My name is Johnny Carsweeper.  Contrary to what it may suggest, I have never swept a car in my life, not even my own (a mustang).  I live in apartment 610 in the Crestfallen Village Apartment Complex, directly across from my office in the Megalom Corp. Building.  Between these two buildings lies a road.  It is Bee’s Knee’s Avenue.  This is all stale stuff, you know.  I think by now my name has been committed to your memory, so I will mention it not.
        Today as I crossed Bee’s Knee’s Avenue on my way to work, I passed an ordinary man.  Perhaps the most extraordinary creature in America: the ordinary man.  What lies beneath the white button-down shirt and the clever tie?  Every day I open my closet to see my shirt, pants, and tie staring at me, completely empty.  It is up to me to fill them up with myself.
        It was a nice walk to my office, all bells and whistles.  The bells were the chime of the elevator (bing!) and the whistles came from me.  I may have whistled while walking to work, but it’s become such a habit that I don’t notice when I do it.  Stella does.  She thinks it’s annoying.
        When I arrived at Stella’s desk, she was dressed all nice and even had on some reading glasses.
         “Nice specs,” I said.
         “Thanks,” she said.  “I have a present for you.  It’s waiting in your office.”
         “Do you want to show it to me?” I asked.
         “No, it’s a surprise.  I think you’ll like it.”
         “You mean you don’t want to see the look on my face when I see my big surprise?”
         Stella made no reply.  She just looked up at me, rather smugly, and shook her head.
         “Go,” she said, making shooing motions.
         “OK, OK.”
         My door had a nameplate that read “Johnathan Carsweeper.  Development Team.”  Underneath my nice official nameplate was a sticker I had purchased myself from the W.A.S.T.E website.  It was a yellow biohazard sign.  W.A.S.T.E is a UK-based Radiohead company that sells Radiohead merchandise.  Good for Radiohead.
         I slowly, but casually, walked into my office, without whistling.  I did not know what to expect.  The first thing I saw was a big red ribbon around my fish tank.  Very funny, I thought, that was already there.  The contents, however, had changed.  Instead of brightly colored tropical fish swimming about inside, there was a big, ugly brown lobster.  I briefly wondered where all the fish had gone to, and I saw the remains of the last one in the claws of my new lobster.
         “Hey,” I said, opening the door to my office, “that’s not funny.  I could get in trouble for it killing the fish.”
         “It killed the other fish?” Stella asked.  She looked genuinely shocked.
         “Yes, um.  It’s a lobster.  It eats fish.  You didn’t think of that?”
         “Shut up.”  Now she looked embarrassed and offended.  I’d made a fool of her in front of absolutely no one but the two of us.
         I grinned.  I also laughed.
         Stella got up from her desk and pushed me into my office, then closed the door behind her.
         “Don’t make fun of me,” she said.  She looked pissed.
         “I’m sorry,” I said, “I just think it’s funny you thought the lobster would be living in harmony with the other fish.  ‘Oh, here you go Mister Lobster,’” I said in a funny voice, “’meet your new fishy friends!  Now place nice!’”  I made silly motions with my hands to indicate that I was supposed to be Stella.
         “Shut up, I said!” Stella half-laughed.  She was trying not to smile but now she couldn’t help it.  She pushed me again, this time really hard.  I fell backward and flat onto my back.  It knocked the wind out of me.
         “Jesus Christ,” I said, “push me down a flight of stairs.”
         “Are you OK?”
         I tried to get up but couldn’t find the strength to.  I tried again, but found it difficult to move.
         “Are you OK?”  Stella looked a bit worried.
         “No.”
         “Shit, what’d you do?”
         “What did I do?  What did you do!  You knocked me over and hurt my back!  I can’t get up!”
         “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”  This time Stella looked deeply worried.
         “Saying sorry won’t help.  Call somebody.”
         “Who do I call?”  I thought maybe an ambulance would help, but I felt embarrassed.
         “Call Martha.”  I don’t know why I said that.
         “Who?”
         “Martha Morioka.  Look her number up in the directory.”
         Being a secretary, Stella did what I told her to.  While looking up the number, though, she asked me, “Why Martha Morioka?  Who is she?”
         “We’re sort of friends.  We hung out that one night that Phil Pennington dumped your friend.”
         “You went out with Martha?”  Stella had an accusing look on her face and she had no right to.
         “No, we just had a few drinks.”
         “Johnny, that’s a date, you son of a bitch.”
         “It was not!  Can’t I have a few drinks with a friend?  What’s wrong with that?”  I was lying on the floor, unable to move, and this was not a good time for an argument with Stella.
         “I can’t believe you.”  Stella got up from my desk, walked out the door, and shut it behind her.
         “Wait!  Stella!” I shouted.  I was desperate and stuck to the floor.  “Come back!”
         It’s too bad she ignored me.  It’s too bad she overreacted.
         I must have been on the floor for a few hours before someone finally came into my office.  It was Martha herself.
         By then I had managed to roll myself around, but if I tried getting up, I would feel intense pain in my back.  So I was pretty much stuck on the floor.
         “Oh my God!”  Martha put her hands to her mouth in horror.  “Are you OK?”
         “No,” I said, “I think I broke my back.”
         “You what?”
         “Actually, Stella broke it.  And she put a lobster in my fish tank.”
         “Here, let me help you up.”  Martha, being a Good Samaritan, walked over to help me up.  However, sitting up caused intense pain and I would lie back down.
         “Come on, get up, damn it,” Martha said.  “I don’t care how much it hurts.  You’ve got to get up.”
