An old woman is being evicted from her hoarded home. |
Myrtle Armentrout My job is hard on me emotionally and I am not a weak man. I have been to war and survived. I have been married to the same woman for thirty years. Trust me, I am not a weak man. In a nutshell? I kick people out of their homes in Esther Falls, Nebraska. I know. It seems like that would be a very dull eight-hour day. “How many people in a small town would get kicked out of their homes?” might be the question on the tip of your tongue. Not that many, but each one is a heartbreak. Take Myrtle Armentrout. Please. All kidding aside, Myrtle lives at 244 Hampton Road in a hoarded house. I have been sent out many times to warn her. I am here, this time, to evict her. I asked her to show me the deed to her home--to make sure Myrtle owns it. “It’s around here somewhere,” she said and disappeared into the bowels of the hoard. I can hear things crashing down, tchotchkes breaking. Myrtle is swearing up a storm. I held my breath as long as possible but now, I am ready to vomit. “Myrtle, how you doin’?” “It’s around here somewhere,” she says again, from somewhere in the hoard. I will vomit if I don’t leave soon. “You keep lookin'. I’ll just be outside.” I fight my way to the front door and plant myself on a broken slow cooker on the stoop while I wait for poor old Myrtle Armentrout to seal her doom unwittingly. As I said, my job is hard on me emotionally and I am not a weak man. |