aici<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\nLook, when something gets on my nerves, I simply cannot go on with it.\u00a0\u00a0 Like my flat-mate’s couches.\u00a0 I hate myself for it.\u00a0 I let people bring things into my life and I don\u2019t even give a damn at the time to consider what it\u2019ll do to me.\u00a0 But it always ends up doing something to me, and instead of blaming myself, I get angry at whoever it was who brought the horrible thing into my life.\u00a0 I know it’s not fair of me, but I hate certain things so.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nIs it reasonable to get so worked up about couches?\u00a0 As a matter of fact, it is, thank you very much.\u00a0 If these were normal couches, then perhaps not, but my flat-mate\u2019s couches are these old, clunky, second-hand things that take up so much space it\u2019s just not funny.\u00a0 Or good.\u00a0 Or okay.\u00a0 It\u2019s a Feng Shui disaster, and it\u2019s already happened.\u00a0 It\u2019s been happening for the last eleven months.\u00a0 And I\u2019ve only been here for seven of them.\u00a0 Not that that makes a difference anyway.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nSo why now?\u00a0 Seven months after I got here, why now?\u00a0 Because today I wanted to move the place around.\u00a0 I wanted to move the kitchen table aside, so that I could pull one of those clunky couches over toward the sliding door, and then I was going to lay in the sun.\u00a0 So I did.\u00a0 I put the table against the long wall running the length of the four metre by eight metre room, pulled one of the couches down and put it in front of the doors.\u00a0 And that\u2019s where the trouble started.\u00a0 Like a natural disaster or a major trauma, like losing a tooth or finding out you\u2019ve become fat when you thought you\u2019d managed to remain relatively slim, everything changes.\u00a0 Move one thing, move two things, and suddenly the whole place changes.\u00a0 And that\u2019s just what happened.\u00a0 I moved the table, I moved the couch, and suddenly the apartment can\u2019t be the same.\u00a0 I\u2019ve popped the cork from the bottle of my frustration that\u2019s been mulling like wine, and now I\u2019ll be damned if I\u2019m going to put it back in again.\u00a0 Except I don\u2019t have a choice.\u00a0 The two goddamn clunky couches are too big to go anywhere else except in the corner of the room, at right angles to each other.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nI sit on the un-moved couch at the end of the room and think about it.\u00a0 What if I moved the TV cabinet, which, by the way, is also too big, further along the wall?\u00a0 Except I can\u2019t, because that means moving the table somewhere else, and that\u2019s also too big to go anywhere except where it is.\u00a0 And the television antenna is fixed, coming out of this small hole in the wall, like a subway train rumbling into a station.\u00a0 How about I have one of the couches parallel with the table?\u00a0 No, it\u2019d look ugly.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nThe fact is plain and simple: the couches are too big.\u00a0 They\u2019ve always been too big.\u00a0 They\u2019ve been too big for the whole seven months I\u2019ve been here.\u00a0 They\u2019ve been too big for the eleven months my flat-mate has had them.\u00a0 They\u2019ve been too big since the day they were made.\u00a0 I curse the designer.\u00a0 I curse the whole legacy of Western design for creating this style of a couch.\u00a0 I look at the back of the couch by the door.\u00a0 The arm cushions are massive.\u00a0 They\u2019re rounded and bulge and swell out like hideous appendages, like rolls of fat on the side of an elephant.\u00a0 Or perhaps like whale penises?\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure about that, I\u2019ve never seen a whale\u2019s penis.\u00a0 Although, isn\u2019t that where the term dork comes from?\u00a0 I\u2019m digressing.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nFrom Western design, I feel I could go on to Western politics.\u00a0 And then if I travel back far enough I\u2019d get to the Greeks and the age of reason.\u00a0 Which is quite appropriate, because my flat-mate is Greek.\u00a0 Or half Greek anyway.\u00a0 I want to ring her up and ask her \u201cSo where was the goddamn age of reason when you decided to buy these stupid oversize couches, you dumb-ass?\u201d\u00a0 Except I\u2019m not going to.\u00a0 I\u2019m not going to because she\u2019s gone back home for sometime because of something bad going on in the family.\u00a0 I should be sympathetic.\u00a0 But I don\u2019t feel like being sympathetic right now.\u00a0 Not to her, and certainly not to the couches.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nMy girlfriend walks in from outside, wearing her white bikini that makes her brown skin look even browner.