Jobless Joe

 

 

The alarm wasn’t supposed to go off yet, this annoyed Joe greatly, he didn’t need to get up yet, “why was the alarm going off now?” he thought. He then realized he didn’t need to get up at all, “why was this alarm going off at all?” he thought even more annoyed. Then he realized he didn’t even own an alarm, this was outrageous. He shot up from bed very angry now to see a very large novelty alarm clock loudly ringing its way across his bedside table as it vibrated heavily with its little hammer at the top bashing its way excitedly between to bells. Immediately Joe knew the culprit of this atrocity, this was another of his parents less that subtle hints. See Joe is a 38 year old man still living at home with his family, nothing inherently wrong with that, life can be difficult sometimes and the best of us could find ourselves in this position. The problem with Joe is he was absolutely fine with this situation, thrived in it in fact . He had not had a job for about 8 years now, and he defended this on the pretense of being an aspiring writer, the only issue with that is no one can remember him writing anything since his days of university in the long distant past. Joe with a sleepy grumpy swipe like an ape gave the clock a mash with his palm to silence it. “This is getting unacceptable” he reasoned to himself “I will have to have a serious talk with them later”. Just as he was starting to rest again the sudden cry of a second alarm came echoing around his room, this time he jumped up in outrage “they are taking things to far this time” he announced grumpily to himself. He looked around the room trying to detect where the noise was coming from, he traced it to his wardrobe. He opened the doors and stared down in bitter distain at this second alarm clock, this one looking like a police siren, flashing and making a screeching police car sound. He coldly picked it up and ripped the batteries out and dumped it back in the wardrobe. “Not funny at all” Joe mumbled heading back to his bed “could give me a heart attack”. He lay down in bed and his head had hardly hit the pillow this time when suddenly his whole room erupted with the sound of alarms. A defining din that could easily wake the whole street. Joe jumped with such a fright he flopped to the floor like a fish thrown out of water. Joe was not a small man, in fact you could say he was on the larger side of chubby, and he hit the floor with a large thud. Laying on the floor he could see under his bed no less than 10 electric alarm clocks all singing their tunes together, he followed with his eyes to the adapter plug they were all connected to. “Now this is just a fired hazard!” he bellowed in angry despair as he ripped the plug from the wall to silence the alarms. “Well they have made their point” he said wearily to himself “I may as well as go and make some lunch”.   

 

 

As he had seen no less than 12 clocks today, he knew the time to be almost 1pm and perfect time for him to prepare his lunch. As he went to open the fridge, he suddenly froze startled. The fridge was locked, actually chained is a more accurate description. A huge unnecessarily large chain had been wrapped around the fridge tightly and an equally unnecessarily large padlock in place to hold it. “What fresh breed of madness is this?!” exclaimed Joe. There was a note stuck to the padlock, Joe snatched it up at once and read it:

 

Our dearest Joe

As your loving family we couldn’t help but notice that as time passes you seem to be transforming more and more into a human slug. Remember this all comes from a place of love. We think the only three rooms you entered last week were your bedroom, the kitchen and the bathroom. So we have decided drastic measures are in order, if you want to act like a child then a child you shall be treated. You may have noticed our small aid in helping you wake up a little earlier, we all hope it worked. Now you may have noticed the large chain and lock on the fridge door, well we have set up a little task for you to earn the key. We sent a C.V off in your name and managed to set you up a job interview. We put down your last job was in a bar 3 years ago, not 8 years ago as is the reality so try to remember that. The interview is at 1.30 so make sure you’re ready. The job is to be a security guard at a carpark. The laptop is in the kitchen and remember we will be able to see all from our home cam in the kitchen so no sabotage! Do your best and after you will receive the location of the key, easy peasy. Good luck, don’t forget this is for your own good

 

Lots of love

Your family (mostly mum)

X x x

 

 

Joe stared at this note for an unreasonably long time, he turned it over in hands multiple times waiting for something to tell him this wasn’t happening. “Ridiculous!’ he finally managed to blurt out “playing games like I am 5 year old, have they gone truly mad!” He then remembered the mention of the camera in the note, he sharply spun round and there it was, sat in the corner on the kitchen side staring at him ominously. Joe stared back just as determinedly, almost as if trying to out stare the camera, he then looked in front and saw a laptop open on the kitchen table. This he assumed was for the interview. “ I will play along” he thought angrily to himself “but wait to see what happens when they get home!” He stormed out the kitchen back upstairs.

