Every morning I head out at 5:20am. Sometimes I leave at 5:21, sometimes I make it by 5:19. I hop in my truck, warm her up until the digital clock hits 5:24, and by the time it’s 5:30 I’m turning onto the highway on my way to the distribution centre.
My next door neighbour doesn’t like this routine of mine. He’d prefer it if I woke up at noon like him, but I’m employed so I don’t have that luxury, unlike him.
Well, the silly bugger must have got fed up, because one morning I went to find that he’d cut my brakes. It was a nasty job. It looked like he’d used his teeth to cut the hose. I didn’t see it at first. I started the truck up at 5:20, let her idle for the next four and a half minutes – as usual – and when I went to release the parking brake, the beast wouldn’t budge. With the engine still idling I walked around and it took me but a moment to find the problem.
The silly bugger – with all his murderous intentions – didn’t realise that when you cut the brake lines the brakes stick ON. I wasn’t going to take a day off work so I called the cops and got started keeping the useless neighbour awake by replacing the cut line with a spare that I had in the shed.
The beauty of a modular system means you can change bits with relative ease. It still took an hour of bashing and grunting with all sorts of tools and I was just about ready when the police showed up to take a report. I filled them in. As expected, they were cool blokes. They helped me check over the vehicle for any more damage and they sent me on my way.
I was moving off the driveway by a quarter-to-seven and I was just in time to hear the cops bash, bash, bash on my neighbour’s door. The dope was sure awake before midday that day!
I stick to my routine, but no one is troubled by it any more. All my other neighbours know me well, and they’re usually up pretty early anyway. And the house that occupied my once wannabe murderer, well it houses a young family nowadays. They moved in shortly after the dope was charged with something that sounded serious. He’s with his own kind now where he belongs – in prison.
T
Tandi Tales 