The DIY home endeavors of Hank, a proctologist, bring amusement to Hank’s cruel neighbor Zeke, an orthodontist, until a fatal twist of fate changes everything.
This medical fiction tale is one of a collection of stories that are like “Final Destination” meets “The Monkey’s Paw” (W. W. Jacobs, 1902). As such, they are tragedies that appeal most to readers who enjoy the inexorable pull of a story arc that leads to doom. The technical details surrounding the event are drawn from real cases in the US OSHA incident report database or similar sources and are therefore entirely realistic, even if seemingly outlandish.
Hank was a proctologist with strong feelings about getting stuff done. His motto was, “If you want something done properly, do it yourself.” However, Hank’s eyes were often bigger than his hands. It wasn’t that Hank was a klutz, but he often tackled DIY tasks that were a little trickier than his skills could master. Most of Hank’s visitors to his home were polite about the observable evidence of that mismatch: the slightly askew garage doors, the wobbly bathtub, and the kitchen faucet that squirted water up one’s sleeve due to a connector never quite sealed properly. These small setbacks didn’t daunt Hank at all. He viewed the many oddities and quaint malfunctions of his handiwork as evidence of incremental improvement. Hank figured that the faucet might squirt water up one’s sleeve, but this was an improvement over when it used to douse one’s crotch. Who knew? In a few months, he might get it to barely drip!
While most took Hank’s DIY oddities good-naturedly, Hank’s neighbor, Zeke, viewed them as invitation for criticism and mockery. When Hank’s efforts at servicing his lawn mower resulted in a cloud of smoke and the spark plug shooting across the yard and smashing his laundry room window, Zeke bellowed with laughter and loudly called Hank a dumbass. “You’re going to get yerself killed one of these days!” Zeke bellowed as he reclined with a beer.
Watching Hank in the garden was one of Zeke’s favorite Saturday afternoon pastimes. There was sure to be something to mock or laugh at, which always made Zeke feel better about himself. Watching Hank drench himself trying to adjust his pop-up sprinkler system filled Zeke with warm, glowing satisfaction. After whatever floor show Hank had unintentionally put on for Zeke’s entertainment, Zeke would go back inside for another beer, feeling good and chuckling, “That dumbass next door just kills me.”
As it happened, Hank and Zeke were also “neighbors” at work. Hank had suite 302 in the Primrose Medical Building, and Zeke had suite 202, directly below him. Zeke was an orthodontist who ran a thriving practice. He liked to say, “I work on smiles, and that guy works on assholes!” while gesturing to his ceiling with a thumb, then bellowing with laughter at his own cleverness. Sometimes Hank and Zeke would see each other in the medical building’s parking garage and, before climbing into his Porsche, Zeke would laugh and yell, “Hey Hank, I saw 30 great smiles today! How many assholes did you get to stare at?” He’d usually be in his car roaring his engine before Hank managed to stutter a complex answer about preventative care. Hank would then shrug, climb into his Volvo station wagon, and head home.
Some mornings they left their homes at the same time, but their paths always diverged. Hank would stop by Dunkin’ Donuts for a cup of coffee and a bear claw, while Zeke visited a French bakery to purchase fancy croissants to-go. Zeke had an award-winning programmable coffee machine in his office suite that’d cost him over $5,000 and, using the most exotic coffee beans money could buy, he created aromatic brews that he believed easily outclassed any restaurant, bakery or coffeehouse around.
The two men followed very different office arrival rituals: Hank would bustle through his suite door, keys and briefcase in one hand, coffee tankard in the other, and the paper bag containing his bear claw held between his teeth. He’d hurriedly gulp the last of his lukewarm coffee, take a quick bite of his now-soggy bear claw, and dive into notes for his first patient.
Below him in suite 202, Zeke would breeze through the keyless-entry door with his bakery bag in one hand and a slim leather folder in the other. He’d place the folder on his highly-polished mahogany desk, then stride to his suite kitchenette, throw open the door, and inhale deeply as he ambled in, savoring the heady aroma of his freshly-ground, perfectly-heated coffee.
