"Some weather we've been having, eh?"
Richard closed his eyes and sighed heavily. He had hoped he could avoid Carl considering the long day he had, and was in no mood to try and pretend to be cordial. He closed the mail box and looked up and said "Yeah, something isn't it?" Richard had hoped he would pick up on the rhetorical nature of the question. He didn't.
Richard always thought Carl was an odd person. He never seemed to have much company, and always walked about in a quiet stupor which Richard found odd. He often took to referring to Carl as Boo Radley in private, though one day he did let the nickname slip in one of their brief conversations, but he didn't think Carl noticed. If he could, he would avoid talking with him. Richard would have no problem going about his day completely ignoring Carl, but for some reason he also struck up some short, insignificant conversation, and he felt obligated to respond.
"Oh well," Carl responded "at least the rain will help water our lawns."
"Uh, yeah, sure. It will make them super green and, uh, stuff."
When Carl had stepped out of his house to retrieve his mail, he had not seen Richard. He wished he had the forethought to look since he did not particularly enjoy conversing with his neighbors, but he especially did not enjoy talking to Richard. Richard was the kind of guy who had a air of privilege, and lacked a general understanding human decency. He swore Richard had referred to him as Boo Radley once, which he was surprised at the literary reference, but did not feel complemented by the comparison. On several occasions Carl had overheard Richard make snide comments over the few lawn gnomes Carl kept in his yard. He wouldn't have taken it so personally had he not once explained to roger as to why he had the gnomes.
"You know lawn gnomes are designated for like, old hippy broads and those short guys with hairy feet, right?" Richard said with a chuckle.
"Do you mean hobbits?" Carl asked.
"Ha! Yeah, hobbits. You would be the kind of dude who knew that."
Laughing politely "Yeah, well I keep them as a kind of inside joke." Carl replied.
"Well, that's one ugly inside joke." he said in an hypercritical tone.
Carl paused and forced a slight chuckle, though he thought the comment was anything but funny.
"eh, yeah, well, it's something that my wife and I joked about before we got married. It's a long story, but that's why I keep them."
Richard, with a raised eyebrow, sensitively responded with "Whoa, how are you married and I'm still going though every receptionist at work? Ha!"
"Because you're a total ass waffle, who wouldn't know how to treat a girl even if she gave you
step by step instructions with pictures to help." Is what Carl thought.
"Just lucky I guess." Is what he said.
"Well, did she leave you or something? I've never seen anyone else over here except for you."
"Uh, no. She passed away a few years ago."
"Oh,' Richard replied. 'that sucks."
Since that time, Carl did not look forward to interactions with Richard. However, he never could find it within himself to be outwardly rude to Richard, so he always tried to engage in polite, but brief, conversation.
As he walked towards the mailbox, he politely called out to Richard, "some weather we've been having, eh?"
No comments:
Post a Comment