On April the seventh I found myself standing in the middle of Kampala Road
Instead (to stave off any alarm on your part) I was wearing shorts; khakhi, with dozens of pockets on them. Casual menswear of this kind was fashionable at the time: clothing which came with a pocket per inch of cloth.
The situation was created by the new charwoman, Caldonia, an absolutely crazy chick with marbles every place but where they should be. The Worm and I had had her for three weeks now. She would come in on Saturday, dust, sweep, mop and wash what we told her to dust, sweep, mop and wash, then she would flit off into the sunset with her money and a smile. Don't know what got into her this week, however. This week, while The Worm slept and I watched TV, Caldonia hurricaned her way through the residence, cleaning and mopping with lethal vigour. I should have sensed something was wrong when she lifted the carpet and began to scrub underneath it, but Adam Sandler was saying something really cool on M-Net so that didn't happen.
At some point, about the time Winona Ryder was confessing to Sandler that she really didn't mean to hurt him, and that if he gave her another chance she would blah blah yadda yadda-- Come on, I don't watch romantic comedies for the romance. Quit yapping and do something funny!-- at around that point, Caldonia announced that we did not have enough detergent.
"Worm! Nti we need more Omo!" I yelled across the house, passing on the responsibility.
Something that sounded like "Tell her we'll get some tomorrow" issued from a half-asleep mouth that was hidden under a pillow in his bedroom. I translated and Caldonia left. I assumed she was resigned to doing the laundry the next day.
No. She found a way to do the laundry, even with insufficient Omo. The Worm woke up a half hour after Sandler and Ryder had gone off to live happily ever after and I was still stuck on the couch wondering if anything in the world was worth getting up from this supremely comfy posture for.
The Worm was walking in and out of rooms, entering them with anxiety on his face, emerging even more agitated.
Finally, when he could no longer cling to the hope that he had been mistaken, he announced his findings. With his hands in the air and a tone approaching a screech, he said, "She's washed everything! Everything! I swear, she took everything that had anything to do with fabric and washed it! Everything!"
"Um... wow," was my weak response. I had not yet understood how this came to be such a bad thing.
"What am I going to wear!?" Remember that screech that was approaching Worm's voice? It had arrived.
"I've got places to go, people to see, things to do!" The Worm continued to moan. At the walls and the
windows because he rightly assumed I wouldn't care.
"You know how you're always accusing me of being lazy?" I reminded him.
"Yes. The reason for that statement being obvious-- you're one of those people who would rather wait to see if it will go away when they feel an itch because scratching it would be too much of a bother. You haven't moved from that couch all morning, have you?"
I left out the part about the pot that woke up at eleven a.m. calling the kettle black and said, "Actually I did. Caldonia wanted to mop under the sofa, but that lies beside the point. What I wanted to say is, this predicament, does it not convince you that there is something to be said for laziness after all? That there is a positive side to being a bum?"
"You speak of a positive side. I see none. Illustrate," Worm said, hand on chin.
"Well, if Caldonia had been a lazy person, like say, Crooked Paul, you would not be in this situation. You would have lots and lots of unwashed clothes to pick from-- he always left plenty of work undone."
Crooked Paul was the dude we had cleaning before Caldonia. We had to let him go. The Worm loved it. "I tell you Mordecai, we are finally men. Real men. Bona fide employers who not only have the powers to fire the subordinates, but who, at last, can boast of having actually deployed these powers. This calls for a drink."
He had wanted to fire Crooked Paul for a long time. Mostly because he was a very lousy worker…
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