This painting is part of Tisane's "Everyday Hells" series, and comes between "Laundromat Hell" and "Parking Garage Hell." The painter's view of life seems to be that of a sickened, pessimistic alien observing an incomprehensible, insane world, although other critics have taken a darker view.

 

According to Tisane's notes the scene records the disaster that befell Mrs. Ludivico dell'Anchovia when she tried to open a village daycare center to make a quick buck. Mrs. dell'Anchovia is pictured to the far right, desperately trying to interest her charges in a nice game of Frisbee while pandemonium breaks loose all around her. Her son, Guido, to her immediate left, is about to put out the eye of another child with his toy bow and arrow, in spite of his mother's warning that he would get "such a smack" if he did it a third time.

 

Several of the children have burst open the snack cupboard and are passing out fruit to their friends. Others have begun playing doctor, with at least one budding gynecologist and one proctologist apparent in this view, while two of the older children in the foreground have shed their inhibitions and are moving beyond puppy love to full-scale groping.

 

Mrs. dell'Anchovia's career as a daycare center operator lasted less than 24 hours. She was sentenced to 20 years at hard labor in the Lombroso Prison for, among other things, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, reckless child endangerment and running an unlicensed bawdy house.

 

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