\u00a0 She looks like a pretzel.\u00a0 Like a piece of toast.\u00a0 Like a very brown crayon.\u00a0 She\u2019s a good looking girl.\u00a0\u00a0 She looks at me funny.\u00a0 She wants to know why I\u2019m sitting at the back of the room when half an hour ago I moved one of the couches over to the door so I could sit in the sun.\u00a0 I tell her what\u2019s bothering me.\u00a0 I tell her how much I hate the couches.\u00a0 And the table.\u00a0 And the TV cabinet.\u00a0 I want to get rid of them all.\u00a0 I want to burn them, chop them up, mutilate them, destroy them.\u00a0 I want to eradicate their existence.\u00a0 She tells me I can\u2019t, because they are my flat-mates.\u00a0 Our flat-mates.\u00a0 I don\u2019t see how this matters.\u00a0 And it doesn\u2019t comfort me.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nWe\u2019re going to be here for another three or four months at least.\u00a0 Say four months, just to make the argument more interesting.\u00a0 Four months.\u00a0 Four times thirty days.\u00a0 Say thirty one days to make it even more interesting.\u00a0 Four times thirty one days.\u00a0 That\u2019s one hundred and twenty four days.\u00a0 Imagine now multiplying that by twenty four, then by sixty, then by sixty again.\u00a0 That\u2019d give you the number of seconds I have to live with these couches.\u00a0 And it\u2019s likely a lot.\u00a0 I can\u2019t add it up thought.\u00a0 And I don\u2019t want to.\u00a0 I know it\u2019s a lot.\u00a0 It sounds like it\u2019s a lot.\u00a0 And I can\u2019t live that long with these couches, I really can\u2019t.\u00a0 They have to go.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nI think about ways to get rid of the couches.\u00a0 Maybe I could throw them off the edge of the balcony.\u00a0 I could say it was an earthquake?\u00a0 Or perhaps strong wind.\u00a0 We have strong wind here.\u00a0 Probably not that strong though.\u00a0 What about if I left the door open and went out for a while?\u00a0 Someone might come and steal them.\u00a0 But then, they might steal everything else.\u00a0 They might steal things I like.\u00a0 Like my girlfriend.\u00a0 Although I\u2019d probably have to take her with me if I was going out, otherwise potential thieves might feel funny coming in.\u00a0 And then there would be the police and police reports and police investigators and newspaper reporters.\u00a0 How could I lie?\u00a0 I can lie to one person, maybe two, but three, four, five or more?\u00a0 When it means going to jail if I get found out?\u00a0 I can lie okay if the worst that happens is someone cries.\u00a0 The more I think about it, the more I realize that there is only one way to make this happen.\u00a0 I have to accidentally damage them to such an extent that they are no longer useable.\u00a0 And what is the number one use of a couch?\u00a0 To sit on.\u00a0 Bingo.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nI didn\u2019t even tell my girlfriend.\u00a0 She just sat outside, with her pretty little nose in a book, aiming to move on from a piece of toast and upgrade her tan to the color of a raisin.\u00a0 It\u2019s a good job. I like raisins.\u00a0 Some people think they look like mouse poos, but I think they\u2019re just fine.\u00a0 I look around for some sort of catalyst.\u00a0 I need some ammunition.\u00a0 There\u2019s a bottle of water in the kitchen.\u00a0 There\u2019s some paint in a bag by the TV cabinet.\u00a0 I can\u2019t see how either could do the job.\u00a0 The water just won\u2019t damage it, not, unless the fabric of the couch is left wet for months on end; and it would be stupid to say I was painting on the couch.\u00a0 I find myself thinking about red paint for no special reason except, I like the color red.\u00a0 Then the bottle of water comes into my mind.\u00a0 The two thoughts merge and I end up with a bottle of red water.\u00a0 And what is red water?\u00a0 Wine.\u00a0 There\u2019s a bottle of wine in the kitchen, next to the bottle of Famous Grouse which I\u2019ve already drunk a third of.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nI go into the kitchen and take the bottle of wine.\u00a0 How\u2019s this going to work?\u00a0 I need to get enough wine over the two couches, over all the cushions, four of them in all, such that these couches are going to look terrible.\u00a0 So that I can really start the process of ruining them.\u00a0 I get out four wine glasses from the cupboard and put them on a silver serving tray.\u00a0 I fill all the glasses to the rim.\u00a0 But I\u2019m not ready to go just yet, I need to set up the room.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nI pull the couch back from the door and put it back in it\u2019s original position, at right angles to its partner.\u00a0 They look so good together.