ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
With his fellow housemates at the forefront of his thoughts, a popular mortgage broker wandered home last night from the Pingouin Aveugle Bar & Grill in the French Quarter when he spied something he thought his friends would like.
As this morning was the first of four shire council cleanup services this year, the footpaths and roadsides of the fabled French Quarter were littered with everything from broken outdoor furniture to out-of-date white goods.
But one thing that caught Oliver Pigeon’s eye was a bread maker.
Though it looked like it’d been clipped by a few passing cars and was still damp to the touch after a midnight rainstorm, the 26-year-old thought it’d make a cracking addition to the countertop.
So with two bottles of Argentinian Malbec sloshing around inside of him, Pigeon decided to google a ‘bread recipe’ and pop it on so he and his housemates could enjoy fresh bread in the morning like rich people.
That’s when things went awry, says front bedroom sleeper Bill Thomas.
“We could hear him rooting around in the kitchen at like 2 this morning,” he said.
“Swearing and carrying on. Then we hear the mixer going and I just wrapped the pillow around my head and tried to get back to sleep. In hindsight, I probably should’ve got up and stopped the lunatic.”
According to Bill, young Pigeon had attempted to condense the time it takes to properly raise bread; opting to just pour the yeast, flour, salt and water straight into the visibly filthy bread maker and turn it on.
Minutes, not hours later, the kitchen filled with a rich blue smoke and Oliver could be heard swearing even louder in the kitchen.
Drawn in by the six smoke alarms now going off in the house, the residents converged on the kitchen to see what Oliver was doing.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I found a bread maker on the street and I thought we could use one – and I wanted you all to have fresh bread in the morning so I tried to make it work now but it’s just caught fire.”
It’s not the first time, says Thomas, that Oliver has brought home a white good from the neighborhood council cleanup.
Last quarter, the housemates woke up to half a living room set strewn across the front lawn. They made Pigeon get rid of it.
“We will be making him get rid of the bread maker as soon as possible,” he said.
“Unbelievable.”
More to come.
