: uncle, uncle, for pete’s sake :

All right, already. Enough with the misery. Seven inches of this white crap came salting out of the sky last weekend — mere days ago. Now it’s back for another go, with ten more inches (if you believe the weather forecast, which I flat-out refuse to do) and more subzero temperatures. I’m living in a damn snow globe.

But that’s not the worst part. Oh, no, The worst part is: work was canceled. I can’t believe I said that, but it’s true. I’d rather have been at work, sorting screws or stuffing envelopes. Instead, I was trapped inside with the human equivalent of nails on a chalkboard. Her name is Betty. You wouldn’t like her.

She lives in the apartment above me and spends her day — 22 ½ hours of it, anyway — in an old, broken down recliner. Except she’s not reclining. She’s squirming and grinding, writhing and wriggling, thrashing and shifting. ¹ I’m guessing she has worms or else lap dancing.

I’ve seen the woman, so my money is on worms. Picture a Sneetch or maybe a character from The Far Side; someone short and pear-shaped with strangely bent hair and a perpetually startled expression. That’s her, every man’s dream. Just ask her ex-husband, a dashing gentleman in his own right, who lives next door to me. Can you believe my luck?

He can’t keep his hands off her. They would rendezvous in her recliner and, oy, the noise was enough to make my ears bleed. I longed for deafness. I stuffed my ears with cotton balls and earplugs and thumbs; covered them with headphones; buried my head under pillows. Nothing blocked out the cacophony, not the vacuum cleaner or the shower, not my weeping nor my wailing,

Finally, after a year, the ex was forced to curtail his visits. Undaunted, Betty soldiers on alone and the racket continues unabated. She doesn’t sleep. She doesn’t leave. She just twists and wiggles and shimmies.

I’m bleary-eyed and loopy from the lack of sleep, sure, but the real victim isn’t me; it’s the recliner. There should be a law prohibiting that kind of abuse. Furniture can’t fight back; it can’t protect itself from the indignities visited upon it by thoughtless, inconsiderate louts.

That’s our Job, America. Yours and mine. Write to your congressional representative (speaking of thoughtless. inconsiderate louts) and let’s put an end to this senseless cruelty once and for all. Thank you.

Copyright © 2014 Publikworks

¹ There’s no physical or medical cause for these gyrations. None. I asked. Two previous tenants complained about the noise and were eventually relocated. Countless others have chosen to simply up sticks altogether. The lucky bastards.