Chakhtee, Master of Deception

First time? Start here. Read "The Primer" and follow the link at the end. Chronological order makes more sense for the stories.

**There won't be another post 'till Monday, the 28th. Happy Thanksgiving, Angry Timers. Get the turkey and gravy in. If you eat tofurkey.. a pox on you.

Do you know my friend, Chakhtee? Chances are, when he was in his late 20s, when Dungeons & Dragons was just becoming popular in the 70s, Chakhtee played a Rogue. Roleplaying such a mysterious character, my best guess is that Chakhtee fancied the arts of deceit and prestidigitation. In fact, now probably in his mid 50s, Chakhtee relives his days of skullduggery in today's storytime.

Chakhtee came to the investment property some Friday a while back with his brand new piglet on a leash! Yes, a piglet, fuckin awesome! Its name is probably the best name ever too. Dunkirt! I mean come on, you can't help but love the piglet already. On top of that, he's as energetic as a puppy and twice as smart. Talk about a rift in the monotony. Well done Chakhtee, but the story isn't about the young Squire Dunkirt.

Chakhtee is experiencing calamities of the fiduciary kind and came asking Male Boss, the other Friday, for any work he can do for him around the house. Male Boss is really good about taking care of this guy. Much like my own take on life, Male Boss gives Chakhtee a hand up and not a hand out. Score one for a little old-fashioned elbow grease! Sure, Male Boss could fork over a few hundred bucks to the guy but why not bring the guy around the office to make him feel human and earn it instead? Sounds good to me.

The deal was for Chakhtee to do some touch up work on some tiles and grout in the bathrooms and on some of the marble. Whatever, no big deal. He comes in, day one, Wednesday, day two, Thursday, and then came day three, Friday, where Chakhtee earns the ridicule from the beginning of this story.

Reiterating, its now Friday morning, Chakhtee is already in the house, when I get to work, doing his thing. Considering that he has a bald spot that is no longer a spot, per se, but of helmet size Chakhtee rarely does anything to cover it up.. to each their own. Yet today, he had on a ball cap. I did a slight double-take but pressed on to the humdrum of the office. After sitting down at my computer for about 20 minutes, it hit me. What the fuck happened to Chakhtee?

I went out to the kitchen to grab a Powerade from the fridge and took a good, hard look at this poor man. What Chakhtee was being plagued by was unlike anything I had ever seen before. His melon-shaped head had morphed, overnight, into something of a gourd. His hat was on but careful examination revealed that it was unclasped. It was pretty frikkin bad. It looked like someone took a sledge to the side of his face. I don't really talk to the guy so rather than taking on the role of a concerned citizen, I took on the task of replenishing my electrolytes via ingesting my tasty Powerade. Though, as callous as I wish I was, I didn't leave this leaf unturned.

When Female Boss emerged from her shopping spree in the afternoon I asked her what the hell happened to Chakhtee. She tells me that he said he has had a tooth ache for the past few weeks and somehow he agitated it last night.

Now let me put things into a little perspective here. Get the image of a honeydew, cut in half, in your mind's eye. Are we there? Now put that halved honeydew up against the side of your face. That's about how insane Chakhtee looked. Except that his cheek bulged out with Chris Kringle-like ferocity. The swelling was so severe that it followed up his jawbone into the temple area. The hat he "wore" no longer fit on his head, rather it lay there, balanced by the steady posture of Chakhtee. Female Boss said that he can barely talk on top of all that and that he had to have a rag in his pocket to wipe away the puss! Fucking puss! A toothache can do this!?

What's worse is I never received closure on this one. That was the last time he worked on the house and I didn't see him for another month. Female Boss never asked him what ultimately happened; if a team of surgeons had to drain his bulbous, puss-filled face or what. Talk about disappointing but talk about a pathetic attempt to disguise what could possibly have been the most grotesque disfiguring I have seen in my life! So FYI Angry Timers, next time your head swells up to almost double its normal size, a baseball cap doesn't help. More than likely it draws more attention to the problem than not.