February 2, 2008

I am such a fucking idiot.

Our plasma-screen TV arrived today. It was large enough and heavy enough that it required two Polish men with admirable muscle mass and tone to bring it into the house and attach it to the wall. One of them was older and gruff in a sort of gone-to-seed-but-still-fit kind of way, and the other was in his twenties, bright and pleasant and totally hot. They installed the TV, the bright and pleasant one explained the remote control to me in fairly good English, I gave them a cash tip, and they left.

Seconds later, the doorbell rang. When I went to answer it, there stood the bright and pleasant and totally hot Polish man, holding something electric in his hands. “I forgot to install part of TV,” he said, smiling sheepishly. “You mind I come in and finish up?”

“No problem,” I said, and went back to writing whatever it was I’d been trying to write while he went upstairs and installed the part. He came back downstairs and, as he left, called out, “Thank you! I sorry about that!”

Without looking up, I called back, “No problem!”

Seconds later, the doorbell rang again. He looked even more sheepish this time. “I have problem,” he said, and seemed not to know quite how to continue. After a short awkward silence, he said, “Battery in my truck dead,” and looked at me with pleading eyes. I frowned in concern. He said, “You have car maybe, help jump start engine?”

“Oh, no,” I said. “I’m so sorry. I don’t have a car.”

We stood there for another moment or two, silent, at which point he smiled again. “Okay, I figure something else out,” he said, and went back out into the street, at which point I closed the door and went back to writing.

Obviously this is what happens when you get old: you become unable to understand a shriekingly obvious communication from a hot delivery worker that he and his partner want to have sex with you.

I’d just go eat rat poison now, but at my age I worry about whether or not I can chew.