Refrigerator in the Nude
By H.G. Miller
So, it’s a lazy Saturday afternoon and I’m just hanging around the apartment, listening to the Royals get there asses handed to them by the Minnesota Twins over the internet radio, and enjoying being naked, because I live alone now and I can, when I hear a sizeable crash outside.
Being the Good Samaritan and lover of all people that I am, I decide to ignore the noise, but I do throw on some shorts in case there is some sort of paranormal happenings outside that created the sound. You know, I don’t want to be running away from alien zombies down the streets of L.A. with nothing between my manhood and their blood-sucking jowls but the smog in the air.
Turns out the shorts would soon become a necessity anyway, because there was a knock on my door, and apparently there are laws about confronting strangers in your natural state, even if they were the ones that come looking for you. I mean, seriously, you give one old lady hawking bibles a heart attack and suddenly nobody’s allowed to answer the door naked.
Anyway, I answer the door to find my new downstairs neighbor waiting outside.
“Hey, Heath,” she says, immediately putting me on the defensive, as I have already forgotten her name. Jennifer, Jessica… I don’t know. She’s got a dog-named Riley; don’t I get points for knowing that?
“Yeah?” I say back.
“My friend and I are trying to move a fridge into my apartment, but we’re having trouble with the stairs outside…”
I can see where this is going, and paranoia immediately washes over my body. That was a loud crash. How big is this fridge? When was the last time I lifted anything that didn’t have food on it? Laundry, last week, I think. How did that go? Not too bad, I almost made it to the coin-op place before… oh, God—memories. Bad memories. Boxer shorts and t-shirts strewn across the parking lot of the liquor store next door. My jock strap floating down Santa Monica Boulevard, running for freedom as if it were possessed by the spirit of Kunta Kinte himself…
“…And we were hoping that a big strong guy could help us out.”
She smiles with the last part, this new neighbor of mine. She thinks that a little flattery will get her another laborer to help lift this appliance of hers. I’m thinking that I’m standing right in front of her without a shirt on, and she must be some kind of idiot to think these twig arms of mine are good for anything other than keeping my hands away from my shoulders.
“Sure,” I say, because I’m an idiot, too. Oh, and a Good Samaritan and a lover of all people and all that.
So, the first time a refrigerator the size of a small Manhattan apartment rolls over your foot, it hurts. And, I’m not talking about the dull-ache, gee-whiz-that-smarts kind of hurt. I’m talking shooting-pain, good-God-you-heartless-bitch-I’ll-never-walk-again kind of hurt.
That’s the first time. The second and third time the dolly holding this giant appliance rolls over my foot, I begin to sense that it isn’t a particular physical weakness or lack of talcum powder from my fridge-lifting mates, but rather the hand of the almighty himself applying retribution for my lack of consideration when answering the door to that well-meaning, if rather early-rising, elderly lady.
Anyway, a few dents in the walls and scratches on the tile floor aside, my neighbor now has a working refrigerator in the vicinity of her kitchen, and I have plenty of ice heaped upon my aching foot, and plenty of bourbon to push along the healing process.
And, one thing’s for sure: these pants are staying on.