DON’T YOU BELIEVE IT

Nora sighted when she heard a knock on her door. She could guess who it was.

Begrudgingly, she got up and answered the door. As she expected, it was her landlord. Behind his tiny but thick glasses his eyes appeared irate. He was breathing deeply, as he always seemed to be doing—at least around her—and he was drumming his fingers frantically on the side of her door frame.

“Do you have it?” he asked in a stressed tone.

This time Nora took a deep breath, before answering in a squeaky voice, “No… But I do have an excuse…”

“What?”

“Well… See, you’ll never believe this, but while my son and I were at this circus show one of the actors leapt up on a high tightrope and used a magnet to steal all the patrons’ money… even paper money, somehow. Anyway, the guy who ran the place refused to give us our money back… You can ask any of the other customers who were there, if you don’t believe me; it happened to all of us.”

She could see by the reddening of the landlord’s face as she told her story that he didn’t believe her.

“Get it to me by the tenth or I’m afraid I’m going to have to evict you,” he said before turning and walking away.