Fred’s Place

Picking up from the previous week’s edition... (Sign #4)

Knowing Jimmy’s penchant for getting a joke over on someone, I said, “You’re kidding me.”

Brenda said, “I smell it.”

“Come with me and let me show you,” Jimmy answered. “It’s all cleaned up now. I rented a carpet cleaner last night and cleaned it three times. You can’t even tell where it was.”

Have you ever noticed how “clean” to a man isn’t “clean” to a woman? A man can wear the same T-shirt for days, adding new stains like a Jackson Pollock portrait, and it won’t bother him. Women? Not so much.

As we followed Jimmy down the stairs, the “aroma” got stronger.

In the bedroom, Jimmy proudly flung open the closet door like it belonged on a limousine. “See? You can’t tell there was anything there.”

Peering in, all I saw was a large bag of Kingsford charcoal with its side torn open lying on the floor.

What—”

I didn’t get the question out before he explained, “That’s to filter the smell out, you know, like a charcoal filter.”

Even though I had serious doubts, experience had shown me many times how ingenious Jimmy could be in fixing and repairing things, so I decided to go with it.

I looked at Brenda. “It’ll be fine. It may just take a few more hours for the smell to be completely gone.”

She looked unconvinced.

 

Back in the hallway, Jimmy’s wife, Tenia, called out, “The kids are wanting to go out on the boat.”

The boat. Swimming and skiing. That would certainly take all our minds off “the smell.”

We all quickly changed, loaded up some snacks and drinks, and headed down the cliff to the boat.

Five hours later, having eaten and drank everything, we returned to the dock sunburned and rubber-legged from skiing so much.

I know you’ve noticed how much easier it is to walk down some stairs than to walk up them. But have you tried to walk up (and I’ll admit this is an estimate) 147 steps? With rubbery legs?

My calves and thighs threatened to quit working as the wives and children climbed past me and Jimmy.

During one of the several stops to rest and catch our breath, I asked Jimmy, “I guess we need to go to the grocery store and get some groceries.”

“Well, when we got here and looked in the refrigerator, it was full of half-used jars of mayo, mustard, and pickles, and already opened packages of sandwich meat and half a gallon of left over milk. It looked like whoever was here before us left in a hurry, like they were fugitives on the run. I called Fred and asked him what we should do about it, and he said to go ahead and feel free to use it.”

(Sign #5)

“That’s weird,” I said.

“Yeah, but it’ll save us some money.”

(Jimmy and I had a history of singing from the same songbook when it came to saving money. On one of our trips to the ocean, we searched through a phonebook in a phonebooth and found the cheapest motel we could find and felt proud of it.

Until.

Until Brenda and I went in our room, looked in the bathroom, and saw a large hole in the wall where the bathtub faucets were located. I bent down and saw that the hole went all the way through to the adjacent bathroom, giving a clear view for a voyeur. (You’re probably ahead of me on this, but you’re right; we didn’t spend the night there.)

By the time Jimmy and I dragged ourselves into the cabin, the refrigerator had been emptied, and Brenda was halfway inside it, scrubbing and cleaning, and muttering under her breath.

Tenia and Brenda left to go buy groceries while Jimmy and I watched the kids—when we weren’t napping.

After supper that night, what do you think everyone (except me and Jimmy) wanted to do? Of course, they wanted to go for a sunset cruise on the pontoon boat.

It was on that trip down the steps that I realized there’s an entirely different set of muscles that get used in the process, especially your shin muscles. They felt like someone was stabbing knives into them. Jimmy groaned. I whimpered.

Lying in bed that night never felt better.

Until... The story will conclude in next week’s edition.

* Taken from The Wit and Wisdom of David Johnson, Volume I1: The Hairy Catfish Caper.