Comments on: Guidelines For Home Invasions

By: misener

misener — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:48:52 +0000

Or just call Joe “Art Manure”. (-:

By: Matt Ronquillo

Matt Ronquillo — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:23:51 +0000

haha. nice plug joe.

By: joecloyd

joecloyd — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:34:02 +0000

Halifax: Sure, we can be welfare buddies.

Everyone else: if there’s anyone who thinks that I was being too critical, feel free to check out a couple of my short stories and criticize, disparage, and harangue to your heart’s delight: “Heidi’s Thesis” and “Capable of Standing but Would Rather Sit” posted on http://superclodclod.wordpress.com

By: Halifax

Halifax — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:53:58 +0000

Joe- assumption is all I have. You can deny. I can be wrong. But I have to make assumptions.

It is really hard to take a shit when you’re starving. Next time you transgress- do it after one of those grand-slam breakfasts. You’ll be crowning a crispy kitkat within ten minutes of stepping on the rug.

Can we be like Welfare-buddies? Ten years of Public housing, welfare, and all the free cheese we could eat. Man, that was the life. Yay Social Services! Changing lives, saving families.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1449330/

…always with the strings attached. In 1974, my mom faced an ultimatum. Have me in California and loose her tubes or move to Oklahoma and keep them…I love the next three sisters every bit as much as my older one. I think my mom made the right decision.

By: Ethan Doherty

Ethan Doherty — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:16:21 +0000

Joe Cloyd don’t take everything so fucking literal. It was 2 lines in the story and it was related to struggling people constantly getting shit on by the system. And don’t relate your cracker stealing stories to my character.

By: joecloyd

joecloyd — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:50:12 +0000

Halifax: you have no idea who I am, the things I have done, or the life I have lived, so please don’t make assumptions. In my youth, I’ve transgressed the law several times, including trespassing. Nothing serious really. I was a kid who grew up on welfare, and was always hungry. I knew for a fact that my ex-friend’s parents never locked their door, so every once and a while I’d go and snag some poptarts or crackers or something like that. I was even pissed at this guy, but I wasn’t there to get revenge. I had a mission: to get food. I was in and I was out. And that’s the way I handled all my transgressions. That’s why I was never caught.

The narrator has a mission: to steal stuff and not get caught. The narrator is presenting himself as a professional. Shitting on pictures of strangers is a lot of things, but it isn’t professional. This is, therefore, an inconsistency that doesn’t make much sense. Now if the narrator’s fuck-up of a cousin did it, that would make sense. If the narrator were an amateur, that would make sense. If the narrator were stupid, that would make sense. If the narrator was a reckless druggie, that would make sense. Note: he doesn’t even go on a drug bender AFTER the robbery. That tells me that he’s extremely careful and even somewhat paranoid.

So that part didn’t work for me, because if he takes a shit on family pictures, that’s likely to go in the police report, and if that’s documented, then it’s likely that someone will suspect that robberies A, B, and C are related. And guess what? If the narrator is captured as he’s leaving the scene of robbery D and there’s a steamy shit on a picture of the Jonese, he will not only be a suspect for robbery D, but for robberies A, B, and C as well. This means a more severe sentence when the narrator is convicted. Now this can simply mean that we have a unreliable narrator, but I think that if I can figure out that it’s best not to leave a calling card, that it must have occured to the narrator, who is extremely careful about his profession and anxious about being caught because of his profession.

By: cerebella

cerebella — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 06:08:04 +0000

oh wow that’s funny, i read this whole thing at my store and was planning on commenting when i got out and there are several comments. this (hello, air quotes) ‘piece’ needs no work at all if you ask me…geez someone reworked a huge story just for us and you’re still not satisfied. i wasn’t planning on reading it at all because i’m a lazy ass with an inferior attention span but once i started i was hooked. i’ve never plotted a robbery, only hypothesised how i would go about it and…thanks for the food for thought, author. i was laffing out loud when i read this to the point where my coworker came by glanced at me like i was weird and went back to his spot. so good! yum!
misener that’s horribly stupid of yr perp twerp. musn’t he know forensics? even if i was on drugs or stock raving mad i would still not underestimate. …or, i guess anything is possible

By: misener

misener — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:31:42 +0000

My home was broken into several years back and the perp took a big dump in my toilet. So I see your point.

By: Halifax

Halifax — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 03:27:57 +0000

Joe- you must have never been somewhere you aren’t suppose to be. There is an internal animal urge that arises. Try it. Next time you see a “Carnival Personnel Only” sign, pass through and note how that bowel wants to move.

By: joecloyd

joecloyd — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 03:18:37 +0000

I like this, but I think it needs more work. Love the part about punching the 8 year old with chicken pox. That was hilarious. The ending isn’t bad, but a bit predictable.

Note: to have the narrator shit on pictures doesn’t make sense, because even if there wasn’t such a thing as DNA testing, it’s still a unnecessary risk, and is therefore inconsistent with the narrator’s character. The narrator is telling us to avoid theatrics and to keep it “short and sweet.” To take a shit in such a way is a bit elaborate.

The second problem I have with this is this: If I were to rob a place, I would make sure to take a shit BEFORE the mission. Why go through all the trouble to case a target, plan the heist, and then get caught on the toilet? Or in this case, squatting over family pictures?