Karl was this middle aged, grey bearded, portly, tall painter that was painting a lot of rooms in my house last summer. Because I did jack shit last summer, I would often get up around 2pm and encounter Karl down the hall as I made my way to the shower. He seemed like a quiet guy who was maybe jealous of my sleeping pattern and carefree lifestyle but never said anything mean about it. I told him that I worked nights and so that seemed to satisfy him. I never let him know that I finished work at 11pm though.
Karl used to listen to this little radio he brought with him. He listened to one of the feel good music stations. One day, unbeknownst to Karl I was in the kitchen while he was down the hall painting. On the radio was playing Avril Lavinge's hit song "Complicated". I grimaced in disgust, then listened closely. Karl was singing along. Singing along in a sad little voice. Then the bit where Avril sings "no, no, no" he was singing out of time "no, no, no".
I laughed to myself and went back to doing fuck allery. Later, I told Mum about Karl's hilarious patheticness and she told me that Karl's wife left him a few months earlier and Karl was currently working seventy hours a week because he was lost and didn't know what to do with himself. Now his woeful singing continually haunts me, and I have to try not to cry when I recall him singing to those words "why did things have to get so complicated?". Then I got a copy of the Weird Al Yankovic version: Why'd you have to go and make me so constipated?. It's pretty funny and clever, and now Karl doesn't seem important anymore.