Vignette City 42.

*** ‘Vignette City’ is an ongoing project of daily writing and urban photography ***

You know, the thing that is really pissing me off lately is that it is becoming clear that no one else seems to respect the bylaws.

We have rules for a reason, people.

I was on-board - cautiously - when they wanted to merge the leagues. There were fifty-five different leagues in town and we were all piddly-ass each on our own, but together we could be monolithic and we would control not just most, but about 99% of all the Live Action Role Playing in the whole city. When they came to me, they said, “You are the Presiding President of the Live Action Robert’s Rules of Order Role Playing Parliament and you are the guy we want to figure out how to merge all of our charters and constitutions.” And I - like Thomas Mother F’ing Jefferson - stepped up and said, “Yes, it will be a better thing I do this weekend than I have ever done before!”

And it was work. So much work. Some of these charters, these rule books, these quote/unquote “constitutions” were so short sighted, so shoddy, so riddled with holes, that I was stunned that some of these Quidditch clubs, these Civil War re-enactor groups, these Battle of the Bulge Strategy Battle Groups could even manage to operate One of the Breaking Bad Ballet groups didn’t even HAVE a set of rules! Just a sign-up sheet. Not even a member roster, just a list of names really, from their third LARP. Amateurs.

So I drank coffee after 2pm, I stayed up after midnight two nights in a row. I poured myself into it. I sweat. I cried a little bit. I sweat a lot and it was not even that hot that day, barely broke the mid-70s. But I did it; I made my masterpiece. I set out rules. I created committees. I created subcommittees. I created a system that could imagine the future. I created a set of rules that could breathe like a set of systemic lings. I created a system of rules that expand or contract to meet the unknowable challenges of future ages and when I distributed the 3-inch binders containing our new, crisp, perfect constitution, they said, “Thanks.”

And then they moved on to a schedule for the next weekend’s schedule of events in Forest Park.

None of them even opened their binders. None of them even peered inside.

They ratified my constitution without reading it into the meeting minutes, which was a violation of the Article 7, section 13, subsection 9(b).

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