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Hard of Hearing

Every morning the neighbors of the Toibilochs heard the couple screaming. It was assumed they were both hard of hearing, but this was not true.

"I married a cow."

"I married a pig."

It got so bad that Radi, who was a quiet aesthete, had to imitate Proust by trying to soundproof his room with cork in order to listen to quartets or to be able to read Remembrance of Things Past. The noise still reached him.

Radi's girlfriend, Helen, who slept over weekends, decided to kill them, and not to tell the sensitive Radi, whom she protected in a cocoon.

Bu how to do it? She went to her college library, and being a chemistry major, figured out a formula for murder and made a banana cake for the Toibilochs.

"Who the hell are you, smarty pants?"

"I made a banana nut cake and thought you might like it, being neighbors and all."

"You're the girl who goes with the nebbish next door? Sure, we'll take the cake."

They both devoured the cake. It was quiet for the rest of the semester, but then Radi had to move when the apartment building went condo.

"Radi, darling, we can't find it."

"I know, but it's been so quiet and pleasant, though there is a deathly smell that has settled on the place."

"Oh, Radi, forget it."

They moved together from the West Coast to the East without a forwarding address.

One morning Helen found out that her stay-at-home darling had another woman on the side, and baked a banana nut cake for herself and Radi which was quickly devoured by both. Helen could not live without Radi's loyalty.


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