Benny
is a tough cookie and everyone knows it. He’s six feet tall with fifteen
percent body fat and an impressive amount of solid muscles. He works as an
exterminator. He likes the fact that he has the authority over life and death. But
ironically, his livelihood depends on the survival and resilience of those
squish creature that he kills on a daily basis.
The
privilege of entering strangers’ homes had opened Benny’s eyes to the hidden
fascinations of humanity. Most of the time, working at an apartment building felt
like taking a rollercoaster ride between heaven and hell. Some units were
beautiful and lofty like the Garden of Eden and some others were dirty and chaotic
like a satanic bloodbath. FYI, twenty percent of the population are hoarders.
This
would be another one of those days --- at least that was what Benny thought.
Benny
went up to the fourteenth floor of this apartment building. He saw a beautiful
brunette walking out of the end unit. She was wearing a red dress. It was so
tight that Benny could vaguely see the outline of her belly button ring. She
was curvy and sexy reminding him of his celebrity crush Kim Kardashian. Benny could
smell the woman from where he was. Instantly, he was intoxicated by the sweet
aroma of her perfume. As the woman was approaching Benny, he became really
nervous. His heart started to drum and his face began to burn. Benny could not
put a label on his feeling. He refused to believe that he would fall in love
this easily and quickly. Benny wanted to say hi, but the woman was texting on her phone. She did not even lift
up her head to acknowledge his existence. Benny’s heart sank as he saw her
disappear into the elevator. Originally Benny was going to start off with the
first unit on this floor, but instead he decided to go to that woman’s unit
first. He was thrilled.
After
Benny opened the door with his master key, he took a little step back. Two
pillars of cardboard boxes were stacked on the left and right side of the entrance.
There was a narrow passageway leading into the unit. An eerie odor blew toward Benny
that made him reach for his gas mask. This was not how he had imagined. “Hello! Anybody’s home?” Benny asked a
few times and was convinced that no one was home. He took out his work order
and found that a bed bug treatment and a roach treatment were requested for
this unit. He tightened his mask, put on his gloves and took his tank of
pesticide with him. His little buggy was too big to go through the narrow
tunnel, thus, he left it outside.
After
squeezing through that little passageway, Benny found himself in the midst of an
“Amazon jungle”. His jaw dropped. There was stuff everywhere! The entire floor
was covered by shirts, dresses, bras, dirty laundry, food containers, leftovers,
toys and things that were hard to tell what they actually were. It seemed like
an F5 tornado had just blown through this place. With all the crumbs and flakes
of food on the floor, are you sure you
are not intentionally feeding the roaches? From experience, no amount of
treatment would be effective on units like this.
Benny
picked up a pair of pants on the floor to clear himself a path. Nah! Why bother? He put the pants back
down and stepped on them as he explored further into the living room. He was
shocked to find an oasis in the middle of this desolated land. There was a
beautiful vanity right beside the window. All kinds of makeup and hair products
were sitting elegantly on the table. The most eye catching item was a fur coat.
It was lying on the chair like a Persian cat. Benny glanced at the label,
“Sha-nelle.” Benny felt proud that he knew the proper pronunciation.
Curiosity
drove Benny to the bedroom. As he entered this room, his eyes popped out of
their sockets. There was more stuff piling up here. A mattress was sagging in
the middle of the room. An altar was set up in one of the corners. A
green-faced idol with seven arms was positioned at the centre and five plates
of rotten fruits and moldy bread were placed in front of the idol. Benny suddenly
felt a chill penetrating his body. He prayed the Lord’s prayer, drew a cross
before mouthing his most sincere Amen.
Benny
had enough. Just when he was about to leave, he saw two rats coming out from
behind the altar. Benny locked eyes with these plague-infested animals. Over
the years, Benny had seen cockroaches pouring out of an open cabinet like bees
zooming out of a hive; he had dethroned dozens of queens while destroying
dozens of wasp's nests; he had dealt with people of all kinds of icky and
creepy personalities. Therefore, no one would believe that Benny the
exterminator had a phobia of rats. After years of practice, he no longer had
problems with picking up dead rats. But the live and jumpy ones would still
scare the bejesus out of him. “Ahhhhh!” Benny screamed like a “Belieber”. The
two rats fully came out of their hiding. Benny quickly turned around and wanted
to run for his life. Yet his legs had a slower reaction time compared to his
upper body. They intertwined and locked into a knot. Benny fell face first onto
the ground. He didn’t just go down by himself. Along the way, he knocked down a
lamp stand. All of the sudden, everything around him began to collapse like
dominoes. Kenny’s blood pressure jumped higher and higher as he heard things break
and shatter one after another. The world paused for five seconds before all
kinds of organisms emerged out of the darkness: rats, roaches, spiders and who-knows-what.
Benny wanted to die right there, right now. Before he could stand up, his hand
touched a bony object buried under a blanket. As he uncovered the blanket, he
already had a good guess of what it was --- a skull. After another
top-of-the-lung scream, he realized that the skull was only a Halloween
decoration.
Benny
stumbled out of the room, stormed out of the unit not caring how many more
items he broke along the way. He was panting like a dog. It was definitely a soul-crashing
humbling experience. Just when he thought that everything was over, he realized
that his buggy had been stolen. It dawned on him that Khloe had just become his
favorite Kardashian.
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