Where I Live

In London I live in a neighborhood known locally by the acronym EOA. This stands for East of Adelaide, not to be confused with the AEOA, or Almost East of Adelaide. Adelaide is a street that separates a part of town where at any moment someone might accidentally drop their pants, from a part of town where the people are so desperate to be even remotely associated with reality that they are willing to use an acronym for themselves that includes the word 'almost'. What is east of Adelaide? Well, there's me. Then there's my cat Charles. EOA has taken its toll on him: not long after I moved out here, Charles started huffing Febreze. There's my neighbor Jeff, a minstrel and inventor of silly words, and his son Alex, who'll throw himself painfully off of a tall snowbank for delicious lunch snacks. The lord of EOA is Emperor Krispy Square, ruler of Krispy Square Fortress, which is just down the street from me. The Krispy Square Fortress is an imposing edifice whose shadow stretches half a block at sunset. Many mornings, the whole neighborhood smells like rice krispy squares, which his minions are constantly baking for all his fabulous krispy parties. Other mornings it smells like corn flakes. I don't know why. Don't try to steal any krispy squares from the dumpster outside the krispy square fortress, because the grounds are protected by a Fat Jerk and his army of Truck Drivers. Across form the emperor's fortress is a squat drinking establishment for veterans and other retired warriors. This is notable because there is a tree that looks like an umbrella growing in front, and if a group of a certain sort of men are standing around having cigarettes, the whole scene makes a pleasing composition. All of these things are at the very end of the EOA, including me and Charles and the neighbors and the veterans and the truck drivers. There's Adelaide Street, there's the Krispy Square Fortress, and in between is the EOA. If you go the other direction, past the fortress, you cross some train tracks and enter the Old Factory District, which is very interesting, but no the subject of my discourse.