My New Neighbor by Peter Cherches




I can so empathize with Peter Cherches dealing with his new neighbor. As I've come to recognize now that I'm retired, like flypaper for the flies, I attract the oddest assortment of sad cases. Many of those floundering fish and fruitcake flies and sad sacks would enjoy nothing more than chatting in my ear nonstop. Fortunately, they are not in the dire circumstance of Peter's fish. Thus my new tact is to keep on walking or, as a last resort, say that I'm observing a time of silence.

MY NEW NEIGHBOR
I was trying to sleep in, but somebody rang my bell at 7:30. I got up, threw on a robe, andd went to the door, figuring it must be a neighbor since nobody had rung the downstairs buzzer. I opened the door and it my surprise a large fish was standing there. "Excuse me," he said(the voice was masculine), "I'm your new neighbor from across the hall. My bathroom is being renovated, and I was wondering if I could borrow your bathtub."

"Well," I said. "I'm sorry about your trouble, but I'm trying to get a little more sleep, and I don't think I can help you out."

"Please," he said. "I'm a fish out of water. If I stay dry much longer I'll die."

With a plea like that I certainly couldn't turn him down, could I? But he's been in the tub all day, and the bastard has me waiting on him hand and foot, or should I say fin and tail, in my own damn apartment. "Well, i certainly can't get out of the tub and get it myself," he whines, of the shrimp he discovered I have in the freezer. "Can I?"

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