Preston Peabody(c) 2010

There are a variety of strange folk, that are my neighbors, in the Paragon Apartment Building.

On the other side of the elevator bank, from my flat, on the 22nd floor, resides Mr. Peabody.

He is one of the most contrary old gizzards I’ve ever met…and believe me I’ve met a few!

Preston Peabody is an older, retired, grumpy gent dressed always in a shirt and tightly tied tie. (His bowels must be as uptight…because he appears eternally constipated).

His hates include anything of “these days” … the mayor, all politicians, bureaucracy, Us Post Office, Labor Unions, TV programs, celebrities, music, bikes, scooters, dogs and even babies. Even the weather manages to offend him daily. Usually, he is grumbling under his breath about something or other.

Since there ain’t a whole lot he can do about these matters, he concentrates on “policing “our 22nd floor of our building.

This Preston Peabody cannot tolerate the newer, not tidy enough tenants, who have moved recently onto our floor. They came with noisy, messy children that dare crap-up “his environment”.

On an ordinary afternoon, Preston stepped out of his apartment, when he spotted some Goldfish Crackers pieces… their tiny, cheesy heads & tails, on the floor near the elevator bank.

“What”?

Rage consumed him.

He ran back into his flat’s kitchen, for a Zip-Lock bag, & a pair of tongs.

Slowly, methodically, he steered the tongs under each crumb and oh so delicately deposited them into the bag.

He was saving them up!

Sure, enough a day or so later, a small pink wad of bubble gum appeared on the same section, of our common hallway.

Again, the fuming Preston shot back to his flat, to retrieve his specimen plastic bags, and tongs. In went the Spauldeen pink wad, then he sealed it shut.

It didn’t take a week when lo, & behold, there appeared a crinkled used Kleenex, near the elevators.

“Our self-appointed 22nd floor chief of sanitation cop”, immediately got his evidence gathering kit, and stored the latest piece of trash in the plastic bag.

Now the darn culprit would pay!

Preston made a huge poster collage out of the headless, Goldfish crackers, wad of gum, and snotty Kleenex… by pasting each piece of evidence on the oaktag board. Then he printed with neon felt pen across the poster’s top”:

“KEEP THIS FLOOR CLEAN…pick up your crap or go the hell BACK to your former pigsty whence you came”!!!

Mr. Preston hung it on the prominent wall facing the elevator, for all to read.

The new tenants got paranoid…some kook was watching them…

They didn’t know who made the threatening poster.

Maybe the crazy had a gun… in any case it did the trick.

Our 22nd floor is spotless!