"Did you ever...?" (Little Demons)

Did you ever…?
by Melech


Did you ever wonder about the little man who lives in your refrigerator? You know who I mean. The one who turns on the light when you open the door, and then turns it off when you close the door. Every now and then, I suppose because of boredom, he will loosen the light bulb so it will not go on, he will uncover your leftovers, and rearrange or hide things in the refrigerator. All in all, he seems to be a pretty nice little guy and doesn’t cause too much trouble. His relatives, (and there are many of them) are another story. They are mean and vicious and have only one purpose in life; to annoy, aggravate and frustrate me until I begin to hear voices and they can put me in a home.

One of them (I think it’s a cousin) lives in my washing machine. He rips buttons off my shirts, shreds underwear and will only return one sock from each pair. I don’t like him at all. I like his brother even less. He lives in the clothes dryer and spends his time ying knots in my clothes and braiding the sheets. He also amuses himself by cleaning out the lint trap and spreading white lint on the dark clothes. Once in a while he will return clothes that do not belong to me. I probably should check with my neighbours to see if they are missing any laundry.

His other relatives do not stay in any one place. They roam about the house moving furniture so I will trip over it, tilt the pictures and mirrors on the walls, sprinkle dust on the furniture I just dusted, and knock over the laundry I have just folded and stacked neatly in the linen closet. Another really mean relative likes to tangle and knot my telephone cord, so when I try to use the phone, I only have about two inches of cord to work with. Rather than try to untangle the cord, I just make do by keeping my face pushed up against the wall so I can use the phone. A cordless or cell phone is out of the question. They will find a way to weaken the battery or hide the phone on me.

This morning I was talking to my sister on the phone and she said: “I can’t understand a word you’re saying. Do you have your face pressed up against the wall again? Why don’t you just untangle the phone cord?”

I told her about the family of invisible little demons who live in my house, she said I needed a rest and she and her husband would be happy to drive me to a convalescent home. When I told her I couldn’t go because I was busy unbraiding my laundry and scrubbing the wallpaper pattern off my face, she hung up on me.





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“Did you ever…?” is a weekly newspaper column by Melech
©Copyright 2009 by Melech. All rights reserved

The next column will be posted on November 21, 2009