This is not to say that all was heavenly in 202; Zeke had to bully the EHR staff about irritating lags that sometimes occurred when he displayed 3D color-enhanced scans on his wall-mounted monitor. He’d had endless grief with the people who’d installed the keyless entry, leaving ugly marks on the marble columns. He also went through terrible ordeals chasing the cleaning people as well as the maintenance team who’d installed the ceiling panels. A section of carpeting in Zeke’s suite was definitely paler than the surrounding area (due, Zeke surmised, to a clumsy cleaning product spill,) and one of the ceiling tiles in the his kitchenette bore a hideous, swamp-colored stain. Maintenance rudely suggested that the slowly spreading ceiling panel stain was being caused by steam or vapors from Zeke’s massive coffee machine. Zeke was not amused.
Hank had his own little problems, many of which were of his own creation. The little pond in his office entrance sat dry and unused because he just couldn’t figure out why it kept leaking. His flexible endoscope disinfection machine had broken down due to a kinked pipe and, adding to his frustration, no matter how much Hank tinkered with his suite’s thermostat, his office always felt either too hot or too cold. The desert-like pond he ignored for the most part. He admitted defeat on the HVAC system and called in an expert. The technician had replaced a part, adjusted the registers, set the temperature range, and presented Hank with a bill for $5,213.89. Hank grudgingly accepted that this was the cost of a comfortable office.
He’d also called in a technician for the disinfection machine but, when presented with an estimate of nearly $8,000 to replace the hose he’d accidentally twisted during installation, Hank decided to fix it himself. A year earlier, Hank had bought the disinfection machine because of its features and low price, but he’d balked at the exorbitant estimate for installation and configuration. Installing it himself had not been without mishaps but, after several late nights, he got it done, only to realize that the configuration was not plug-and-play. Weeks passed before Hank finally configured the software, then a new problem began with an inscrutable error message appearing on the machine’s screen:”E0999 – Backpressure.” Not very helpful. The explanation in the manual wasn’t much better: “Backpressure recycle out of range, high.” It took an obscure Reddit entry and a YouTube video playing mind-numbing background music to prompt Hank to open a back panel and locate the twisted hose. Success! But the disinfection machine dealer then demanded over $800 for a new hose alone. Of course, Hank followed a different route. For a little over $20, he bought a length of PEX pipe (50 cents/ft), connectors ($3.99 each), and a cutting tool ($7.95). He endured a few cuts and scratches as well as a somewhat pungent stain on his office floor but, in the end, the error message disappeared and the machine worked. Over the next few days, a new message occasionally displayed regarding back pressure being low, but as long as Hank kept the fluids topped up, the machine purred along just fine.
Soon thereafter, one morning as Zack backed his Porsche out of his driveway, he spotted “that dumbass next door” getting tangled in his own irrigation system. Instead of a morning mist, one of the spray heads popped up and launched a firehose-like shot of water hitting Hank smack in the face as he exited his house. Startled, Hank tripped over the irrigation pipe he’d been working on and fell face-first into the flower bed. It was so hilarious that Zeke stopped his car and turned off the engine to watch and laugh. As Zeke’s growling black Porsche went silent, Hank scurried to his station wagon obviously discombobulated and agitated, then got his angle wrong backing up and smashed his station wagon into his own mailbox. When Zeke pulled out of his driveway and headed off to work, he was still hooting with laughter.
Witnessing Hank’s gardening debacle left Zeke feeling ebullient. He chuckled about Hank throughout his entire commute, and even tipped the bakery counter staff. Zeke arrived at Primrose Medical Building grinning with glee. After striding into his office suite, he threw open the door to his kitchenette, took an exaggeratedly deep breath, and promptly collapsed. Retching and coughing on the floor, Zeke struggled to catch his breath, inhaling lungful after lungful of air thick with toxic fumes. The glutaraldehyde sterilizing agent from Hank’s leaking disinfection machine had finally soaked through the concrete slab and dripped on Zeke’s fancy coffee machine throughout the night. At 6:30 a.m., when the coffee machine’s timer fired up its hot plate and percolator, the heated glutaraldehyde emitted a range of secondary volatile chemicals that resembled a rather powerful chemical weapon. Eyes burning, every breath a torment, Zeke attempted crawling back to the doorway, but the heavier gasses produced by hot glutaraldehyde had pooled into a toxic gas lake on his marble kitchenette floor, and Zeke died in convulsions before he’d even managed to cover a yard.
