Tales of the Incredible Hoke Robertson

I Met a Four

by Anne Allogy

The alarm buzzer went off at the usual time; it’s blare-like the warning klaxon indicating the zombies have breached the outer perimeter. I stretched and yawned eliciting those annoying clicks from the joint of my jaw which sounded like someone behind you cocking the hammer of an 1874 Colt Peacemaker revolver.

My feet slid into my slippers with the soft scrape of an experienced 4H member carding the wool of her prize Shropshire ewe. As I walked to the bathroom each step gave a soft slap on the cold floor sounding like an exhausted CIA contractor’s hand impacting the bloody face of his interrogee.

The initial spray from the shower on my face was similar to what a yearling penguin’s beak experienced on its first plunge into the Antarctic Ocean. As the shower got warmer I felt like a Tootsie Roll Pop that had been slowly dissolving in your cheek. The steaming shower prevented me from seeing very much just like someone leaving the optometrist’s after having his eyes dilated.

After getting dressed I hurried to the kitchen like an Adventist kid heading to the TV after being told that the Sabbath had just ended. I took a long drink from the tall glass of milk like Abu-gul-Peen being waterboarded for the first time.

The smell of the bread toasting was reminiscent of the odor from the first use of the furnace of the season after the mouse family had made its home there during the summer. I lathered the too-brown toast with a slab of butter like a doting mother with sunscreen preparing her red-headed kid for a day in the sun.

As I walked outside to get in my car the sounds of the birds singing reminded me of what Sylvester heard after being bonked on the head by an anvil while chasing Tweety Pie. The car started up just like a teenage girl bumping into the captain of the football team. Off I sped like a large piece of chicken Heimliched out of a choking diner.

On the way to work I passed some kids making their way to school seemingly as eager to make forward progress as cats on leashes. As I passed by I smiled at them like the killer android robot trying to coax the last humans out of their bunker. The kids ignored me like the clerk at the clothing store who can’t stop texting useless information to her greasy, loser boyfriend.

I made my way through traffic like an adult going through a crowed public pool 20 seconds after “free swim” had been declared by the inattentive life guard. The traffic lights were like a rigged poker game with me being the easy money. As I neared my office I had the same feeling in my stomach as a good student being caught succumbing to the temptation to peek at his classmates test paper.

The security guard smiled at me like an Arab in a bazaar telling you its authentic and the price is very reasonable. I nodded back like a MSG-19 gang member letting you know you’re next. The elevator erupted in exiting passengers like Houston School at 3 pm on June 4, 1970. I squeezed into the elevator like a rich lady getting her foot into that just-too-small pump with the gorgeous sequins on the toe.

The office coffee machine was making sounds like Jed Clampett’s truck after Jethro ran it into the fire hydrant to avoid a kiss by Miss Hathaway. I took a small sip of the dark, smelly fluid; it tasted like the stuff that builds up in that small area behind the ear of a Yemeni. The common area around the coffee machine was as dirty as Hillary Clinton’s hair after a week of her pretending to relate to normal Americans.

I sat down at my desk with my chair making a sound like a .308 round entering the shoulder of an oblivious Montana elk. It creaked as I moved forward to the desk, like Hockey-masked Jason opening the door to the closet in which you are hiding. The boss came in and gave a speech similar to Stalin telling a now dead Lenin’s friends how much he was disappointed in them.

The phone rang again and again like your wife of 40 years telling you to not leave you shoes there; the place you have left them for the last 50 years. The client on the line was speaking to me in a tone like my granddaughter trying to get grampy to understand the current circumstances of her ever-changing pretend scenario in which I was stuck.

As I began to write notes, the soft “tick” of the pencil lead breaking was like the final sound of the detonator’s timer before the circuit was completed and the enemy’s ammo dump goes up in a ball of flame. The pen I grabbed as a substitute immediately ran out of ink like a progressive trying to come up with a reason for his political views. The raspy scratch of the dry pen being pushed across the paper was like the sound preceding the onset of the rock slide which will soon break your leg.

The 8,000 page report I needed to read and comment on by noon stared at me like the cat watching the mouse it had been torturing for the last hour as it ran away. Trying to flip the first few pages, I cut my finger like a half-blind 60 year old grabbing the wrong end of his “safety” razor in the early hours of the morning. I scanned the document like a bored extraterrestrial looking at the Galactic Work Order mandating the earth be vaporized. I applied myself to the workload like the Little Britain secretary handling questions at the front desk.

