Standing Ova-shun

(I'm really proud of this post title, BTW)

So, this happened a while back: "Guy with TV on head leaves old TVs on front porches of homes."

The authorities are assuming this is some kind of performance art piece, or a robber who does not understand what being a robber entails. All I know is if I had security cameras installed on my house, this is EXACTLY the type of thing I would want to see.

It also brought to mind some shenanigans Mr. Brutalism and I got into with friends of ours back in the shenanigans-heavy (read: pre-children) days of our early marriage. We were visiting these friends in Boston and after a night of drinks, we made our way back to their apartment, a building with a security camera on the front porch which had a feed visible to all residents of the building through a closed-circuit television channel.

Upon learning this information and watching some extra-boring feed of people coming home and fumbling for keys and leaving for runs, we decided that to make this more entertaining, we should introduce something unexpected to the tableau and create some drama.

I wish I could better remember the conversation that led us to our decision of what to place on the porch, but we ultimately came up with fried eggs. It was perfect! Recognizable enough that people would know immediately what it was, yet random enough that anyone who saw it would wonder why they were on the front porch, as it is not something that would slip out of a pocket or go unnoticed had they slipped off a plate.

Our friend offered to be the one to place the eggs, which required some technique in case anyone was watching on the feed. He dressed all in black, took the eggs (which he had salted and peppered - nice touch!) on a plate downstairs to the front porch, and stealthily (and gently) slipped the eggs from the plate to the center of the top step. He then ran back upstairs and waited with us while we watched for the approach of unsuspecting neighbors.

And it was better than we could have hoped in terms of reactions. After coming upon the eggs, people went through a spectrum of emotions - surprise, amusement, confusion, disgust, and even fear. One woman, nearing the house with a small child in tow, spotted the eggs and instinctively thrust out her arm to hold the child back from approaching the eggs.

While we certainly enjoyed ourselves, I was a little disappointed our audience totaled just four people as this caliber of entertainment deserved a much larger audience.

If only we'd had a PR rep as good as ol' TV head's.