July 24, 2025 • 12 mins
This week we meet Claude. Claude is your average, run-of-the-mill, middle-aged guy with a middle management job.
Like millions of his brethren, Claude has a spouse and kids. He owns a house. And a couple cars. And a dog.
Also like many of his brethren, Claude gets irritated. Easily. And often.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the ten Minute Storyteller. That's me Bill Simpson,
your host, narrator, and author. We hear at the ten
minute Storyteller endeavor to entertain you with tall tales or
rendered swiftly and with the utmost empathy. We pledge to
(00:25):
pack as much entertainment, emotion, and exploration into the human
condition as ten minutes will permit mini novels on steroids.
This week we meet Claude. Claude is your average run
(00:45):
of the mill, middle aged guy with a middle management job.
Like millions of his brethren, Claude has a spouse and kids.
He owns a house and a couple of cars and
a dog. Also, like many of his brethren, Claude gets
irritated easily and often irritants. Claude makes it only as
(01:12):
far as the bathroom before hit by his first irritant
of the day. He hears it before he sees it,
the stinking shower head, dripping, dripping, dripping. I thought I'd
had that goddamn thing fixed, And less than a minute
later in the shower all soapd up. Irritant too hits
(01:35):
when the water passes quickly from steamy hot to warm
to lukewarm to goddamn freezing cold. Before he can rinse
the dove off his private parts. Will Will, a teenager
suddenly eager for uber hygiene, doesn't answer. Will is long gone,
(01:56):
already out the door and on the bus. He had
plenty of steamy hot water for his sixteen minute and
forty three second shower. Claude curses, rinses the best he can,
turns off the water, and reaches for his towel hanging
over the rack. The damn things soaking wet. Will must
(02:17):
have used it to dry off. Claude sighs and tries
to shake off irritant number three. And it's not even
seven o'clock in the morning. Out the door and on
his way to work, after a handful of additional domestic
irritants crowd his shaving, dressing, and breakfast rituals, including but
(02:39):
not limited to, his keys not on the counter where
he left them, and his wife of twenty two years
reminding him for the nine hundredth time that the garbage
needs to go out to the curb this morning. And
now Claude becomes a commuter with all of its inherent pleasures. First,
(02:59):
a school bus stopping at practically every house to pick
up the grammar school kids. Then no sooner does the
bus turn off than Lucy lightfoot in her Prius refuses
to go even one mile per hour over the speed limit,
and she breaks one hundred yards before necessary and acts
as though she just says all the goddamn time and
(03:22):
the goddamn world to get to whatever it is she
might be going, probably to the nail salon or to
visit her personal trainer. Claude snarling rides her bumper so
close Lucy can see the dab of toothpaste Claude missed
when he tidied up after this morning's vigorous brushing, which
(03:47):
was exacerbated by the fact that his elder daughter home
from college on spring break, had absolutely positively used his
razor despite him repeatedly threatening death. Ah I drowning if
she so much has touched his sixteen blade Gellette fusion
razor blade again. Ever, and now Lucy long forgotten. Claude,
(04:12):
eyes narrowed into a scowl, stares at the Porsche in
the rear view mirror some dude behind the wheel in
his mirrored sunglasses. Hey, listen, jackwad I'm five miles over
the speed limit. Already cops on every street corner. I
ain't going any faster, so just cool your heels, just
(04:33):
cool your jets, dude. But these irritants are just child's
play compared to what befalls Claude once he enters the workplace. Here,
the irritants are so plentiful and egregious that it can
be difficult for Claude to know when one irritant ends
(04:55):
and another irritant begins. Betty, for instance, always at the
front desk, as though she lives there, doesn't need to
eat or go to the john, always chipper, always with
a cheery good morning, mister Richardson, and always always always
with the gum smacking the damn gum. Claude would fire her,
(05:18):
except for two small details. She is an exemplary receptionist,
beloved by all, and well, Claude's not the boss. He
doesn't have the power to fire her or anyone else. Now,
safely behind his desk with the door closed, Claude fires
(05:38):
up his computer and is hit, as he is every morning,
with a virtual bombardment of emails, all of them, every
single one of them, and irritant. An international data processing business,
there is always someone somewhere New York, Chicago, La, Tokyo, Singapore,
(05:59):
New Deli, By Athens, Paris, London, generating emails, most of
them which are entirely insignificant and irrelevant. But which ones
That's the irritating, goddamn problem. Which ones? Claude has no
choice but to open each one individually, scan the contents,
(06:20):
and instantly decide if it needs his attention or it
can be jettisoned with a quick cap of the delete button.
