My Day at Jack's

As some of you know, I’ve had a terrible time keeping a job the last year. Luckily, my buddy owns a cleaning service and needed some help with a mess on an affluent side of town.

Around 10:50AM, I arrived at the red brick mansion and was ordered to the dimly-lit room at the back house. Only the television provided light for the room. The fourth hour of the Today Show was airing.

On the couch was a passed out figure in a pair of boxers and a mustard-stained undershirt. The man had a disheveled mess of dirty blonde hair, which may or may not have had flecks of potato chips in it.

The coffee table had multiple empty plastic bottles of cheap vodka. As I started to clear the table, the scraggly bearded man arose. He grumbled a bit as he stared at me. After sitting upright in a daze for 20 seconds, the man scratched the (now confirmed) potato chip crumbs from his hair and yelled, "LINDA! STEAK-UMMS!"

He then turned to the TV and laughed as Kathy mocked Hoda for being single. "Oh Hoda," he said. "Will you ever find true love?"

At the first commercial, the odorous man changed it to ESPN2 and First Take was on. For some reason, Skip Bayless was not wearing a shirt.

He then rose and waded across the sea of empty bottles and found the cordless phone. It was buried beneath a large pile of leather coats. It was evident that the cats were using the pile as their litter box.

As I was picking up the mounds of Mr. Goodbar wrappers behind the couch, he made a phone call. I gathered that he was talking to a representative from JG Wentworth and asked if the last year of his coaching contract can be considered as a structured settlement.

A smile came to his face. I imagine that this was the first time he smiled in weeks, as the barbecue sauce-encrusted laugh lines crumbled apart. By his rather upbeat mannerism, it was clear that he was able to get cash fast. As I moved toward the door, he made a second call. All I heard was, "I can get a 2^nd Slap Chop?! Let me find my credit card."

Linda entered the room a short while later with a hot plate of Steak-umms. "You be careful Jack," she warned. "Let it cool off for a bit. We don’t want to have a repeat of what happened last week."

Jack snatched the plate from Linda’s hand. He put the plate up to his mouth a swiftly ate the, what I wouldn’t classify as, meat product. The scorching temperature of depressing snack seared his mouth as he exclaimed "Ahhhh, teh staaa burrt meh tunnn."

Frantically, Jack grabbed several empty pouches of Caprice Sun and attempted to squeeze the last drops of Mondo Mango Blast to cool his burnt tongue.

After that ordeal that his wife forewarned him about ended, Jack found a half-eaten bag of Cheetos between the cushions of the couch. The Cheetos were clearly months past their expiration.

It was past 12:00 at this point. Linda peeked in the room. She whispered to me to not bother Jack during his "Maury Time".

All of a sudden, a loud exclamation came from Jack as the Cheetos were flung all over the room. Apparently, Jack felt passionately about TreVonte being the father of Jenny’s baby. At this point, a visitor in the room would be hard pressed to acknowledge if the flooring was either carpet or hardwood. The layers of Hot Pocket wrappers and Bagel Bites trays have created a new level of sub-flooring.

Being up for almost an hour and a half, Jack began to tire again fell asleep. This afforded me the opportunity to bag up the remaining empty bottles of liquor and finish dusting the back shelves. I found it rather peculiar that he had an ax tucked away in the back corner. There must have been a natural fireplace in another part of the house.

Jack awoke a little while later in time for Swift Justice with Nancy Grace. As I was walking out the front door, I overheard Jack speaking with Linda. He blamed Luke for all of the Cheetos on the floor.

***UPDATE*** 9:42PM: Linda called me a couple of minutes ago. She needed me to come back tomorrow. Apparently, Jack left a door open and a raccoon wandered in the house. According to her, the raccoon instinctively walked past the open trash can in the kitchen and is now feeding off the garbage in Jack's den.