It was a typical Monday morning on Secor street: sun baked ladies with fake tans hanging their armpits out of cars, hungry looking children with celebrity hairstyles waiting for a school bus that was always late, store owners trying to clear last night's lingering smells of unknown origin from their doorways, and a 240lb German frau standing out front of her husband's business in a flimsy purple nightgown, with one hand scratching her crotch, the other one smoking a big fat cigar.

Bertha Schlang waved hello to a famous semi-retired glass eater who just happened by in his brand new Chevy. He waved back at her, offering a smile without teeth and badly lacerated gums as she blew carcinogenic circles into the air. The sky looked pink today, same color as her nail polish. No really, he used to be a good looking man.

"Honeybunny, ver is my orange tie? You know the one with der stripes that go across like that and then down in der middle and then der is a kind of swirly bit like a —"

The voice trailed off into mumbling. Helmut was awake.

She sighed, stubbed out the cigar quite unceremoniously on the bottom of her flat bare foot, and marched up the stairs to the apartment.

Helmut was standing in front of the bedroom mirror, completely naked except for his shoes and a small brown briefcase dangling from his left hand. "So darling, do you vink I should go with der orange tie or a different tie?"

She smiled. Her husband was such a klutz sometimes. "Helmut dear, don't you think you have forgotten something?"

Twenty minutes later he was downstairs opening the store, still wearing nothing on his little hairy body but his shoes, an orange tie, and one black sock.

Jim Amos is an aspiring writer and freelance web designer living and working in Toledo, OH. Originally from Neptune, he is finding life on Earth to be quite a challenge. Random fact: Jim prefers to read the book before seeing the movie. He has work published in all sorts of places including Mipo Best of 2003, Snowmonkey, Pierian Springs, Literary Potporri and Clean Sheets Erotica magazine. One day he hopes to have a trained monkey who will do all the things he doesn't want to do. The monkey will most likely end up being his boss.