Dial tone again. What is wrong with these people?
“We’re not done with our lesson yet, dickwad.”
“I’m not a dickwad, YOU’RE A DICKWAD!” I yell to the broken stereo on the ground. How the f**k is he still talking to me? This is like the movie ‘Chuckie’. That damn doll just wouldn’t die. How the hell do you kill a CD that won’t die?
I call the number again and try a different tactic. “Yes, this is Punjab from Czechoslovakia. Dr. Earl ordered something from us and I need to speak to him right away. What do you mean Czechoslovakia doesn’t exist anymore? When the f**k did that happen? Wow, 1992, seriously? I probably should have learned that in school, huh. No kidding? But it’s still there, right? It didn’t like, blow up or something? Interesting. No, no message.”
I hang up the phone and realize I was fooled again. Like they would really just get rid of some place called Czechoslovakia. What would they do with all the Checkians? I wasn’t born yesterday, I know when someone is pulling my leg.
Since calling the Duke and telling him off isn’t going to work, I’ll just send him an email. I pull up Gmail on my phone and type in his email address that I found on Google.
Dear Dr. Duke of Earl Dick Fuck,
You are going down, buddy. I will make you pay for this…
~
“Yes, officer. I understand. No, I promise there won’t be any more trouble. Tell Dr. Michaelson and his family we’re very sorry for scaring him. Just send me the bill for his hotel stay.”
Jenny closes our front door and turns around to look at me without saying a word.
“Can I just expl-”
“Oh, I think you’ve done plenty of talking today,” she cuts me off. “Really, Drew? Threatening a psychiatrist and his family? He took his wife and kids to a hotel because they feared for their lives.”
Jenny walks away from the door and starts picking up pieces of the mangled stereo on the living room floor. I may have got a little too excited in my need to destroy it. There were pieces that flew all the way into the kitchen when I stomped on it repeatedly. According to all horror movies, you have to dismantle the pieces and spread them out away from each other so they can’t get back together and form an even scarier monster that will hunt you down and kill you. I was protecting my family!
“Oh please, like fleeing from his house was really necessary,” I explain as I help her pick up plastic pieces.
“You told him you were going to sneak into his house and watch him while he slept.”
It turns out the CD I bought was a fake. Some disgruntled employee who worked at the online store I had bought it from replaced a bunch of self-help CDs with one he made at home. Dr. Earl wasn’t the only one whose CDs had been replaced. There had been about a hundred other self-help people out there that it happened to as well. Oops.
“Why would you even buy a self-help CD in the first place?” she asks as she gets up and takes a pile of pieces into the kitchen to dump them in the garbage.
I stare at her ass as she walks away and try to remember the last time I had my hands on her ass.
“You look very beautiful today. Don’t worry about the dishes. I’ll take care of them,” I tell her as I dump my own pile of pieces into the garbage can after she does.
“What are you talking about? We have a dishwasher,” she says with a shake of her head as she leaves the kitchen.
“It’s okay, honey! I’ll fold the laundry,” I yell to her retreating back.
“I folded the laundry yesterday,” she shouts back angrily.
“Fuck you, Dr. Earl. And fake Dr. Earl who recorded fake CDs,” I grumble to myself as I turn the lights out in the kitchen and follow Jenny upstairs to see if I’ll be allowed to sleep in bed tonight. I’m going to go with no, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.
I get to the top of the stairs and my pillow and a blanket are already in the hall, next to our closed bedroom door. With a sigh, I pick up my things and head back downstairs.
I curl up on the couch and pull up the p**n app on my phone. “At least I still have you, little buddy.”
A few seconds later, a message pops up on my screen that says, “The p**n app site is temporarily down for service. Please try back later.”
Oh my God, even p**n doesn’t want me to have any satisfaction.
The universe obviously hates me.
Chapter 16 – VAGINA!
“The cops were at our house for two hours questioning Drew. It was so embarrassing. I’m sure all of the neighbors saw the police car in our driveway,” I complain to Liz as I add a new blog post to her store’s website.
“Right. Like THAT is the most mortifying thing your neighbors have ever seen in your driveway,” she replies as she uses a knife to slice through the tape on top of one of the boxes of inventory that was just delivered.
“That Halloween two years ago was an accident. I didn’t realize body paint was flammable, and Drew got a little too close to the jack-o-lanterns we carved,” I explain as I turn around in the computer chair to help Liz remove some of the items from the box.
“Drew stopped, dropped, and rolled naked in your neighbor’s front yard. Didn’t he catch their maple tree on fire?”
I pull out three packages of piña colada lube and set them off to the side. “It was a small maple tree. Not a big one. And the fire was out quickly. It wasn’t that big of a deal.”
Liz pushes the empty box away and pulls up another one and cuts it open.