-existent but at minimum secret Protect Our Clown Assets (POCAss) Act of 1985.]

As the wise Wavy said, dress up as a Fool at your own peril, chances are they will bludgeon you. Dress up as a clown and you are pretty safe, no police officer wants to be seen on TV beating up a clown.

Hence, for the purpose of this post, clowns we are.

However, we had not reckoned how bloody difficult it would be to walk down the basement stairs in these huge loafers to retrieve the box and get back up safely. As mentioned in several earlier posts, the box is where we put papers that are regrettably outdated and outmoded. If we continue at the current rate, we'll need a bigger box, so our past couple of grocery shopping lists had the entry "take veggie box on way out".

Only minutes ago did the K-Landnews personal shopping consultant point out a legal issue with this list:

Milk
Potatoes
Yoghurt
Pasta
Sauce Bolognese
take veggie box on way out

"You could interpret this last line as an intent to commit shoplifting", said the consultant. "Take can be construed to mean take without paying, especially since it is the only item marked in this manner. And you just passed the shopping list around your newsroom, which means everyone here knows the content of the list, in legal terms that can be called a conspiracy. I would advise you to remove the word take and never ever to publish this list on the internet."

"But I have done that before, without any problem."

"Whaaat? You cannot be serious! I resign from my role as shopping consultant effective immediately."

Our store leaves empty boxes at the exit past the register for customers to take for free.

Enough clowning around.

Here is a scan of the letter from the previous century that goes into the box today. It looks kind of scruffy, there were punch holes (metadata!) and all the stamps and signatures to cover.