French for Grapefruit

“Damn, it’s chilly down here,’ John muttered as he peeled himself off of his black, pleather couch, ‘guess I’ll have to turn up the heat.”

John did this frequently, muttering to himself. He also turned up the heat quite often, but as it was winter in his small northern Ontario town this made sense. The talking to himself didn’t make quite as much sense.

John climbed the creaky stairs all the while continuing his muttering, “Stupid creaky stairs! Why won’t the landlord fix these things?”

For some reason John had temporarily forgotten he was the landlord per se as he owned the house and thus the stairs were his responsibility.

When he reached the top of the stairs he reached his hand towards the door, which had a tendency to stick when you tried to open it. As he struggled to open the door his muttering only increased, “Gosh darn sticky door, why won’t the landlord fix any of these things? I’ve complained and written letters and still nothing. I am going to have some words with that man if he dares show his face around here, let me tell you!”

Unfortunately, “You” was nowhere around to be told, and even if he had been I doubt he’d care as he’d probably be aware, as John somehow wasn’t, that John owed the house, as was de-facto the landlord.

John finally managed to get the door un-stuck though an act of considerable agility that required him to stand on one leg while putting the other against the door, setting both his hands against the wall to brace himself and pushing like all get out. It worked, but not on the first try. After throwing himself down the stairs three times he successfully managed to get the door unstuck.

He could have unlocked it, but John was fond of complicated solutions to easy problems. Also, he hadn’t noticed it was locked.

Once he managed to extract himself from the basement his muttering stopped for a few seconds so he could take stock of what he saw. It only took a few seconds because everything he took stock of was exactly the same as the last time he had taken stock of it. The living room with it’s couch, loveseat, end and coffee tables, television, DVD player, VCR, stereo, magazines, fireplace, pictures of family and friends on the wall, the modern art that no one could figure out, the semi-conscious person laying in a pool of their own fluids. Yep, everything looked like it should.

As there was no problem with the living room John made his way down the hall and the muttering began anew, “Stupid long hall way being so dark. Why won’t the landlord change the light? It’s been burnt out for three weeks now. I’ve called and written and yelled and threatened with lawsuits but still nothing. I’m moving the minute I can afford some new digs.”

John was forgetful.

He when finally he made it to the end of the long, dark hallway, he looked slightly to his left and there, in all it’s heat controlling glory, was the thermostat. John’s constant stream of mutters was finally halted. John made some happy sounds and cranked the heat up to a balmy 35 degrees. Satisfied, he turned around, headed back down the long dark hallway, opened the sticky door, skipped down the creaky stairs, and plopped himself back down on the pleather couch and gleefully resumed watching reruns of Battlestar Galactica.

About 35 minutes later John began to sweat profusely, and with the sweat came the muttering.

“Stupid too hot basement! Why can’t it be more temperate down here? I’m going to call the landlord!”

John reached for the phone and began to dial the landlord’s number, all the while muttering, “Why do phone numbers have to be so long now-a-days? When I was a lad they were five digits long, now I have to dial twice that amount to make a simple call. There are too many people, that’s the problem!”

When he completed dialling he got a busy signal. This lead to another stream of muttering, “Freaking landlord, can’t get another line? Who only has one line now-a-days, we live in a two line world, this is outrageous and I won’t stand for it. Now I have to dial the number all over again.” Although he was aware of the availability of two phone lines on the same number, he apparently had no clue as to the existence of the redial function.

Three hours and several hundred punched digits later, John gave up, but only on dialing, not on muttering, “Crazy landlord, how can he be on the phone that long? That doesn’t make any sense, who has that much to talk about? Talking for three hours, this is simply ridiculous.”

Things carried on like this for several days, with John making several trips up and down out of the basement, muttering all the while, to adjust the temperature. Then one day John slipped coming down the stairs and broke his neck.

“Stupid stairs, tripping me like that, and now my neck is broken and no one is going to hear me call for help. Oh well, let the landlord find my body, it’s what he deserves.”

This went on for several hours until John died.

At his funeral it was said John died as he lived, like a complete and total nut job.

Also, muttering.
~Fin~