When the Devil Gets the Last Laugh: An April Fool's Story
At approximately two o'clock in the morning on March 30th, a shriek was heard so loudly throughout
the Meadowbrook Apartment Complex that it even woke Mrs. Jones in 4B, who every night takes enough Ambien to kill a horse.
"What the fuck did you do!" Jenn screamed as she shot up in bed reaching to switch on the lamp sitting on the nightstand next to her. In the light, she could see her roommate laughing uncontrollably at the foot of her bed. As she began to get out of bed to go confront him, she noticed a small clump of bleached blonde hair on the floor. Tears already began to fill her eyes as she reached her right hand up to her scalp and began to pat around until she came across what felt like a small patch of felt on her head where hair should be. This caused a bolt of lightening to shoot through her body making her jump up and dash out the door. Her roommate was still laughing as he watched her run down the tiny hallway and into the bathroom where a few seconds later it happened.
"Whoa! Whoa!" Teddy said still laughing as he ran to catch up with her, "another scream like that and we'll have the cops busting down the door."
"I can't believe you did this, Teddy!" Jenn sobbed. "There's literally a huge bald spot on the side of my head!"
"Oh c'mon," Teddy retorted, "it's not that noticeable."
"Are you kidding? How the fuck am I supposed to go to work, Teddy?" She screamed back.
"Well good thing you sell software over the phone where nobody has to see you," Teddy said chortling.
"I still have to see my BOSS, you dumb ass, and everyone I work with." Jenn replied. "You can't do this shit to a girl. I'm not one of your 'frat bros' where shaving off a patch of their hair is no big deal. Do you know how fucking long this is going to take to grow back?"
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Teddy said still grinning while throwing his hands up in surrender.
Jenn looked her roommate up and down. There he was with his moppy light brown hair that poked out around the bottom of the backwards baseball cap he always wore, curling around his ears. He towered over her at six foot two so she had to tilt her head up to meet his light blue eyes on that face that looked like it belonged to the more sporty looking models you see in ads for athletic wear, but unlike them, Teddy always had a slightly mischievous look to him that indicated there was still a happy, slightly annoying, but loveable kid somewhere in the tall mountain of muscles that was Teddy's body which could never keep Jenn mad at him for long, but this time he went too far.
"Sorry isn't going to cut it this time, dude," Jenn replied. "There's literally a bald patch on the right side of my head. I have work in a few hours, and we are having friends over later."
"Okay, okay I'll buy you a hat or something," Teddy said as he walked out of the bathroom and back to his room, or the pit, as Jenn called it, because there were dirty clothes hanging off everything and empty beer and soda cans everywhere.
"Yea, that will fix it," Jenn said rolling her eyes as she crawled back into bed hoping she could manage to get a few more hours of sleep before she had to face the world looking like a failed Chia Pet.
Later that evening, when Jenn got home from work she ran straight to her room slamming the door and locking herself in. Even though, Jenn managed to comb her hair in such a way that the shaved patch on her head was less noticeable, people at work still gave her weird looks anyway, and it made her so upset she vowed that she wasn't going to leave her room until it grew back. But tonight was the night of the week that Christy and Mark, Jenn and Teddy's neighbors from down the hall, came over for pizza and beer. When she heard the muddled sounds of laughter coming from her friends, Jenn couldn't resist going out to hang with them. Plus, even though she was mad, she was bored, and Jenn looked forward to Wednesday nights all week. So she got up, and threw on an old trucker hat in her closet that she still had from high school when that kind of thing was cool. Before she stepped out she took a quick look in the mirror. She approved of her outfit: a simple black v-neck tee that hugged her slender body, and perky breasts, and a pair of low cut skinny jeans that she slipped on over her g-string panties. She thought it was cute how her pin straight blond hair (at least what was left of it) draped out from underneath the trucker hat framing her face perfectly.
When she emerged from the tiny hallway that connects the living room to their bedrooms, Christy immediately made eye contact with her and shot up from the couch where she was sitting with the two guys who gave a loud "Aye!" in unison when they saw Jenn walk in. They were watching some sporting event on TV, and the small coffee table in front of the couch was already covered in empty beer cans. The tantalizing scent of pizza hit Jenn's nose reminding her that she hadn't eaten since lunch and so she made a dash for the kitchen where Christy caught up with her.
"Hey, I was wondering where you were," Christy said leaning up against the counter next to Jenn who was already half way through her first slice. "What's with the hat? Are you trying to resurrect 2005? Because as your friend, I strongly advise you to reconsider. Not that I wasn't a total victim of the trucker hat myself back then."
"No, no," Jenn began to answer as she finished swallowing her last bite of pizza. "It's not like that, I swear. I don't want to talk about it."
"What did he do now?" Christy asked accusingly as she crossed her arms and in front of Jenn.
"Nothing, nothing," Jenn replied as she tried to duck by Christy who had her pinned against the counter.
"Yea right, nothing. C'mon let me see," Christy said as she made a grab for Jenn's hat pulling it off her head.
Christy immediately covered her mouth with her hand in an effort to stifle the laugh that was about to erupt from her throat.
"Oh my god, fuck you," Jenn said, snatching the hat back from Christy and putting it back on.
"It doesn't look that bad," Christy replied, still trying to hold back her laughter.
"Yea, okay. I look like a fricken goon," Jenn countered, opening up the fridge where she proceeded to crack open a beer and chug half of it in one gulp.
"Let me guess, Teddy?"
"Yup."
"Well that's what you get for living with a guy. Especially a guy that you met on craigslist."
Jenn finished her beer and said, "He's a good guy, he just needs to grow up," before cracking open another and taking a big gulp.
"He's twenty-six," Christy retorted.
"Yea and I'm twenty-five, but I'm still going to get revenge on him big time," Jenn said taking a sip of her beer while staring down Ted whom she could see over the counter and into the adjacent living room where he was screaming something at the TV with Mark, completely oblivious to the conversation being had between the two woman just feet away.
"Why don't you just stop sleeping with him?" Christy suggested, knowing that even though Jenn and Teddy were platonic friends and roommates they would have the occasional romp. "That should miff him."
Jenn laughed. "I've been thinking about doing that anyway because lately he's been bugging me about having a threeso-" Just then an idea popped into Jenn's head. "Hey, do you still have that friend, you know, the one you told me about who's 'adventurous?'"
Christy narrowed her eyes at Jenn. "Yea, why?"
Jenn's wicked smile told Christy that Jenn had figured out what she was going to do.
