A Life More Ordinary

Josh writes:

I need more stories, you know? It's so much easier to write stuff when all you have to do is remember it. Flatting stories are always a good bet -- Jack has some that'd curl your hair, Jellybean has a few that'd curl your toes and Morthos lived next to a goat for a while, but by and large, I've had very few noteworthy experiences in the world of co-habitation. There's this one, I suppose:

So I used to flat with Jellybean in a run-down but centrally-located shithole, which was divided into three sub-shitholes: 5A, 5B, and perhaps a little too predictably, 5C. We were upstairs in 5A, which meant that, due to the house's complete lack of insulation, our every footstep resonated through 5B below. We'd had polite words with the guys downstairs about this: "We understand -- it's not you, it's the house, but can you try not to, y'know, walk around so much?" "Umm... OK?" All very amicable.

However.

Late one night there came a rapping on our door. I was in bed, and knew of no-one who would show up at that hour for me; Jellybean was in bed, and was expecting no-one at that hour for him. So we both rolled over and assumed the other would answer it. Not a problem, as it turned out, since whoever it was gave up after the first few knocks and buggered off.

However.

Next morning I notice a torn up piece of paper had been pushed through our mail slot. Assembled, it read:

LEARN TO PARK
STUPID BITCH
5A GLASGOW

Quick peek out the door -- nothing wrong with how either of us were parked. And how did they know our address? Then it dawned: This note had been penned by a third party and stuck on the late night knocker's car with our address on it, prompting the knockers to come a-knockin', presumably to ask us woss your fahking problem? (In my mind they were Cockneys -- dunno why.) We had, in other words, been set up. But by whom? And to what end?

The answer to the first was provided a few weeks later, when I noticed that the guys downstairs had left a note for the repair man stuck to their door; a note written on the same hotel note paper and in the same handwriting as the one that found its way into our accomodating slot. The prosecution rests, your Honour. So why did they conspire to send irate nocturnal motorists to our doorstep?

It must be noted that they were epic stoners, so maybe they just got confused and wrote down the wrong address. On the other hand, once we worked out what had gone on, Jellybean remembered that just a week or two beforehand, an episode of CSI had aired, which featured a victim being set up and killed in remarkably similar nasty-note-leaving circumstances. If not for our lazy indifference towards the basic tenets of hospitality, we could have found ourselves with William Petersen elbow deep in our Y-incised cadavers while Marg Helgenberger combed out our pubic hair.

Well no, that's just silly -- it would have just been Jorja Fox and The Other One, The One Whose Name No-one Can Remember, No, Not The Black Guy, The Other One. Nick? Is It Nick? Sounds About Right.