Cleaning the Attic II

(Our story so far: The Grumpy Bachelor decided one recent Saturday morning to clean out his attic, a decision made easier by the fact that he doesn't really have one. He spent the whole morning preparing for this monumental task by: trying to get up on the wrong side of bed, getting up on the right side of the bed, having what for him, qualifies as a nutritious breakfast, going through two years of mail and deciding to have an early lunch. As we join the G. B. he is making his 13th phone call to find someone that will deliver lunch AND take his check.)

"OH YEAH! It is TOO worth the paper it's printed on!"

You'd think my own brother would give me a break.

That leaves the Halfmast Tavern. They should be opened by now. The Halfmast is the only tavern I've encountered that offers a breakfast menu. It's served from 11:45 a.m. to 12:30. Now that's my kind of place. The lunch/dinner menu starts at 12:45 but since I can't wait an hour, I decide a second breakfast would do. So I call up and order a number 2 beef-jerky combo and, since they are taking my check, I enormous- size it.

While I'm waiting for this sumptuous repast to be delivered, I decide this would be a good time to see if I can really get into the attic. There is a trap door in the hallway ceiling just past the bedroom, and I am assuming that is where one would get into the attic if one were so inclined.

Going past the bedroom, however, I notice that there are an awful lot of clothes lying around. It won't take but a minute to take care of that. It couldn't possible be a big job.

Now I'm not saying that my bedroom is small, but if it were any smaller I'd have to climb out the window to get up in the morning. Anyway, it's not a big job. Just pick the clothes up off the floor and throw them into the closet and soon it will be -- hey! here's a photo magazine from Sept. 1984. I don't remember reading this. As I am leafing through the magazine looking for unfamiliar articles, I happen to glance up to the book shelf and my eye falls upon my old Scrabble game.

As long as I'm killing time waiting for lunch to be delivered, I might as well see if any of the little tiles are missing. After checking and double checking and wondering if it's legal to order extra "z" tiles, I put the box back on the shelf.

Before I get very far into sorting the loose change that's collected on my dresser (the top shelf of the bookcase), the doorbell rings. LUNCH! I jump up to rush to the door which spills all of the loose change onto the floor. Oh, well, I was going to have to pick up my dirty clothes one of these days. I'll just pick up the change then.

It's at this point that I find out that enormous sizing a Halfmast Tavern breakfast combo means adding a little bag of chips containing exactly 5 chips. I suppose that's better than nothing.

Since I hate to eat in total silence I turn on the TV. I don't get TV as such, I don't have cable or a dish and there's not outside antenna. So I have to delve into my stock of tapes that I brought with me when I moved here. I find one that I haven't watched yet. It says "Australian Rules Football Marathon" and it's an 8-hour tape. That's good for starters.

When I wake up 9 hours later it is just in time to see the UFO land in the backyard.

NEXT WEEK: Cleaning the attic with a wide beam thermo-nuclear intensifier ray.

George Breithaupt is a photographer and writer for the Mount Vernon News. Don't worry folks, he'll be better next week. How can he not be?