Everyone I know right now seems filled with an unbearable sadness, which is strange because I am the only one with a giant smile on my face and I truly have all the reasons in the world to be sad, and very sad at that.
First, whenever I mention I might be sad in any form the first question I am asked is, did your dog die and if so, please tell me how. No, in fact, right now my lovely dog Beth is pleasuring herself under the old desk in the entryway of our home here in the ghetto, because under that desk is a vent that allows the cool air to flow freely from the cold basement up to the upper floors of our incredibly hot house, or at least it would flow freely if my fat, out of shape hausfrau of a dog would move her lard ass, but that will not happen any time soon, if her behavior over the last month is to be any indicator.
So, in part the good news is Beth is alive and happy and even better, the Hemingway desk that she has taken refuge under is now the proud home of my new, but ancient, typewriter that I purchased for ten dollars at an idiots garage sale recently. The idiot was selling all sorts of great things for basically nothing, but since I am preparing to move, I only bought the ancient typewriter to add to my collection of ancient typewriters, of which Beth is now encamped under at least 3, all perched gently on top of a tiny old Hemingway writers desk in the entryway of my ghetto mansion.
The story behind the Hemingway desk is interesting. Hemingway was a big fat guy, known more for his excessive habits of food and broads than his writing, at least that’s what I’ve been told. Anyway, this unbearably fat guy once used this tiny little table that now sits in my entry way when he was once traveling through Pittsburgh, at least that is the story the lisping, prancing closeted old foolish man who sold it to me told me as he charged me 3 dollars for it. I’m not sure if I believed him, but since he was only Jewing me out of three bucks, I figured I get the desk and the story for really what amounts to nothing.
The bottom line is that while the rest of the house is actually smoldering in humid and unbearably hot weather, my ill-tempered, self-pleasuring lesbian dog is blocking the only avenue the entire house has to cooler air. That something actually came in the way of Rufus Cobbleskill, a large and foolish man who was fixing a leak in my kitchen sink yesterday. Rufus lives about fives houses down the block and has a reputation as both a complete stone cold plumber and a loud mouthed, gossiping, good for nothing, thrice married, deadbeat father of 37.
I rather like Mr. Cobbleskill. We were both drunk out of our minds when we negotiated the fee of 12 dollars for a complete rebuild of my kitchen sinks drain repair. It was far too low, I knew it when we agreed on the price, but Cobbleskill was wasted on a mixture of cheap grain alcohol and snorting plastic pipe glue and I had been taking pain killers for a kidney stone the side of a golf ball for the last 10 days, so my mind was just a little bit clearer than Robot Mitt Romneys.
I was upstairs this morning, speaking loudly into the phone to a woman from a New England book club, she had started it by speaking loudly to me, mostly because I had set my phone down and put it on speaker while I slid into my hot bath. I yelled, “what was the question?” and she replied by yelling back, “we were wondering why Branson is only available as an electronic book, at least 3 of our club do not have a Kindle or any other kind of e-book reader.”
“Why are you yelling at me?” I yelled into the speaker phone, which was nestled on a towel on the floor. Somewhere below me, I could hear Rufus Cobbleskill drunkenly yelling back at me, “I didn’’t yell nothin’ at you, shut the fuck up.”
The woman from the New England book club yelled into her phone, “ever since you put us on speaker, it’s the only way you can hear us, remember?”
“Remember what?”
“Remember it’s the only way you can hear us? If we don’t yell, you can’t hear us, remember?”
“Yelling at me is the only way I can hear you?” I yelled at the woman in New England, but Rufus Cobbleskill was now yelling at me from downstairs again, confusing my conversation with the good women in New England with some conversation going on inside his giant empty head, I’d imagine. He yelled up the stairs to me, “I said, shut the fuck up, ass hole.”
“Look,” I yelled towards the phone near my bath, “if those women are serious about being members of your god damned book club, they should invest in…”
“What the fuck you yelling at me for?” Rufus asked as he walked around the corner and turned to find me laying in the bath tub, completely submerged and of course naked as a jay bird. I held my head above the water line so I could yell at the phone, laying on the floor next to the tub. “Oh, you on the phone?” Rufus yelled.
“I am, ladies, this is Rufus Cobbleskill, he was supposed to be repairing my kitchen sink, instead he is drunk this early in the morning and interrupting both this call and my bath,” I yelled, so both the women in New England could hear and Rufus could understand his shame. He did not.
“Hey ladies,” he said, no shame what so ever.
“Hi Rufus,” a group of women said, some of whom too slow to purchase a kindle.
“I’m still nude in a tub and my drain in the kitchen still needs repair. Good day Rufus, good day.” He began to leave.
“Good day ladies,” he said
“Good day Rufus,” a choir of beautiful New England voices sprang from the speaker of my phone.
Rufus made his way downstairs and a voice from my phone yelled, “one thing I don’t understand, the fear of water thing, in book two, Branson has to swim across that lake and he admits he is completely afraid of water in any form, except drinking.”
“Yes,” I yelled.
“And here you are, in a tub.”
“Yes,” I yelled again and then I heard a loud noise from downstairs and Rufus yelled out “oh no” and almost instinctively, like only a father, someone who has known love and responsibility can know, I could sense something terrible had happened. I stood immediately, stepped from the tub, excused myself from the call and hung up the phone, grabbed a towel and ran downstairs and that’s where I saw the terrible thing that Rufus Cobbleskill had done.
In a typical drunken spill, Rufus, coming down the last step, had slipped and tried to grab anything he could find to slow his fall. He reached out and all he could manage to grab hold of was my ancient typewriter, which he did not so much as grab as he pull, which started a cascade effect, dragging three old typewriters down upon my lazy lesbian dog, killing her slowly, ironically enough, mostly with the letter e.
While that was kind of sad, the good news is the house is much cooler without her large body blocking the only vent to the basement.
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