It's a support group for Former Problem Children. Adults who were once smart alecks, menaces, and pranksters go into the soupiest smelling room at the rec center and sit in a circle. Had they not looked to be good adults, it would legally be a coven.
Participants discuss their chaotic desires: a bookseller almost wrote "fuck you" in invisible ink on the book fair flyers at the register. The ones that were to be handed out to everyone who purchased a kids book. There was the political activist who wanted to skirt the laws defacing and stealing campaign yard signs by putting the yard sign of their preferrered candidate in front of and behind opposition signs, creating a political sandwich. How can it be illegal to give something away for free? This circle was a place of camaraderie and empathy, with an undercurrent of a competition to see who could be the most devious.
At the end of every meeting, attendants would draw from the Box of Shenanigans. It was a shoebox covered in silver wrapping paper with a hole cut in the lid, like a box for a child's Valentine's Day cards. The box was full of pieces of paper with "chaoses" written on them. Actions to fulfill. If one did not fulfill the action, they no longer needed to go to the meetings, they were cured. Shenanigans included purposefully going out with your zipper down and never fixing it, no matter how many people point it out to you; going to a bakery with a picture of Lenin and having them make a cake with the picture on it.
Every shenanigan was written by an attendee. Small little bits of chaos. A tiny release of urges. Bloodletting. And it was something permitted. Only doing what you were told. Everyone always wanted to pull a shenanigan they had written. The shenanigans were written and added to the box. The box was shaken up. The bookseller hoped to get "Write fuck you on a flyer in invisible ink." The activist wanted, "Make a candidate sandwich out of yard signs."
No one ever manages to draw, "Have a bakery bake you a cake with a picture of Lenin on it."
