GRIMSBY, ON – A marriage with 46-year old accountant Jeff Sturges barely satisfies local woman Marissa Sturges’ most rudimentary need for human interaction.
“He’s technically there, which is something,” said Marissa, while Jeff sat in the next room, calculating whether or not a new fireplace mantle would increase property values if they sold within 3 years. “One thing you can’t say about Jeff is, he doesn’t exist.”
Sources close to Marissa question whether Jeff’s occasional grunts of acknowledgment are preferable to the utter silence of an empty world, and whether this counted as a love note:
“Did some of your laundry but not all of it – Jeff.”
But representatives of Jeff say his bipedal frame and opposable thumbs make him a preferable companion to a dog or houseplant, since they make him capable of picking up Chinese food four nights a week, changing channels between reruns of Chuck Lorre sitcoms, and having joyless, bimonthly sex.
“Being with Jeff is better than being alone, because he can help me if I start choking to death,” Marissa said. “Although, I could probably just fling myself against the edge of the counter and cough up whatever it was that was choking me. Here, let me try it a couple times.”
At press time, Marissa had left Jeff, and filled the void in her life with a listless overweight grey house cat.
With files by Alexander Saxton
