Chicken and Dumplings

Our house is a mélange of odors. Between the two dogs, Mark, me, and nature, you can get quite a variety. So yesterday morning when Mark mentioned that he "smelled something funny", I ignored him. About an hour later I also smelled "something funny". I thought it was another goddamned dead rat so I didn't mention it to Mark. With him not feeling well lately, I thought it best not to put that out there. He already is hacking and wheezing, I didn't need gagging added to that. Sometime around two thirty in the afternoon, as I snoozed in front of the television, Mark started screaming.

               "Something's burning! I smell something burning!"

I opened my eyes. There was a haze and a very weird odor wafting through the living room. Half asleep and completely disoriented, I stumbled out of my chair, and out the back door. Where was the fire? A quick run around the house revealed no obvious smoke or fire. It was as I walked past my tenant's kitchen door that I heard a sizzle. It was coming from inside the apartment so I pressed my face to the window. There on the stove was a large pot with smoke billowing from it. Cowering off in the other room I could see their dog Tuffy. I grabbed my keys, and let myself in. First thing, I let Tuffy out of the house. Then I grabbed what turned out to be a pot of chicken and dumplings, and put it in the sink.

I'm getting too old for this landlord shit. I'd love to sell this place and buy something simple like a small house or condo. I've tried to explain this to Mark, but he seems to love living here. What I don't understand, is who starts cooking chicken and dumplings in the morning and then goes to work?