Do you ever come across someone in life who is so kind and thoughtful as to make you look inward upon yourself and cry a little, cry for the scores of people you have shit on just for the pleasure of shitting? The type of person who you must assume was a Messenger sent by God Herself to drop the hint that what you’re doing with your life is inconsequential to everyone, especially the orphans? Orphans with diseases?
God sent my Messenger right into my kitchen, in the form of Gregor, a dishwasher repairman. You see, one day after loading the dishwasher with the remnants of a particularly delicious meal, the darn thing wouldn’t start up. Happens, right? Dishwashers break all the time, I’m sure. So we wash our hands of it by telling the landlord and early one Saturday morning Gregor shows up. The first thing I noticed was that, unlike the mildew-removal guys, Gregor removed his shoes before entering my home. As if he knew I had it feng-shuied like a motherfucker. I offered to allow him to rest his shoes on the tile by the door, but he waved me off, insisting on leaving them outside.
Now, I’m not the type who likes to watch Russian people twenty years older than me who probably could have been astrophysicists back home digging shit out of my appliances so I stood in the bedroom while he worked. I have no idea what he was doing, but soon he called me into the kitchen. He’s found a handful of foreign objects in the filter, among them a peach pit and a small twig. He looked at me—no, THROUGH me--the hurt in his eyes as palpable as the shit in his hands.
I told Gregor there was no way that debris was mine. I haven’t even eaten a peach since I moved to LA, and what kind of person has a twig on their dishes? A hobo, that’s who. And there are a lot of things I is, but I ain’t no ‘bo. Gregor cared not for my excuses. He interrupted me softly, like you might interrupt your grandmother when she starts talking to a husband that isn’t there. He opened those Bambi eyes and said:
I was instantly convinced by this man’s gentle stare that I had indeed broken the washer, and probably on purpose. I immediately began to cry. I cried for the dishwasher and I cried for Gregor, who is the only person who can speak to the dishwashers. All the washer ever wanted to do was spray the ketchup and pepper off my plates of stoner food, and all I ever did was stick my ass into it and spray shit right into its filter. I have done so much wrong in this world, and it took this gap-toothed Russian man in his socks to tell me that I still have a chance to take it back.
Gregor then laughed a boisterous, life-affirming laugh as he gathered his shoes outside. He assured me that it was no big deal, in fact if I stopped putting crazy shit into my washer he would be out of a job. So don’t worry, Kevin, just have a good weekend, and please. Take care of yourself, huh? Be safe.
The door closed on Gregor and he flew to Aspen and out of my life. I turned around to begin praying when there then came another knock on the door. It was Ramon, who told me he was here to fix the dishwasher.
“Hi, I’m here to fix the dishwasher?”
“Oh, your guy Gregor just fixed it.”
“Gregor?”
“Yeah. He just left.”
“You sure his name was Gregor? Russian guy? Same uniform as me?”
“Of course. He changed my life. Why do you ask?”
“Well, sir, I don’t know how to tell you this, but Gregor has been dead for eight years.”
“No shit.”
Next week, we’ll talk about what I did when the dishwasher began to give me dating advice.
1 comments:
Ghostly dishwasher repairman or not, I still don't believe your face does that when you yawn.
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