During a period of unemployment, I am more than happy when one of my job applications proves successful. The post is for curator of a museum somewhere downtown near the meat-packing district. I am not greeted at all upon my arrival for my first day, and enter the unlocked museum with some trepidation. To my grave disappointment, the building is a mess, filled with unlabelled items of an unremarkable domestic nature. The many microwave ovens, refrigerators, cookers and so on are characterised by a multiplicity of mundane faults, and I conclude that they could be of no conceivable use to anyone. I nervously take a seat near the entrance, unsure of how to proceed. No one visits the museum for several hours, so I am surprised when, at 4.45pm, a group of large men walk in, carrying further domestic items which they leave on shelves further down the room. They nod brusquely to me, and leave.