ceiling

 He lies in bed and is thirsty. He sees a mostly empty glass of water on his bedside table, next to several other totally empty glasses.

He reaches for the glass and takes a drink and realizes that it tastes a little weird and that there are small specks in the glass.

“Fuck,” he says and sits still and stares at the wall for a minute.

“Babe, I just drank this water and it’s got like specks of some shit in it. Like, what could that be?”

“Oh god,” she says. “I don’t know. Like particles from the ceiling maybe?”

“Oh fuck, did I drink ceiling?”

“Oh no, honey. I don’t know. Maybe it’s cat dandruff?”

“Fuck.”

They’re both quiet for a minute. He asks, “Do you think I’ll die from drinking ceiling?”

“I don’t think so,” she says.

“I would be so embarrassed if that’s how I died,” he said. “Drank ceiling.”

pretzels

 He swipes his card through the reader on the vending machine that accepts credit cards. He buys potato chips and a candy bar and sits. The other guy says, “Oh I forgot that machine takes cards. I kinda want some pretzels.” He swipes his card and stares at the message.

“Hey, can you show me how you swipe your card? It’s not working for me.”

“Sure,” he says.

He shows the other guy and the other guy tries his card again.

“It isn’t working for my card,” the other guy says and walks away.

“Let me buy you pretzels,” he says.

“No, I’m fine,” the other guy says and sits on a bench.

“Let me buy you pretzels!” he says again.

“Okay,” the other guy says and stands from his bench.

eggs

 “I think someone egged my car,” she says.

“What?”

“Yeah. Like, there’s this shit on my back windshield. It looks nasty.”

“That’s fucked up,” he says. “It might be punks in the neighborhood or some shit. Someone ripped the front and back medallions off my old car.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. That’s why it doesn’t have medallions. Someone broke them off my car. Not long after I moved here.”

“What is wrong with people.”

They drive to a car wash. A piece of paper is taped over the instructions explaining that the lights don’t work. “Just drive forward. If you aren’t happy, bring your receipt and we’ll refund you,” it says.

“This is so fucking cool,” he says. Rubber tentacles drape across the car, get temporarily stuck in her car’s windshield wipers.

“Isn’t it? My dad used to take me to car washes when I was kid.”

“Same,” he says. “Felt like a fucking roller coaster. Still does kinda.”

The hoses wash over the car front to back.

“What about my eggs! My fucking eggs!” she shouts.

He reaches around himself and watches the hoses gently pouring over the rear windshield, the egg stains still hardened and stuck.

“Fuck,” he says.

“It’s not dealing with my fucking eggs!”

“This is fucked,” he says.

The driers run and they watch beads of water roll up and over the windshield and they drive off.

“We probably could have gotten a refund,” she says, “but I forgot to get a receipt. I was so excited to get rid of my eggs.”

meeting

 “We wanted to have this meeting to talk about cleaning – or, rather, a lack of cleaning,” the small boss says.

“Are you still cleaning here? I feel like I don’t see you anymore,” the big boss says.

“Yeah, of course, I’m still here at least five days a week,” he says.

“Okay,” the big boss says. “What we wanted to do this for, is, well, the last company we had we weren’t happy with their bathroom floor cleaning and to be honest, I think we’ve lost two or three companies over bathroom floors at this point. So we want to have this meeting early to make sure we’re all on the same page.

“Okay, yeah,” he says and he adjusts himself on the couch.

“Well, let’s take a look at the floors together,” the big boss says.

They walk down a hall and into a bathroom and he says, “Maintenance,” relatively loudly before entering.

They look at the floor together and the big boss says, “Oh, this is just normal dirt from a day of people.”

He looks at the floor. It looks fine to him.

“I know that Diane upstairs was saying there’s a stain that they haven’t cleaned in days,” the small boss says to the big boss.

“Okay, let’s take a look at that too,” the big boss says.

They go upstairs and the big boss says, “Diane, can I have you for a minute?” and she introduces him to Diane and Diane to him and Diane looks at him oddly for a few seconds.

In the bathroom they look at the stain together.

“I think that’s a rust stain,” he says, “but I’m not sure.”

“Yeah,” the big boss says. “Let me, hold on,” and the big boss grabs a paper towel and wets it and gets on her knees and attempts to wipe away the stain, which does not go away. “Yeah. Yeah that’s a rust stain. Okay, that makes sense.”

They leave the bathroom and talk about other cleaning solutions and equipment. They express fear that their new floors will become tarnished over time by gradual grease and residue.

They thank him for having the meeting with them.

chud buddies

 One of the cats tries to squeeze himself behind a box in his office.

“What is he doing?” she asks him.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I think there’s a mouse or something.”

“God. Look at his fucking thighs.”

“I know. He’s got a big booty.”

She laughs.

The cat keeps trying to jam his head behind the box. His legs are positioned funny and she comments on it.

“When he was a kitten his dad took him to the cat equivalent of Chuck E. Cheese.”

“Oh yeah?” she asks.

“Yeah. Like, ‘Hey dad, can we go to Chud Buddies?”

She laughs. “Chud Buddies.”

“And all the games are like this. You jam your face behind a box or some shit and try to catch a mouse. And all the rewards are dead mice and shit.”

She laughs again. “Gross,” she says.