Five Alarm Charlie (310 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 0 on 7 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by zfx84 (View user info) at 2006-10-27 10:48:01 EDT
I was sitting at my desk one day this past week and the phone rings like it always does. The caller ID said "Charlie Smith", so I answered the phone and said, "Yo! What's up Charlie?" Most people don't know we have caller ID, and it really throws them off when I answer the phone and already know their name.
Of course he wasn't sure he had the right number at first because I didn't answer the phone in the usual way, but I convinced him that he was indeed successful in reaching our office.
He complained to me in that whiny kind of voice all elderly people speak in when they complain about something trivial. Apparently, he had burnt some food while cooking and his smoke detector had been going off for about an hour now.
He didn't know what to do so he obviously called my office, expecting us to do something for him. Then, as if he sensed that I didn't believe him, he put the phone receiver up to the smoke detector so that I could hear it's annoying beeping.
Once he came back on the phone, I told him that he could trying calling the fire department at their non-emergency number, then I gave him said number. He responded that he didn't want fire trucks showing up at his house or anything.
I told him, that's why you call the non-emergency number, they won't send fire trucks if it's not an emergency...that's what 911 is for.
He obviously didn't understand the obvious difference between a non-emergency and emergency number, so I sighed heavily and told him to give me his address. I was going to stop by his house and turn it off for him, though I didn't have to and my job doesn't require that we help people in such absurd ways.
I left the office on an extended lunch and arrived at Charlie's house. I rang the doorbell and after waiting far too long, he never came and answered the door. Maybe he couldn't hear the doorbell over the smoke detector, which I could hear myself from outside.
So I broke into his house via a basement window and worked my way through the house, closer to the beeping of the smoke alarm. I found Charlie in the hallway standing just underneath it; it was mounted on the ceiling. He was staring at it and pointed at it for me.
Yes, thank you Charlie. I couldn't tell that that was the smoke detector. Thank you so goddamn much for locating it for me; I don't know what I would have done without you. Even in your old age you still prove to be useful. (End sarcasm).
I didn't see what was so difficult about this situation for him. God forbid the elderly take the initiative to drag a fucking chair underneath the damn thing, reach up, grab it, and turn it off. The worst that could happen is that they fall off the chair and break a hip. I'd rather have that happen; that way they'd be lying on the floor in pain and wouldn't be able to call me on the phone and bother me at work.
Now slightly irritated by the unnecessary trip I made and by the endless beeping invading my ears, I pushed Charlie out of my way as I grabbed a chair and stood on it. I did the obvious; reached up and pushed that little button on the front on the detector. The beeping stopped and all was well, but I wasn't done there yet.
I detached the smoke alarm from the ceiling and pulled the battery out of the back; now it wouldn't work at all. Charlie looks at me and asked me why I did that. I smiled and said, "Because Charlie, the smoke alarm..." then I cracked him across the face with the alarm while I was in mid sentence. He never saw that coming and now he was out cold on the floor.
An outline of the smoke detector could be seen in the skin on his cheek; I didn't realize I had hit him that hard with it. I threw the now broken alarm down on the floor by him and started to walk around his house and began what was my real reason for going to his house.
I didn't go there because he was a nice elderly man in need and I was a nice young man willing to help out. I went there because I saw it as the perfect opportunity to rob his house.
You see, Charlie comes into the office a lot, and likes to talk endlessly to me and my co-worker about things we couldn't give two shits about. I guess that's what lonely old people do while waiting for death. In one of those conversations, he, for some reason, casually mentioned a safe in his house where he keeps a lot of valuable things.
For some reason, I really believed him when he said that and I couldn't pass up the opportunity when it came to rob him blind. Well, he's lost vision in one eye, so I guess I was robbing him semi-blind. Semi-charmed? Third Eye Blind? (End word association).
I made my way from room to room, searching behind paintings, feeling under tables and desks for secret switches, pulling at books on the bookcase; anything and anywhere I thought the safe might be hidden.
I came to one room that had a raised floor, higher than the floors of any other room in the house. Suspicious and wondering why that was, I pulled back the carpet in the middle of the room and revealed a hidden, wooden hatch door.
For a minute I had flashbacks to episodes of LOST, but those soon passed and are getting less frequent with the medication I've been taking.
I pulled open the door to reveal behind it a metal safe with a combination lock on it. Good thing I've been taking those safe-cracking classes at the local community center; now I can put them to good use.
I put my ear to the safe door and listened as I slowly turned the dial. After a few minutes of trial and error, I found the safe's combination to be 4-8-15-16-23-42. Once I turned the dial correctly to those numbers, I opened the safe door.
I gasped in shock as I gazed upon the contents of the safe. What was inside wasn't at all what I expected, but it would still make me rich beyond belief.
Just when I was about to grab what was in the safe, I heard the floorboards creak behind me.
I stopped in my tracks and slowly turned around.
To Be Continued....
User Reviews
Submitted by foster (user info) at 2006-11-06 17:22:12 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
Lame.
Submitted by extacy_red (user info) at 2006-10-29 18:55:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
m
e
h
Submitted by ubetidid (user info) at 2006-10-27 14:02:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i'm going to play those numbers in the mega million
lotto tonight.
i'll let you know if i win.
Submitted by St_Jimmy (user info) at 2006-10-27 11:59:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
Five alarm charlie, charlie horse, horse race, horse shit, this post (end word association)
Submitted by swine_powered_hate_machine (user info) at 2006-10-27 11:11:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
+1 for elderly abuse
Submitted by hour_man (user info) at 2006-10-27 10:58:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
meh
Submitted by professorfuckface (user info) at 2006-10-27 10:49:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
TLDR