Hex Appeal

 

I’m not here to criticize someone for protecting their establishment with a security gate. Something that rolls down like a curtain, only inside of the finest silk, it’s steel or wrought iron. These paranoid owners are interested in keeping their merchandise safe from handsy interlopers. Cameras are a possible deterrence. As an our alarm bells, a far, dissonant cry from the fair weather clang of an Ice Cream truck. 

There are other dilemmas facing the average small business owner, besides the faint prospect of looters. Whatever your specialty is, there’s one thing most people these days never think to guard against. It’s almost as if it’s fallen from public consciousness, with us forgetting our roots. I’m talking about the Devil. Not a devil, but the horned, hoofed one, used to hot, humid environments. He’s here. 

What people don’t appreciate is that, when you figure out a devil stopping mechanism, all your worries about minor transgressions will also fall by the wayside. Shoplifting goes away once Satan is relegated to a different block. But how?

Early farmers knew the deal. They’d put ornate patterns on their barns to keep Lucifer from getting into trouble with the chickens, or the pigs, or the cows. He would keep moving down the road, often looking for horseshoes after admiring the gait of a working horse. Because the Devil, like many a greedy philistine from history, doesn’t understand key principles of industrial design. It confuses him. Nor is he a patron of the arts. 

Where are these patterns today on the aluminum awning of a late night bodega? Nowhere. Want to get crime down in urban areas? This seems like a good place to start. Go right to the source.