         After a brief fit of struggling, I was sitting up and in serious pain.
         “Now stand up.”
         “I can’t.  You’ve got to help me.”
         Martha took my hands and pulled me up.  More pain.  Oh, the pain.  It was in my upper back.
         “Come on, now, let’s get you to a doctor.”
         “But what about my work?”
         “It’s six o’clock, Johnny.  Work’s over.”
         I must have been on the floor longer than I thought.  The whole work day in fact.  Jesus Christ, push me down a flight of stairs.
         “Where’s Stella?” I asked.
         “Not here…” Martha looked at me funny.  “Did she do that to you?”
         I was embarrassed to say.  “Um…”
         “Why did she hurt you?”
         I was more embarrassed.  Embarrassed-er.  “It’s a long story,” I said, trailing off.
         “Well,” Martha said, “I’m taking you to the emergency room.  You can tell me on the way.”
         I leaned my head back, as if to say “why me?” and felt an intense pain in my upper back again.
         Martha, merciful Martha, took me to the parking garage via the elevator and not via the stairs.  She had a Toyota Camry and it was white.  Hanging from her rearview mirror was a small Barbie doll (presumably from a McDonalds happy meal) that had its hair cut short and colored green.  Its clothes (a shirt and a short skirt) had been colored black.  It was a punk Barbie.  In the passenger seat was a big old pile of papers and folders, and Martha threw them in the backseat with complete disregard.  They spilled about back there and she didn’t seem to care.
         “Can you get in OK?” she asked.
         I tried.  “Ow,” I said, “I’m trying.”  After much effort, I was in.
         Martha walked around to the driver’s side…and climbed in.  She reached over and put my seatbelt on me.
         “No, thanks,” I said, “I think I’m about ready to die now.”
         “Any last words, Mister Misery?”
         “No, not really.”
         “How about you tell me your story now?”
         I got embarrassed again.  “I really don’t want to talk about it.  No offense to you, but I’m just embarrassed.”
         “Come on, Johnny-boy, we’re buddies, right?  You can tell me anything.  Besides, what are you gonna tell the doctor?”
         Martha seemed to be rather skilled at making valid points.
         “Alright,” I said, “I got to my office.  Stella was outside and said she’d got me a present.”
         “Your secretary gets you presents?”
         “Well, we’re dating.”
         “Oh God, Johnny, do you have to give in to stereotypes?”
         “I knew her before she was my secretary.”
         “But still, you could find someone that makes you sound more…not-stereotyped.”
         “OK,” I said, “can I go on?”
         “Yeah, sorry.  Please do.”
         “Well, she said I had to go in alone to find my present.  It was a lobster in my fish tank and it had eaten the other fish.
         “I went back out to tell her it wasn’t funny cos I could get in trouble for the lobster eating the company-supplied-fish and she got all surprised that the lobster ate the fish.  I thought it was funny how she didn’t think the lobster would eat the fish and she got all angry at me cos she thought I was making fun of her.  So she pushed me into my office and shut the door behind her.  I went along with it and made fun of her more and she pushed me even harder, and that’s when I fell on my back.”  I paused for effect.
         “Is that it?  Your story can’t just end there.  What did she do after that, pin your arms back and pinch your nose?”
         “No,” I laughed, “she got all worried and asked what she could do.”
         “And you didn’t call for an ambulance because…?”
         “Because I didn’t think it was serious.”
         “Well, it’s serious, Johnny-boy.  Go on.”
         “OK.  The first name that pops up in my head is yours.”
         “Aw, that’s sweet.  You barely know me.”
         “Yeah, yeah.  Well, she didn’t know who you are and wanted to.  I told her we’d had a few drinks at Gus’ Drinky a while ago and she totally flipped.  She thought it was a date.”
         “I sort of thought it was too, but you know, whatever.  We’re just buddies, aren’t we?”
         “Yeah, that’s what I thought.  Anyway, Stella got all bitchy and just walked out my office and she probably left the building too.  So I was on my back the whole goddamn day.”
         “Wow, write a book about it.”
         “’Johnny’s Spine.’  I don’t think so.  I just want the pain to go away.”
         “So does this mean you and Stella have broken up?”
         This was a sort of nosy question, but I think Martha already felt she could ask me anything…after all, she’d said I can tell her anything.  What a buddy.
         “You know, I was actually thinking about that the other night.  I remember talking to her that night you and I met at Gus’ Drinky, we were supposed to have a date, and I asked at one point: ‘aren’t we in love?’ and she said ‘who said anything about love?’  That sort of got to me.”
         “I’m sorry to hear that.”
         “So was I.  But you know, maybe Stella’s not the right woman for me.”
         “Well, don’t be in a hurry to fall in love.”
         “I’m only in a hurry to get myself rid of this pain in my back.”
         “I know.  We’re almost there.”
         There was a pause, since the conversation had run dry.  Then I exercised my curiosity.
         “Why did you come to my office?”
         “Oh, well I got an e-mail from Stella saying that you want me to stop by your office sometime today, preferably on my way out.”
         “I can’t believe she got that angry.  That’s some serious overreacting, you know?”
         “No kidding.”
         The conversation had run dry again.
         The emergency room was great.  Just kidding.  It was boring and painful, but mostly because of my back.  I spent about half an hour filling out forms saying I had insurance and other stuff and then I had to see a doctor to confirm that I was really hurt.  Big surprise: I was hurt!  Well, after that it was x-ray time.  It turns out I had a broken right shoulder blade.  So I would be able to walk again, but I had to wear a sling and a neck brace.  Martha said I looked like I’d been beat up.  I told her I had been.