The clock on the wall marked the time like the idiot in front of you in line at Disneyland who refuses to move forward when a gap appears. As noon approached, my stomach gurgled like a small mud geyser at Yellowstone that periodically makes that “plopping” sound. I started dreaming of lunch as if it were Bobby Darren and I a 12 year old girl in 1961.

The mail was delivered but untouched on my desk like the various pieces of paper covering the floor of a public bathroom. I tried my best to hear the discussion going on in the cubicle next to me like a seemingly careless boyfriend after his teenage girlfriend is called into the examination room at the pregnancy clinic.

When the lunch hour arrived I got up like a lobbyist at the very end of the mandatory ethics class heading for the local bar where the legislators hang out. The sandwich, chips and soft drink from the vending machines went down as easily as it was to remove the last Japanese soldiers on Okinawa from their hiding spots.

The remainder of the lunch hour was spent as productively as a French bureaucrat between 3 and 4 pm on Thursday. I promptly returned to my desk with the eagerness of a B-17 belly-gunner climbing aboard for his second to last planned combat mission. As I began work I looked around and surmised the total intellect of the office was about as large as an average 15 year old American girl’s vocabulary.

The rest of the workday had about as many highlights as the never ending static which came from the radio you built from a kit in 1969. When it was time to punch out I cleaned up my desk with all the attention of a hoarder dropping the garbage bag in the too-full living room.

On the way out those who bumped into me during the constant jostling apologized with all the sincerity of Donald Trump being gracious after another primary win. The new dents on my car grinned at me like that obnoxious kid in third grade who desperately wanted to be “one of the guys.”

The traffic on the ride home was as uneventful as a compilation of Jerry Springer’s “Best of” DNA testing episodes. The women constantly cutting me off shared the same attitude as the quirky kid across the street who used to squash every insect he saw. The rude, careless, unqualified drivers had as little effect on my peace of mind as a lump of magnesium has on the glass of water into which it drops.

When I pulled into the driveway I noticed it was decorated by some neighbor’s trash as if we were celebrating the Moldavian holiday “Uncaring Slob Day.” I picked up the unwanted litter with all the enthusiasm of your dog being shoved into the pet carrier for the second time. My key slid into the lock as easily as it was to ask Julie Franz out that cold, horrible, putrid day in 1973.

I placed my keys, wallet and phone on the end table and watched as the phone fell to the hardwood floor with the disbelief of an Apple employee being told to wear a collared shirt and wash his hair once in a while. I opened the M&M package with the excitement of a hyena finding a zebra leg. The taste of the rich chocolate felt as good as if I had just met Emma Watson and she asked me to help her “get out of these darn, too-tight pantyhose.” I turned on the TV with the same slavery to routine as Bill Clinton searching for his next victim.

I eventually made dinner with all the planning and care of a twenty-something leaving his parents house to “par-TAY.” The pork and beans and buttered white bread were as exciting as the time the kid with the running nose stared at me for 47 minutes at Gate 23 at the airport. I took the dirty dishes to the sink and cleaned them with all the intensity of a tree sloth doing his morning toiletries.

The cat stared at me like a Marine Corps drill sergeant watching millennial recruits trying to imitate his recent instructions on folding laundry. I opened the can of cat food and got a whiff reminiscent of the lavatory on an abandoned Russian trawler. The cat ate the unknown goop with all the enthusiasm of a Jamaican sprinter heading to the drug testing room.

I turned on the TV with the same anticipation as a Med student on the first Monday of sphincter week. The quality of the shows on the tube was about as good as the service at a gun store. Halfway through the show I’d decide to watch I realized it was about as clever a snail’s attack plan for the luscious hydrangea in the front yard.

I brushed my teeth with all the diligence of an airport janitor entering the men’s bathroom that day for the 17th time. My gout pill went down as easily as the milk bottles at the carnival baseball throw. I climbed into bed and fell to sleep as quickly as Christmas comes for the 5 year old looking at the clock with December 24, 3:27 pm on it.

The story ended with all the excitement of the first time a kidney stone of yours moved two inches.

THE END, like a gazelle speeding directly into the lioness who was waiting instead of chasing