\u00a0\u00a0 Or bad, actually.\u00a0 They look so very bad together.\u00a0 But not for much longer.\u00a0 I get one of my training shoes and put it in the middle of the room at exactly forty five degrees from the adjoining corners of both couches, about one point five meters away.\u00a0 Then, I go back to the kitchen and pick up the tray of wine glasses, balancing them on one hand.\u00a0 Steadily, carefully, I walk into the room.\u00a0 It was a dinner party, see, that\u2019s what I\u2019ll tell my flat-mate.\u00a0 We had some of my friends over from work.\u00a0 We made dolmades, just to show that I\u2019ve got nothing against Greeks.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We enjoyed them as well.\u00a0 We talked about the weather.\u00a0 We talked about how bad the flies are this year.\u00a0 We talked about Western design, politics, the Greeks, the age of reason.\u00a0 They agreed with me about how good all these things were.\u00a0 The very pillars of society.\u00a0 I pointed out the couches to them.\u00a0 We all said how much we like them.\u00a0 My girlfriend and I held each other close and felt in both our hearts how glad these couches were in our lives.\u00a0 We proposed a toast.\u00a0 A red wine toast, to the couches.\u00a0 I brought in the tray of wine glasses, just as I\u2019m doing now, walked in carefully toward my girlfriend and our two dinner guests, reached a point, one point five meters from the adjoining corners of the couches on a forty five degree angle, and my foot caught on something.\u00a0 In the recounting, it was one of my dinner guest\u2019s feet.\u00a0 In real life, it was the training shoe.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nAmazingly, the wine missed everyone.\u00a0 Unfortunately, all four wine glasses managed to go off at slightly different directions, each glass and its content landing on one of the four cushions across the two couches.\u00a0 We panicked.\u00a0 The wine soaked in.\u00a0 We panicked more.\u00a0 We asked who knew how to get wine out.\u00a0 No-one knew.\u00a0 We went forth into the apartment and found all the cleaning materials that we could.\u00a0 Glass cleaner, bleach, wood polish, dishwashing liquid, floor cleaner, disinfectant, white wine, vinegar, soy sauce, flour.\u00a0 We poured everything on together.\u00a0 We scrubbed, pushed it around, mushed it around, rubbed it, scraped it, scoured it.\u00a0 The result was not long coming.\u00a0 We must have used the wrong mixture.\u00a0 We couldn\u2019t have used the right thing.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t have used the right thing.\u00a0 I had not used the right thing.\u00a0 The couches, both of them, were ruined.\u00a0 No person in their right mind would keep couches covered indelibly with glass cleaner, bleach, wood polish, dishwashing liquid, floor cleaner, disinfectant, white wine, vinegar, soy sauce and flour.\u00a0 And red wine.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nMy girlfriend watched me all this time, from outside, her nose out of the book.\u00a0 Her pretty little nose.\u00a0 She asked me what I was doing, I said I was sorting the couches out.\u00a0 I asked her the number for my flat-mate, back at her family home.\u00a0 She gave it to me.\u00a0 And I made the call to explain to my flat-mate just how it was that her couches had come to be ruined beyond repair.\u00a0 She understood, I think.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t really listen, to be honest, as I was too excited at the prospect of being rid of them.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\u00a0The next day we take the couches down to the street, ready to be taken away by whoever takes away things left on the street.\u00a0 When we get back from work they\u2019re gone.\u00a0 We get back inside the apartment, and don\u2019t have anything to sit on.<\/p>\n
Now, who to get mad at, genius?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by James Bent [Australia] edited by Robert Fenhagen pentru versiunea română click aici Look, when something gets on my nerves, I simply cannot go on with it.\u00a0\u00a0 Like my flat-mate’s couches.\u00a0 I hate myself for it.\u00a0 I let people bring things into my life and I don\u2019t even give a damn at the time to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[436,22],"tags":[1145,1123,404,1116],"class_list":["post-2342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egophobia-25","category-short-story","tag-egophobia-25","tag-english","tag-james-bent","tag-short-story"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DakB-BM","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2342"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3536,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2342\/revisions\/3536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}