Stanley's World
by Lucien Kahn
Stanley Kelp began this day the way he would any other day. He stifled a yawn and stretched his arms widely in the air. When he was through stretching, Stanley unzipped the white zipper to the floor and stepped out of the plastic oxygen tent surrounding his bed. He filled the bathtub with boiling hot water and dumped all his bedding into the steaming liquid. Stanley let the steam flow into his nostrils, clearing his sinuses and cleansing his lungs. With the large wooden paddle he kept in the closet, Stanley prodded the sheets, submerging them and making sure every last germ was exterminated. Then he took the sheets he had washed yesterday out of the dryer and carefully made his bed, tucking in the sides and smoothing every crease. And now, it was time for breakfast.
Pouring himself a bowl of Whole Grains for a Healthy Heart cerealTM, Stanley surveyed the kitchen. All was in order: perfectly naked white walls surrounded him, the newspapers were ordered in the corner according to date and section, all the dishes were glistening behind the glass cupboard doors, and not a speck of dust could be seen for miles. Every surface shone like the edge of a sharpened knife, and we are talking freshly sharpened here, Stanley doesn’t mess around. He smiled. Nothing made Stanley happier than a clean kitchen, except of course a clean bathroom and…well, anything clean made Stanley happy. Maybe it was some horrible childhood experience, or maybe he got sick more often than most, or he wasn’t given enough snacks in preschool during recess, but Stanley is a germaphobe. Yes, that’s right, folks, do not be alarmed, there are many like him, but few as wild as he.
Stanley dumped the bowl of wheat clusters into the blender and put on his triple-layered, yellow, rubber, water insulated glove while he plugged it in. Two minutes on “grind” and the clusters were severely reduced in size and perfectly round to keep the possibility of choking to a minimum. Stanley took the bottle of Fat Free Happy Cow Farms Vitamin D and Calcium Enriched with Milk® out of the fridge and poured the thick liquid over the powdery fragments and dug right in. Stanley first found the miraculous invention of Vitamin D and Calcium enriched with Milk only last year and has immediately experienced the benefits of giving your body 500% of the daily Vitamin D and Calcium recommended. Every day, after eating the glue-like goop, his bones felt stronger, thicker, and healthier than ever. Anyone can see the results: his knuckles have doubled in size and his ribs are so large, they touch, giving his lungs, heart, and other vital organs a full shield from the front.
Stanley chomped on the cereal breaking apart the rock-hard morsels of whole wheaty flavorlessness and chewed until it became mush and the possibility of choking on pieces was completely eliminated. He drained the bowl of its last drops of Fat Free Happy Cow Farms Vitamin D and Calcium Enriched with Milk®. After vigorously rubbing the bowl and spoon with industrial strength soap (his hands were red and raw but right now there was nothing more important than cleaning this bowl thoroughly) and rinsing them under scorching hot water for several minutes, he dried the items with a paper towel. Cloth towels are just asking for germs to come make a nice home and raise a family in their soft moist threads. Once they were dry and sparkling, he placed them delicately in their respective positions.
Stanley made his way back into his bedroom and stripped off all his clothes, which he also placed to soak in the boiling bathtub. After covering his body in a thick layer of SPF 95 fortified with zinc and fish oils he had obtained on a prescription from his doctor–because you can never be too careful–Stanley dressed himself in many layers, but was prepared to shed depending on the day’s weather. Stanley never trusted the weather reports although he would watch them from time to time for entertainment’s sake. He wouldn’t be caught dead unprepared for anything the sky could throw at him. He now went to the closet in his room and opened the door wide. Stanley reached and grabbed from among the ranks of cylinders, two brand new cans of LysolTM and a personal bottle of Germ-X Hand SanitizerTM. As he lifted them out of the racks in his closet, a new bottle slid down to fill the open space. These were his favored brands because each one promised to kill 99.9% of all germs and Stanley would settle for nothing less. In fact, the .1% bothered Stanley deeply and he had wept rivers after his 3-hour-long argument with the owner and creator of LysolTM about the reality of a 100% effective germ-killer, which ended with his number permanently blocked and a restraining order of two full counties.
Stanley slipped the Germ-XTM into his pocket and the LysolTM canister he slid into a holster he wore on his belt. The other, he carried in his left hand as he exited his home and locked the door safely behind him. The air was fresh and clean but Stanley didn’t let the perfume of flowers deceive him. He knew the wicked, air-borne germs lurked even here, just outside his house, waiting to infest his moist lungs and multiply inside him until he coughed out his life onto the sidewalk and withered into nothing. Stanley was not afraid though, he had his LysolTM, and as he walked, he held it high and proud in front of his face like a soldier carries his gun, and began his brutal march: left-right-spray-left-right-spray.
The walk to work was relatively uneventful. Stanley breathed in the orangey scent of the LysolTM and tried not to look at the grimy sidewalk and the dirty people that shuffled around him. When a stranger next to him sneezed while they were waiting to cross the street, Stanley jumped two feet in the air and quickly sprayed his own arm with a thick coat of LysolTM and without letting her see, he sprayed the stranger with short quick bursts as she walked away. Stanley arrived at his office with plenty of time to spare, for he was never late. He used the last of the LysolTM to spray down the elevator buttons before he pressed nine and deposited the empty can in the trash.
