The Doorbell

All Robert wanted was to finish his crossword puzzle in peace, but his woman wanted to make conversation, and the incessant ringing of the doorbell — those darned kids — was driving him up the wall.

Gertrude stood up, visibly upset.

“I’m going for groceries,” she said.

“Do that,” Robert snapped.

“Want anything?”

There was no answer, so she left.

The doorbell rang again, and Robert threw down his newspaper and pencil, and sped to the window to see the youngsters having fun playing pranks with the doorbells on all the houses on the street. Is this what fun is? Fun at the expense of others? Unbelievable, he thought to himself.

Once more the doorbell rang, before Robert had even left the window. He move his hand to open the window so he could shout, but figured that it wouldn’t do much good. No, he thought to himself, surely a more effective lesson is in order.

And so, wearing insulated gloves, he rewired the metal doorbell directly to the mains power. The kids would get a nasty lesson soon; one they would not soon forget.

He had sat back down in his chair with the newspaper and pencil for barely a minute when another sound shattered the concentration he was hoping to get. This sound came from his mobile phone — a gift from the grandkids to “get him to live in the modern age” — but Robert ignored it. The crossword puzzle needed to come first.

Still, he felt the urge to take a look at the phone. That sound was the one that played when a text message arrived, and curiosity was getting the better of him. He felt that his attempt at solving today’s crossword puzzle was a write-off anyway, so he put the paper aside and took a look at the message on his mobile phone.

FROGOT MY KEYES, WILL BE HOME SOOON
WILL JUST RING

Ohh, oh no.

Robert had just grabbed his insulating gloves when the doorbell rang, for just a tiny fraction of a second.

A thud came from the other side of the front door. Robert swung it open, and among the apples and oranges spread all over the pavement, the glass milk bottles rolling down the street, and yoghurt pots splattered all over, lay Gertrude, with her eyes wide open staring at the nothingness in the sky, quite dead.

Robert’s face was filled with shock, but that soon gave way to a mischievous smile.

It was not the problem he had set out to solve today, but he was not unhappy about this serendipitous achievement.