As she was mulling this, there was a knock on the door. The door, not being what it used to be, swung wide open to reveal a great grayish-skinned hulking man standing in the hallway. He was wearing a navy blue jumpsuit with a nametag that read: Don.

Now the thing about jumpsuits is that they are specifically designed to subdue and emasculate their wearers. A jumpsuit is not something that a street punk throws on before going on a crime spree. No one wears a jumpsuit unless they’ve been instructed to by someone wearing a tie.[4] Ordinarily, if Christine had seen this man in her doorway mere minutes after discovering that her condo had been broken into and vandalized, she would have been terrified. But as it was, a split-second of fear gave way to a sub-conscious thought process that amounted to “Oh, he’s wearing a jumpsuit. Thank God.”

“Hello,” said the great gray man in a gruff voice. “I’m Don, from Don’s Discount Flooring. I’m looking for the Frobischer residence. I’ve got an address here, but it got all smudged.” He held a wrinkled sheet of paper in his hand.

“Oh,” said Christine. “Ah, Mrs. Frobischer is – was – across the hall, in 1609.”

“Was?” asked Don. “She moved?”

“Uh, no,” said Christine. “She died. Last Thursday. Slipped and fell in the shower.”

“Shit,” mumbled Don, staring blankly at the paper. “Pardon my French. I guess she won’t want her linoleum installed then.”

“I’d say that’s a safe bet,” said Christine. “I would hope that wherever she is, she’s beyond concerns about linoleum.”

“Uh,” Don grunted in assent. “I was supposed to install it on Thursday, but I had a conflict with another job. If I’da done her installation instead of that one….”

“I know what you mean,” said Christine. “I almost went over to borrow a cup of skim milk that afternoon. I keep thinking….”

“…I’da done the installation and got stuck with the bill. Good thing I canceled.”

“Er,” said Christine. “Yes, I suppose from that angle….”

“Sometimes things just work out, you know?” said Don. “Gives you goosebumps.”

Christine smiled weakly. It didn’t look like Don had goosebumps. Don didn’t strike her as the sort of person who knew how to get goosebumps. Just his mention of the word goosebumps gave her, well, goosebumps.

“Speaking of which,” said Don, “what happened to your floor?”

“Oh, uh…” Christine began. “Someone broke in… that is, came in and…”

“Can I take a look?”

Sensing a shiver coming on, Christine shrugged her shoulders to conceal it. This was taken by the hulking Don as a gesture of assent, and he walked past her into the condo.

“Is that a swastika?” he asked.

“Technically, no,” said Christine. “I’m calling it an akitsaws.”

Don stared at her.

“It’s an ancient Celtic symbol that means, ‘I have a learning disability.’”

Don’s brow furrowed. “You do?”