Three Little Morons

On Thursday night three of The Optimist’s friends crashed here, en route to a weekend break on the South Coast. The Three Little Morons arrived at about 8pm and, after a quick dinner of spaghetti with “leftovers sauce”, played a very drunken game of cards. The Girl From Down The Street joined them and soon the group got rowdy, as drunken teenagers are wont to do.

I was in my room, watching TV, listening to thumping sounds coming through the ceiling above me, as The Morons ran up and down the stairs, crash landing at the bottom, and wrestled in the hallway. I overheard snatches of shouted conversations, in which The Three Little Morons discussed the merits of rooting The Girl From Down The Street and asked The Optimist if he had done so yet (he hadn’t) and why not (because she’s his friend, not his girlfriend). These are conversations that took place in front of her no doubt. I went to bed at about 1am, the sounds of their little party dimly audible through ear plugs.

I woke at 8am, wandered into the kitchen, and was instantly buffeted by the smell of ripe alcohol permeating from the very pores of the walls. A quick glance to the top of the fridge showed me the night’s inventory: two large bottles of vodka, approximately a dozen and a half beer bottles and a goon sack. I got a glass of water and walked outside, where I lit a cigarette. I happened to glance at the meter box and saw a piece of blue fabric protruding from beneath the cover. “That’s odd,” I thought, “I have a shirt that is just that colour.” I looked a little closer and discovered that the fabric appeared to be the average cotton knit of t-shirts. I opened the meter box’s lid and discovered not one but two of my shirts (one still on its hanger) which had, until very recently it seemed, been drying on the line.

I stared in perplexed silence for a moment before extracting them from their dusty sleeping place and, since cleanliness was now a non-issue, put them on the ground outside my room. I walked around the back to the clothes line to see if anything else had gone missing. It had. On first seeing the line it didn’t look like there were nearly enough clothes on it, but I soon remembered I had taken in half the load the night before. There were, however, two empty coat hangers on the far side. I remembered having washed a pink t-shirt, which was not there anymore, and wondered if my favourite white shirt was missing too. I went back into my room and found the white shirt safely ensconced in the dirty clothes basket (where I now deposited the two from the meter box), but no pink shirt.

As I made breakfast, The Guyanan came into the kitchen and I told him the news: “Someone has pinched one of my shirts from the line.” “What!?” he asked, his face expressing his heartfelt concern that someone in our neighbourhood would stoop so low. I told him about the two in the meter box and he stood there dumbly as I spoke.

Later, The Optimist came into the kitchen and I told him what had happened. “Oh, dude, I’m so sorry. I have your pink shirt in my room. Moron One came in last night and he was wearing it and I was like ‘Dude, that’s Dan’s shirt, you can’t wear that!’ and he was like ‘Oh, right, I didn’t know’ and—” I cut him off: “What!? He didn’t know? It was on the washing line!” “Yeah I know, they’re idiots when they’re drunk,” he said, sheepishly stating the obvious, “anyway he took it off pretty much straight away but I’ll wash it for you anyway.” “I can see they’re idiots when they’re drunk,” I said, motioning to the broken sign that I had discovered and thrown into the kitchen bin earlier, “and I suppose it was them who put the shirts in the meter box?” “Ummm,” he said, “I didn’t know about that one.” I told him. He apologised profusely for bringing these morons into our house.