Reports are coming in from reputable sources that our neighbour has broken his toilet.
Our neighbours in the flat downstairs are an old woman and her son, and quite frankly they can be a right pain in the arse sometimes. Their capacity for watching the TV all night with the volume turned right up knows no bounds, and although they have always turned it down when asked, they always make it sound like it’s a big imposition – like me asking it to be turned down so I can sleep at 3am is being completely unreasonable.
He always leaves the door to the stairwell open, despite the notice (and verbal requests) asking for it to be kept shut. When it’s open, birds, moths, flies and other assorted forms of wildlife get in and flutter around before either becoming trapped or dropping dead. Oh, but he closes his own door all right – in fact, he slams it, every time.
They never empty their mailbox of junk mail, so after a few days their junk mail eases its way out of the box and gets blown around the yard. While most of the neighbours take turns to haul the bins out on Tuesday nights, he never does. He parks in other people’s car spots. He smokes in bed, so if we dare to have our bedroom window open for some fresh air, the smoke wafts in instead.
Interestingly, he sometimes works as a cab driver, which probably explains a lot of the stories you hear about cab drivers. Most of the drivers I get are pretty good, but I guess a single bad one can stick in your mind. And I’m just betting that this guy isn’t the best cab driver in the world. Anyway, this work means he comes and goes (and slams doors and smokes) at all hours of the day and night.
All of these factors combine to make him a very irritating person. And for this reason, I have no qualms in making fun of the guy because he’s fat. No, he’s bigger than fat, he’s enormous. We don’t know his name – so we refer to him as Alexei, as in Alexei Sayle, as in "Who is that fat bastard?" He’s so big that when they moved in, the landlady had to have the sink in the toilet taken out because he couldn’t fit.
And today, apparently, he has actually broken the toilet. Snapped the bowl off its base at a 45° angle. Quite an achievement, if you ask me. How embarrassment.
