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cloaking batcave details
Monday, April 1 2002
In an effort to conceal the nature of my basement batcave operation from the prying eyes of psychotic co-op members, for the past couple of nights I've been going downstairs and rearranging things. Last night I rerouted the extension cord supplying the batcave's power. It had been plugged into an obvious outlet near the washing machines, but I moved it to a discrete place along the wall behind a pile of someone's stored things, and further disguised it by painting the exposed part of it leading to an outlet. It had been blue, but where it plugs in it's white. Tonight I took further cloaking measures, painting the batcave end of the extension cord black and hiding stretches of its 50 foot run behind pipes wherever possible. Routing an extension cord discretely past piles of stored boxes is more difficult than you might think. The cord kept getting lodged in all sorts difficult-to-reach places, and I found myself depending on a number of makeshift tools, including two ski poles, a sturdy garden rake, and (for painting from a distance) a paintbrush stuck into the end of a bamboo gardener's stake.
Once I find myself going down the path of territorial obfuscation, it's hard for me not to get totally obsessed, pacing back and forth and putting myself in the mind of someone with a keen eye and an anti-Gus vendetta. I've had to work such deceptions numerous times in my past, starting with my parents, continuing through my days in Harkness (particularly the basement-dwelling period), and, more recently, in the cubicles of my various workplaces.
For some reason I totally forgot about the fact that today was April Fool's day. In fact, Gretchen and I had been so out of it that we'd thought Sunday was the first day of April (somehow Gretchen had forgotten that last month had 31 days and I hadn't questioned her logic when she'd determined that Sunday was in April). Anyway, I probably allowed myself to be completely deceived by some headline - perhaps the Wired article about the magic camera that started taking psychedelic pictures after falling in the water.
But perhaps no one even bothered to run any April Fools news stories this year. Things are so screwed up and extraordinary in this world that everything I'm told seems plausible. For example, a headline reading "Sharon Nukes East Jersualem in Effort to Stop Suicide Bombers and Bush Praises His Restraint" wouldn't be unexpected at this point.
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