Extra-sensory epic

My room had been smelling really foul for the past week. I’m cursed with really tiny Asian nostrils, so although I could definitely smell the stench, I had a lot of trouble determining the source. My nose just isn’t sensitive enough. A couple days ago I spent a good half hour rummaging through the dirty laundry basket in my closet, inpecting my underwear for any telltale shit skid marks, but there was nothing. A few specks of yellow here and there in the front, sure, but no brown at all.

Where the hell is that smell coming from?? I asked myself.

Yesterday my apartment building management came knocking loudly at my door, responding to a smell complaint. The management person was an attractive lady named Irene, and she asked if there were any dead bodies in my apartment. Even when I laughed in amusement, she still pushed her way through the door to give my apartment a once-over.

Because Valentine’s Day is in two weeks and you never know when the opportunity might come that will require you to look good, I gave myself a haircut earlier that day. I was, however, too lazy to sweep up all my hair off the floor of the bathroom. Irene noticed this. She flipped on the bathroom light, stared at the pile of hair on the ground for a moment, and then turned off the light and hurriedly left for the door of my apartment.

“Get rid of the odor in here as soon as possible, Mr. Nguyen,” Irene snapped as she opened my door to leave. “And for God’s sake, clean up the pube trimmings off the bathroom tile. Please? That is just unbelievably disgusting.”

“What? NO! No no no... Those aren’t pubes, those are—”

And she slammed the door and stomped away.

In my anger and embarrassment, I punched the pillows on my bed as hard as I could, then jumped onto my couch and muffled my screams into the cushion. I then jumped back up, red in the face, and took a ferocious bite out off my half-eaten slice of pizza. And after punching myself in the head a couple times, I ran for my computer, furiously typed the angry face emoticon “>:o”, and set it as my AIM away message.

Last night as I laid in bed and stared at the ceiling with heavy tears in my eyes, I whimpered, “Why me? Irene must think I'm a total freak. Why does my room smell so fucking bad? WHY??”

My answer came this morning.

I sometimes roll around a lot in my sleep because I get pretty intense nightmares about space aliens. Last night was one of those nights because this morning I found myself on the ground; apparently I had rolled right off my bed at night. Still laying on the floor, I quickly checked my body for any probe scars, just in case. There were none.

And then I turned my head to the right and looked under my bed.

There, beneath the bed, in between Maxim magazines and dirty socks, was a moldy old tuna sandwich. I reached under the bed with my leg, fishing the sandwich out. It was disgusting. Green and white and brown and purple all at once. That tuna sandwich must have been under my bed for months.

I smiled.

“A-HA!” I said, picking the sandwich up and flinging it into the trash can. “I FOUND YOU! The source of the smell! I don’t know how you got under there, Mr. Smelly Tuna Sandwich, but now that I’ve got you, YOU’LL NEVER MAKE MY ROOM SMELL AGAIN!!!”

After slapping myself hard across the face for talking to myself again, I merrily took my trash can downstairs and outside to the trash bin. As is the usual when I take the trash out, about four or five of those ultra-intelligent Champaign squirrels lined up, all squeaking in unified anticipation of my scraps.

I carefully dumped my trash can into the bin, and not even before the rest of the tuna sandwich came out of my trash can did a squirrel leap up and catch the sandwich in its little mouth. This really pissed me off.

“Have a little patience, motherfucker!” I said to the squirrel. “Possums show more manners than ya'll do.”

The squirrel just looked at me sheepishly and this pissed me off even more so I stepped on its bushy tail and whipped the trash can at its head. It started shrieking in pain, so I stepped off its tail, but not before spitting a huge gob of saliva into its screaming, gaping mouth.

I laughed. I laughed hard and slapped my thigh and smiled because life had never been so good.

And then the squirrel suddenly jumped up and bit me on the arm. I instantly blacked out and fell to the ground.

...

That all happened this morning. It’s 6 PM now, and I’m not quite sure how I made it back to my room.

I’ll tell you one thing though: that squirrel was radioactive. I knew there was something up with the squirrels here in Champaign.

And I’ll tell you another thing: I have powers now. The squirrel that bit me gave me these... powers. Clairvoyance, to be exact. ESP. I can now tell the future. Just like last year.

And before I start making a killing on the stock market (hint: invest in Google), I’ll do you all a favor and tell you what the score of Superbowl XL will be this coming Sunday. Jerome Bettis will not ride off into the sunset. The Steelers’ blitzing attack will not overcome Shaun Alexander and the Seahawks’ zone-blocking schemes.

The final score will be: Seahawks 23, Steelers 17.

And Mick Jagger will have a wardrobe malfunction during the half-time show, so close your eyes.