 

 

He came back down at 1.25 ready for his interview. He had a nice black shirt on that took a few pounds off him, but that was as far as it went. Bottom half he had on nothing but large white y-fronts. On his feet he had his comical elephant slippers with their long trunks and tails, he put these on just as an extra stance of defiance. He stared defiantly at the camera as he sat down in front of the laptop, he knew it was common practice to have these video interviews in comfy shorts or trackies, but his rebellious streak had decided to take it one step further. He glanced briefly at the camera and he was sure he could almost feel the shame and disappointment resonating from it. “Good” he thought “I hope they are horrified, after putting me through this humiliation”. Suddenly the laptop burst into life as a call came though, Joe answered it, a friendly faced woman appeared on the screen. She had shoulder length long hair and was probably reaching the upper end of middle aged, but she had very kind eyes and a warm smile. Joe noticed himself in his screen, he had tied his long hair back in a pony tail, but he forgot to do anything about his beard. Joe was a natural red head so of course his beard shared this persuasion and right now it was very bushy and unkempt, he looked like a pirate who had fallen on hard times. “Good afternoon, am I speaking to Mr. Perkins?” asked the interviewer? “Indeed, you are good woman” replied Joe In a jovial tone “and what a pleasure it is”. Joe took an apprehensive look at the other camera in the room watching him, he remembered it had a mic too. He must tone down his normal sarcastic self, but also make sure not to get the job, be subtle he thought. If the interviewer noticed any sarcasm in Joe’s tone, she did not show it. “Nice to speak to you. My name is Mary. Now you have applied for our position of car park security guard. Can you tell me a little about yourself and why you think you will make a good guard?”. “Well, I am a writer by trade, I am just experiencing a very small writers block, so I am hoping to have some inspiring work to help the writing process, and what is more inspiring than a protection role! Keeping the public safe at all costs! Yes, I am very much an advocator for security”. The interviewer looked a little irritated and Joe felt he may have pushed it a little far, he looked nervously at the other camera watching him, he could feel the judgement coming from it. “Well that is an interesting way to view it” said the interviewer “It mentioned on your C.V that you were previously a bar man, could you tell me any situation you had to deal with a difficult customer?”. “They were all difficult” blurted Joe in response “Never happy, drinks to warm, drinks to cold, always something to moan about!”. As he was talking he heard the bell of his cat enter the room, he continued his answer “as I am sure you are aware the general public are on the whole scum and must be treated very….”. He cut off mid-sentence and screamed. His cat had seen the elephant slippers with violent interest and made an attack. The cat had leapt at the slippers with the soul intent of killing them in any way he could. Joe feeling this sudden and unexpected agony screamed and jumped to his feet accidently exposing his tight whities in full view of the interviewer. “I think we are done here, goodbye” the interviewer ended the video. Joe shock the cat off and turned to the camera in the corner “that was not my fault” he argued to it “this cat has some serious issues”. His phone vibrated, it was a message from his mum, it read:

 

Even by your standards of incompetence that was impressive. There are two keys for the fridge hidden, one if you did well, one if you acted like a child. Guess what key you are getting? The key for you is buried in the cat litter tray, enjoy, well deserved, maybe try to act like a normal person next time.

Lots of love, mum xx

 

“I knew you were listening” he exclaimed to the camera, then the reality of what the message said sunk in “litter tray?” he mumbled questionably to himself. He turned to the tray in the corner of the kitchen and saw a nice fresh steaming present left by the cat among a few older ones and a few wet patches to accompany them “this day just gets better and better” he grumbled to himself. He found some chopsticks and used one to poke around in the rancid desert that was the little tray, the whole while bitter with the irony that it was the same cat who ruined his interview so spectacularly who’s turds he was now navigating. He eventually found the key and used it to open the fridge, he helped himself to some scraps from yesterdays leftovers and went scurrying away upstairs defeated. Poor old Joe.