Emilie Ridley is South African by way of Cape Cod. He attended Evergreen college in the late 70s, where he experimented with acid in a polygamist tribe before moving to San Francisco to open a biodegradable dog kennel business. He has been here ever since. This is his story…

I've entered a wretched period of my life in which I am a drooling narcoleptic, and it is not the consequence of my senesence. It's the Klonopin I've been prescribed so that I may stroll past this grotesque neighbourhood mural:

My physchiatrist doctor (she later found these digital images here) dubbed it “The Sum of All Fear,” ignoring my suffering as I recounted its details to her— if I were a Commonwealth solider narrating the Battle of Okinawa, would she have been kinder?

Regardless, I was forced to dictate my daily run-ins with McGangBangers in my rotting neighbourhood, the monstrous food creatures haunting my mind's eye in flashbacks from psychonautic days past, and the humiliation and guilt from catsup packet wielding hooligans who splattered my Mercedes windshield with murderous tomato artillery, causing me to strike and break the leg of Brontë, my poor, over-excited Pomeranian.

Brontë in better days

My panic attacks have been quelled, but until canine Klonopin is availble, I dare not bring Brontë on jaunts past this monstrosity. The Hamburglar has robbed me of something far greater than ham. This ham man has beaten my sanity to a pulp, and stolen my peace of mind.