Day of Wrath

ByEVANGELINE DAVIS

I YEARN for a depression. I am fed up with these good times. I pant after a return to subnormal, i have a list of red-hot post-war aims the length of a rayon run. My platform is vengeance; a simple animosity fills my soul.

On that glorious day after peace when the swollen American business index begins to sink, I shall storm the citadel of mine enemies, the merchants of the land who now so sorely beset me. I shall fall upon them at the hour of opening the sacred gates, when their creatures the sales mannequins are unsuspecting, an easy prey.

I will bedeck myself in wartime finery bought of these men and their minions in the era of sleazy goods and low discourtesy. I intend to enter in triumph, arrayed in high-priced gloves leaking at the finger-tips; in a suit that has given up in the seams; in a coat drooping wearily to the leeward; in hose bagging at the knees and wrinkling horribly at the ankles.

Cringing, the chattering criminals will look upon these habiliments with a dread recognition. I f there is unhappy repentance in the eyes of the stricken, I shall not notice. I will barge through shop after shop with relentless thoroughness, fluttering taletelling price tags from every garment .

Behind me, I intend to leave pawed-over and disdained merchandise — the best the house has to offer — in mountainous piles.

If there are wounded feelings and tweaked noses as well, I shall rejoice. My laughter will ring off the showy walls as I recall the ancient chant: —

“It’s the war.”

I shall cry heinously as I depart: —

“It’s the peace!”