Go Ask Alice…when she's 94

“Our romance,” Alice said recently of Mr. Fickle, “is a thing of the past.”

The man who once took her hand and squeezed it on an irregular basis rarely notices her any more. His gait has slowed and his flirtations with all the many widows who surround him have markedly decreased.

He still sometimes glances (maddeningly) away from Alice and into the post office across from her table when he walks down the hallway, and she still stares straight ahead, pretending not to notice, wanting to call out to him, “I’m over here!”

Back when things were more lively between them–even when it included hanky-panky with other women, such as kissing their cheeks or hugging them–these things only added juice to the story Alice was writing in her head so that she’d have something to tell me during our nightly phone calls.

One time she saw him pushing a woman in a wheelchair toward the elevator that leads to the upstairs apartments. When he went up the elevator, the bill on his cap was pointed in one direction, but when he came down the elevator and entered the dining room a while later, it pointed in the other direction. (See As the Cap Turns for details.)

This cap business set Alice’s restless mind into good-humored speculation overdrive for days.

But now the thrill is gone.

Last night I called her for advice on removing a blob of something dark, gummy and stubborn burned on to my black ceramic stove top (the single appliance in my houseboat’s galley that I am continually at war with).

It should look something like this; never does.

I thought this would give us something, a least, to discuss, but she ignored my plea for one of her famous home-made mixtures. Instead, with some excitement, she launched into a new Mr. Fickle mystery. I got out my “magic” (not) Cooktop Stove Cleaner, which I knew would be all but useless, yanked on my rubber gloves, and started in on a session of pointless scrubbing while I listened.

Alice told me that Mr. Fickle rose from his table in the middle of both lunch and dinner to go to the bathroom that day. He has to pass her table to enter the hall where the bathroom is located.

Time goes by. She’s on the lookout. No sign of him. He does not emerge from the hallway and return to his table.

And yet! When she gets up from her table to return to her apartment after eating, she turns around (her back is to his table) and sees that voila!  There he sits, calmly finishing his meal.

This had happened twice that day, and neither time did she spot him in the act of returning to his table. How did he get there?

Mr. Fickle’s logistical options are so limited for going to the bathroom and getting back to his table that Alice can’t help but be puzzled.

“I can’t figure it out,” she said. “How does the old codger do it?”

I was obsessed with my stove top. “I’d like to get my hands on the person who invented these damn things.”

She knew immediately what I meant and sighed heavily because I was interrupting her Miss Marple investigation with such a mundane issue.

“Have you tried toothpaste?” she asked in a tone that implied any fool would surely have tried toothpaste by this point. “You know you can use toothpaste to get things off that are stuck to your iron.”

“I’m not even sure where my iron is.”

“You know where your toothpaste is, don’t you?”

I rinsed off the no-good-not-so-magic cleaner, then carried the phone with me while I went to get the Crest and rummaged in a junk drawer for an old toothbrush, all the while taking in Alice’s description of the layout of dining room, hallway, and bathroom, reminding me of things I’d seen many times but hadn’t ever considered to be what she was now calling “escape routes.”

By the time I had returned to the kitchen stove and started brushing on the toothpaste, I had a clear picture of the mystery (click image to enlarge):

Mr. Fickle exits the bathroom (A) and then…what? He does not go past Alice’s table (B) to return to his table (C), so how does the old codger, as she calls him, get back there?

I suggested that maybe he goes up the stairs beyond the restroom (D) and then crosses the second floor to get to the other stairs (F), descends, and returns to his table (C).

“He’s not Superman,” she said. “He’s Mr. Fickle. He’s old. No way does he have the energy to do all that.”

“Maybe he goes outside,” I said (E), “and walks around the building and then comes in the back door by the garden (G) and goes to his table.”

She was incredulous. “Outside? In the rain?”

She had a point.

“Let’s get back to this in a minute,” she said. “How’s the toothpaste working?”

I looked down at the gooey mess on my stove top and wiped away a corner of it. The blob was still there. “Not working.”

“Put baking soda on top of the toothpaste and then mix it in.”

I obeyed. The baking soda combined with toothpaste turned into little clumps. I scrubbed the mess back and forth with my toothbrush. The blob remained stuck.

“Pour on some ammonia. Don’t breathe it!” Alice commanded.

I pictured my mother in her Lazy Boy rocker/recliner, rocking faster and faster as more and more household cleaning products came rushing in to her mind.

“Don’t breathe it, did you say, or do breathe it?” I asked.

“What? Don’t! What are you thinking?”

“I was thinking,” I said as I dribbled on some ammonia, “that maybe I should lean down and take a big sniff and then turn the burner on and see what happens.”

“Now you’re just being silly.”

The drops of ammonia did not so much as make the baking soda/toothpaste concoction fizz.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll play around with this. Let’s get back to what really matters.”

I remembered the elevator (H). “Maybe he goes up the back stairs,” I said, “and comes down the elevator.”

“I can see the elevator,” she said. “Why would he do such a thing if he’s trying to avoid me?”

“Who says he’s trying to avoid you?”

“He is,” she said, confidently. “Yes, he is.”

“I just cannot figure it out,” she said. “I watch him go to the restroom. I don’t see him come back. I get up when I’m done eating dinner, and there he is, sitting at his table. Imagine! I swear I do not know how he does it.”

My stove top now looked and smelled like a pigeon had been flying around the kitchen.

“Leave it overnight,” Alice advised. “You never know.”

I felt relieved she’d run out of ideas. One more product, natural or otherwise, and my house would blow up.

Time to say good night. We were no help to each other.

Then in a quiet voice she said, “Earlier tonight I remembered how passionately he grabbed me and kissed me on the cheek that first time. And then that other time too…and always smiling at me. And now it has dwindled down to nothing but wondering how he gets back to his table from the bathroom.”

“But at least he’s still there,” I offered, “for you to wonder about.”

“I’m afraid poor old Mr. Fickle is failing,” she said. Failing is a word, she explained, that her mother, Martha, used about elderly people who were not in any obvious way ill but were running out of steam.

“In any case, you’re failing to figure him out,” I said, trying to cheer her a little.

“See what you’ve got tomorrow morning,” she said, skipping back to the stove top. “If that doesn’t work, try vinegar.” Vinegar is her cure-all for nearly everything. She was amazed she didn’t think of it first.

The next morning the blob was weakened enough by the assault of Alice’s concoction that all it took was some careful scraping with an Exacto knife to get rid of it.

I told Alice this news and she was happy for me. Still, the intrigue regarding Mr. Fickle’s comings and goings remains unsolved.

if you have any ideas about how Mr. Fickle gets back to his table, please share them.