Stanley strutted out of the elevator and onto floor number nine. The sign outside of the double doors said, “Wilson & Burk’s Accounting Firm.” Stanley loved these double doors best because they automatically slid when you stepped on the mat in front of them. This meant no handle and no hand germs! He believed all doors should be automatic; the world would be a much nicer place if they were. Stanley pounced on the mat and grinned as the doors gently slid apart. He made his way across the room to his desk by the window. Unfortunately, it was also right next to the bathrooms (a most unsanitary place) but Stanley was willing to sacrifice this in exchange for a window desk. It is not that Stanley liked the view or wanted to open the window on a hot day, quite the contrary. Stanley wanted the window desk so he could make sure the window remained closed at ALL TIMES. Just thinking about all the pollutants and exhausts from the city, which could make their way into the office through an open window, made him cringe. But because Stanley had the window desk nothing like that would ever happen and he was nice and safe.
Early to work and early to bed was Stanley’s motto. He wasted no time and began crunching the day’s numbers working through his clients’ bookkeeping and checking and double-checking for errors. He heard the doors slide open and paused to see who had arrived. Oh, it’s Derek and…a smaller version of Derek bouncing along behind, wearing not a suit, but a Spiderman shirt and a matching backpack. Stanley despised children, the disgusting little things, as much, if not more, than he despised spiders. Stanley almost choked when he saw mini-Derek pick his nose and extract his finger with a long, gooey booger on the tip. Derek Jr. examined it for a moment, rotating his finger around to get a 360° view of the sticky crumb before he flicked his finger sending the ball of mucus flying. Stanley watched the trajectory of the air-borne speck in horror as its path arched across the office and landed, sticking firmly, to the tip of his shiny black shoe. Stanley almost screamed and when he looked up at the child he saw the offender with his hand over his mouth giggling uncontrollably as if taunting him, challenging Stanley to do something.
Stanley opened the bottom drawer of his desk and removed a new bottle of LysolTM, a fresh box of latex gloves and a packet of Kleenex® tissues from the chamber. He drenched the entire packet of tissues in LysolTM and after putting on the latex gloves he removed the grotesque bit of booger and scrubbed the spot so hard his shoe almost caught fire. This is good; fire kills germs. At that moment he heard the whoosh of the sliding doors and couldn’t believe his eyes when two more of his coworkers entered the office holding hands with those vile creatures they called their offspring. Stanley was confused for a moment and then it dawned on him. Looking at the office calendar he had next to his desk he saw staring back at him the most horrible idea anyone had ever come up with: “April 13th, Bring your child to work day.” Stanley trembled and tried to compose himself. How could he have forgotten? When he saw it on the calendar in March he had promised himself he would call-in sick and take the day off to buy new cleaning supplies. Oh, what a fool! Stanley was never sick, he had a perfect record: not a single day missed, and never once late, and this was how they repaid him? By coming up with terrible theme days meant to ruin all Stanley’s hope for a sanitary working environment. How could he get anything done with these…these fiends here infecting him and the air he breathed?
Stanley decided he would bite the bullet, so to speak, and stick it out till the bitter end. He blocked out the visions of mucus and germs and bacteria filling the office and focused once again on the numbers. By 10 o’clock, however, the coughing and sneezing and nose picking was too much for Stanley. Drastic times call for drastic measures. Opening the drawer again he pulled out the bottle of LysolTM he had used earlier to thwart Derek’s initial attempt at germ warfare. With his right hand he continued to punch in the numbers: $5,249 + $377.24 + … but with his left it was nothing but spray-spray-spray. After draining the entire bottle Stanley was convinced it was not nearly enough to overcome the awful infestation that was overtaking this office. Employee after employee had marched in, each with a new child to add to the rogue army. Some wandered around the office in search of clean spaces to defile and others stayed with their guardians, but nevertheless wiping their nasty hands everywhere, slobbering on the floor, and dripping gobs of earwax from their tiny ears.
They must be immune to the LysolTM; it’s not doing the trick. Stanley could feel his heart beating irregularly, his eyes watering, sweat dripping from every pore on his body, and he was sure his right lung had collapsed. He loosened his collar and eyed the double doors. He had to flee; staying was out of the question. Stanley retrieved more bottles of LysolTM and gloves from the drawer. He emptied the bottle of Germ-XTM into the gloves and slipped them squelching onto his hands. The cool gel engulfed his hands and he knew at least that they would be safe. Next he closed his eyes and sprayed himself from head to toe in LysolTM, while controlling his breathing and trying to relax. Stanley placed new cans in both holsters and held two more firmly in each hand. Stanley waited and waited till he thought he could wait no longer but then the opportunity appeared and he could not afford to pass it up; another chance to escape might not appear like this again. Without hesitation Stanley jumped up from his desk chair and with a mighty roar coming deep down from the depths of his diaphragm he sprinted to the exit flailing his arms madly and spraying LysolTM in every direction. He managed to completely cover mini-Derek in the stuff before he dove out of the doors and down the hall to the emergency stairs. About halfway home he tossed the cans in a dumpster and continued his marathon, spinning new cans from his belt and screaming the whole way.
When he finally reached the haven that was his house, Stanley collapsed in exhaustion. He stripped off his clothes and put them in the fireplace to burn. While he watched the cloth shrivel and squirm in the licking flames, Stanley embraced the one certainty in his life: he would have to re-stock his supply of LysolTM ASAP.