Attempting to Explain Myself

Last year my apartment building was converted to condos, so I went to see a realtor about a new place to stay. She was a big stern woman, scary but polite.

“Will your previous landlord give you a letter of recommendation?” she asked.

“No, probably not.”

“May I ask why?”

“I don’t like to talk about it. Let’s just say he once caught me defecating out of my window.”

“Mr. Alvis?”

“Yes?”

“May I ask why you were doing that?”

“Well, it’s a long and difficult story to explain.”

“Please try.”

“I don’t know, I guess it all started when my landlord got rid of the pigeons in the back of the building. He set out traps and poison because the birds were too messy — but I love birds. I especially love pigeons, so when I discovered they were gone…well, I sort of lost my head. ‘If the landlord thinks pigeons are messy, let him see what I can do,’ I guess that was my thinking at the time, but I’ve learned my lesson.”

“Meaning you will never again defecate out of your window. Not for any reason.”

“Well, I mean– well, you see, I had to duct tape a bar across my window so I had something to hold onto while I stuck my buttock far enough outside to hit the courtyard, but the duct tape didn’t hold, so I fell out the window. If that didn’t happen, the neighbors wouldn’t have heard me moaning and crying after a two-story fall, and they wouldn’t have called an ambulance, and my landlord would never have found out that I was the one pooping in the courtyard. So that’s what I meant when I said that I learned my lesson: never use duct tape when hardware fasteners are called for.”

“Mr. Alvis, will you please get out of my office.”