The Aggravation of Elmer

by Robert Arthur

"Damn!" I swore. "Must be a power failure!" I grabbed the phone and jiggled the hook. No dice. The phone was dead, too.

"You're funny," Doreen giggled. "It's just the unhappy genii. See?"

She flicked over the catch on the hatbox.

And the picture came back on. The sound started up. "—swings and misses for strike two!" The air conditioner began to hum.

Marge and I stared. Mouths open. Wide.

---

"You did that, Doreen?" I asked it very carefully. "You made the television stop and start again?"

"The unhappy genii did," Doreen told me. "Like this." She flicked the catch back. The TV picture blacked out. The sound stopped in the middle of a word. The air conditioner whispered into silence.

Then she flipped the catch the other way.

"—fouls the second ball into the screen," the announcer said. Picture okay. Air conditioner operating. Everything normal except my pulse and respiration.