Crazy Chester and The Prophetess Madeline Stage a Flash Mob

To protest peacefully is a bygone grace in America nowadays, as the unfortunate recent events of unruly mobs protesting civic or police misconduct.  This sort of thing troubled our pair of New Orleans equine actuaries, and they decided to set things right; but in a law-abiding way.  They decided to stage a march on City Hall; or maybe the Courts.

Madeline, the mystic of the two, came to the conclusion through prayer and her humor that both should be targets for their efforts. And that the best way to protest civic misconduct was through a mass prayer for good government!  Crazy Chester, the more down-to-Earth one, thought that this could call for organizing a flash mob that would spontaneously appear before those dens of iniquity and express their collective disappointment and call for them to change their wicked ways.  Since it's New Orleans, Chester thought it would get a wider response if the mob was in costume and accompanied with a jazz band.  All in the spirit of fun, of course.  Wearing Mardi Gras beads were optional.

So Chester called some people he knew.  As did Madeline.  They invited all to come in costume to a Funeral with Music* for Good Government, and to bring a an implement easily found in a hardware or grocery store that would best symbolize this desire to clean up things.  Nearly 700 people massed in front of City Hall!  This was unexpected; so they called out the police and wondered if they needed the State Police too.

On the day the flash mob assembled, it was led by the jazz band playing that old standby, "A Closer Walk With Thee"; and all were carrying toilet brushes!  Chester and Madeline could be off the wall at times, but the officers from the Third Precinct could not complain that this gathering was disorderly.  They even offered to clean the jakes at City Hall as well as the Augean Stable there!  Well, Madeline kissed her boyfriend Officer Pete; and Crazy Chester gave an honorary toilet brush to the Sergeant.  He later carried it when he patrolled Bourbon Street on Friday night.

In our country there is a problem of protest fatigue.  It's hard to make the national news when you protest something: too much competition and the same old routines.  But the toilet brushes put a welcome kick to a story that might have not gotten news coverage otherwise.

*A jazz funeral.