Prose Poem: The Used Rope Store.

 

I don't really remember where I got the idea;

probably from some newspaper article.

I read a lot of online papers.

See, I could get my hands on a lot

of used rope for next to nothing.

So why not open a Used Rope Store?

*

I had tested the market earlier,

selling tap water from my garden

hose in used pop bottles for ten

cents each. Online. 

Shipping & handling was $19.00.

People bought it. 

Not a lot of people,

but enough to convince me there

is a market for everything today.

Even used rope.

*

But I didn't sell it online.

Too much regulation.

A brick and mortar store,

in a scuzy neighborhood,

represented by a city council

person who didn't care,

required nothing more than 

a bicycle license from city hall --

I framed it and hung it up behind

the cash register and no officious

busybody from the city ever bothered

me.

*

I sold used rope, twine, and string

by the yard. 

I got most of my customers by hanging

out a sign that read:

FREE DUST BUNNY RECYCLING.

That's a thing for a lot of people;

they collect the dust that accumulates

under the bed and furniture and then 

they don't know what to do with it.

So they brought it to me (I just tossed

it out the back door when they weren't

looking)

and they stuck around to examine my

used rope.

*

They bought it for tire swings.

To wrap around fruit trees

to prevent winter burn.

For handmade bee hives.

And to boil and feed to their

goats.

*

I was so successful that eventually

I was bought out by a big retail

chain. But they ruined the whole

concept by expanding the inventory

to include plastic doo-dads from china

 and junked auto parts. 

*

Still, I had made my pile

and didn't have to worry

about where my next Jimmy 

John's was coming from.

*

Nowadays I catalog gastroliths

for the Smithsonian, working

as an unpaid volunteer.

It makes me feel utile.