AudioShocker

Those of you that are already adamant readers of my still young weekly post here at Audioshocker may have checked in this morning, or on your lunch at the office, only to find that this post was not yet there for your reading enjoyment. I apologize. As you may or may not know, as much as I try to write hip, topical, pop-cultural articles every week for this here blog, I am, in real life, just a big nerd. But this was a particularly nerdy weekend in Miami, with the 25th Anniversary of the Miami International Bookfair going on. I happen to work for a small literary magazine (Gulf Stream Magazine), and we had a booth set up at the street fair where I was working or wandering around for the bulk of Friday-Sunday. Given that business, I was unable to write a post in advance enough of the weekend to get it published by this morning (I was going to write it on Thursday, but I forgot my glasses when I went to the internet and couldn't manage to squint my way through an entire post-writing).

So here I am, already behind schedule, and with nothing in particular to write about. So, rather than entirely skip a week, or write about something too nerdy for my own standards of what culturology means to me, I'd like to report a small piece of actual day-to-day living from my actual life and ask for any advice y'all might have, since it's pretty much the weirdest thing I've encountered in a while.

I live in a rented condo in a small building in North Miami, Florida. As with most condos, there's a bulletin board by the mailboxes where occasional pieces of information are posted, most often basic things like "Whoever spilled that stuff in the elevator, clean it up." or "Don't park around back tomorrow, there will be a paving company repairing our potholes from noon until 6." Standard things. When all those hurricanes devastated Haiti, there was a poster up asking for donations of food and clothing. This is the first time I've lived in a condo community, but it's a cosy building and seems nice enough.

A couple of days ago, however, I came home to find a new sign had been posted on the bulletin board. A standard 8 1/2 x 11" computer printout with some red marker highlights added. It said something to the extent of

"ATTENTION! Our community needs your prayers and benedictions. Please pray for our community for protection from the EVIL that surrounds us. With all of your prayers we will hopefully be completely rid of this evil right away. Thank You."

Some of it was bilingual as well, but I've left the Spanish out. The main thing is.. what the fuck?!? There's been no reports of crime or anything else, nor any sense of illicit happenings in the neighborhood. It seems like, had there been a break-in, for instance, then one would put up a poster saying "There's been a break-in, please increase your vigilance and do not let strangers through the main gate." or there was some other general unpleasantness, there'd be a sign saying, like, "Hey! Watch out! Don't get raped!" or whatever.

Unfortunately, I've only lived in the place for a couple months and don't really interact with any of my neighbors much, so I really don't know what to make of the sign. But I figured, in case I'm tortured and killed by evil spirits one of these nights, there'll be this public record that it's not like they didn't warn me.