We had a landlady. Her name was Mrs. Kierkegaard.

No, really. It was.

Given that the majority of us were lazy, pretentious pseudo-intellectuals stuck in a little tiny New England town more or less against our will, she was the most convenient source of entertainment available. She was very patient. She never became angry when our torments got out of hand, as they often did. She would just bow her great, grey, frizzy head and go on about her cleaning.

My neighbor Thor looked nothing like his name. He had no muscle. He was skin and bones and asthmatic wheezing, and his glasses and stringy black hair were always caked with grease. And he had a ridiculous accent. Because he was from Oklahoma.

He would watch television, and when he’d become angry at the news or at a character on a bad sitcom, he would hurl his beer cans at the nearest target. Which was usually poor Mrs. Kierkegaard. I once asked him why he hated her so.

“She has no pride,” he would say.

And Mrs. Kierkegaard would wash the stairs.