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Thrift Shop Find No. 4
Found 1988, Washington DC, $3.75
Price $3.75

The Toilet Dictator

Who is the mysterious Toilet Dictator? Perhaps someone in cyberspace can identify this natty-looking martinet. The Toilet Dictator is astride a red horse, in front of a raw-looking tin-roofed building, some low stadium lights and a squad of trumpet-playing flunkies in dinner jackets. He¹s decked out in ribbons and a Sam Browne belt, and dangling what looks, to these uncertain eyes, like the Order of St. George from his sunken chest.. That the thrift shop in question is near a row of poorer embassies, near the James Buchanan Monument--a story all in itself--may give some clue to the dictator¹s origins. The expensively framed photo probably was donated by one of the embassies to someone who got rid of it, not wanting a picture of the man on their wall. Or was he the victim of some house cleaning at his own embassy after some unguessable political troubles? Where is he from? Uruguay? Brunei? Malaysia? I keep him on the wall, in the smallest room of the house, a power behind the throne, so to speak, as a reminder of the horrific penalties for lapses in good hygene, and of the punishment awaiting those who disrespect the image of Our Leader.

Richard Von Busack