Half his morning is taken up with the communic cays,
and still he's not quite through when the time comes
to attend the monthly review meeting. Typically he foregoes these
(06:44):
meetings as they are a dreadfully boring waste of time,
but his boss is in town, so he leaves his
office and trudges down to the conference room, where he
sits for the next two hours and eleven minutes, irritated
to the point where he has to physically refrain himself
from climbing over the huge mahogany table and punching Ed
(07:08):
Stokes right in the nose. Ed is an ass liquor supreme,
and he's not even subtle about it. The idiot pulls
down the pants of every higher up in sight and
licks away like some happy hound. Claude would like to
enact a law wherein every citizen can assault another citizen
(07:31):
without fear of prosecution who is being overly irritating. The
workday finally ends. The ride home is slow, one long
irritant from the pace of the commute to the truly
meaty ocre Spotify playlist that relentlessly pumps out crapola. Claude
(07:54):
does not want to hear bon Jovi. Seriously, Dude, Kansas,
you gotta be ki ac DC. Claude smacks the advance
button and once home, what does he find. Well, he
finds that dinner is going to be late. Why because
the wife was out with the college kid buying a
(08:15):
dress for the new spring formal and dinner Jesus spaghetti.
Claude hates spaghetti, leaves him bloated and constipated, But of
course he doesn't say a single goddamn word because if
he does, the women around the table will come down
on him like that hailstorm he encountered while crossing the
(08:35):
Great Plains back in aught seven. So he just zips
the lip and stews doing the dishes. This evening doesn't
irritate Claude as much as usual because the kids actually
clear and scrape their plates without being asked, although, and
this is interesting, he is mildly irritated because he takes
(08:59):
some pervers pleasure in deriding them when they don't help.
The dog makes up for it on their evening walk
by stopping every three feet to sniff some other dog's
peer poop. Claude he just wants to walk get a
bit of exercise, but the damn dog has other ideas.
(09:21):
Back at the house, the wife and kids have settled
down in front of the boob tube and are watching
The Bachelor, easily the most irritating program ever produced in
the history of television. Claude marches through the room with
a sigh and goes into the den, where he pays
bills and goes over the family budget, a couple of
(09:45):
chores that inevitably leave him highly irritated. The college kid,
for instance, in a sorority, now dues two hundred and
sixty eight bucks a month. His son's pitching men tour
three hundred bucks a month, his younger daughter's a math
tutor two hundred and eighty bucks. A month, two hundred
(10:07):
and eighty bucks, and all the kid has stays show
for it as a stinking b minus. Claude sighs and
wonders when the heart attack that befell his old man
at age fifty eight will strike him down. Finally, the
roses handed out, the bachelor ends, and the troops head
(10:29):
upstairs to scroll through their phones. And now finally Claude
has the TV all to himself, just him and the dog.
He fires up the documentary he started watching last night
about the Woodstock Music Festival. He puts the heating pad
on his achy back and he scratches the dog's ear,
(10:51):
and for the first time all day, Claude feels something
akin to pleasure, joy, maybe even rapture. But not to worry.
He knows it won't last. Thanks for listening to this
(11:21):
original audio presentation of Irritance, narrated as always by the author.
If you enjoy today's story, please take a few seconds
to rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast, and then
go to Thomas William Simpson dot com or additional information
(11:42):
about the author and to view his extensive canon. The
ten Minute Storyteller is produced by Andrew Pigleasi and Josh
Klani and is part of the Elvis Duran podcast Network
in partnership with iHeart Productions. Next Time, This is Bill Simpson,
(12:02):
your ten minute storyteller,
Welcome to the ten Minute Storyteller. That's me Bill Simpson,
your host, narrator, and author. We hear at the ten
minute Storyteller endeavor to entertain you with tall tales or
rendered swiftly and with the utmost empathy. We pledge to
(00:25):
pack as much entertainment, emotion, and exploration into the human
condition as ten minutes will permit mini novels on steroids.
This week we meet Claude. Claude is your average run
(00:45):
of the mill, middle aged guy with a middle management job.
Like millions of his brethren, Claude has a spouse and kids.
He owns a house and a couple of cars and
a dog. Also, like many of his brethren, Claude gets
irritated easily and often irritants. Claude makes it only as
(01:12):
far as the bathroom before hit by his first irritant
of the day. He hears it before he sees it,
the stinking shower head, dripping, dripping, dripping. I thought I'd
had that goddamn thing fixed, And less than a minute
later in the shower all soapd up. Irritant too hits
(01:35):
when the water passes quickly from steamy hot to warm
to lukewarm to goddamn freezing cold. Before he can rinse
the dove off his private parts. Will Will, a teenager
suddenly eager for uber hygiene, doesn't answer. Will is long gone,
(01:56):
already out the door and on the bus. He had
plenty of steamy hot water for his sixteen minute and
forty three second shower. Claude curses, rinses the best he can,
turns off the water, and reaches for his towel hanging
over the rack. The damn things soaking wet. Will must
(02:17):
have used it to dry off. Claude sighs and tries
to shake off irritant number three. And it's not even
seven o'clock in the morning. Out the door and on
his way to work, after a handful of additional domestic
irritants crowd his shaving, dressing, and breakfast rituals, including but
(02:39):
not limited to, his keys not on the counter where
he left them, and his wife of twenty two years
reminding him for the nine hundredth time that the garbage
needs to go out to the curb this morning. And
now Claude becomes a commuter with all of its inherent pleasures. First,
(02:59):
a school bus stopping at practically every house to pick
up the grammar school kids. Then no sooner does the
bus turn off than Lucy lightfoot in her Prius refuses
to go even one mile per hour over the speed limit,
and she breaks one hundred yards before necessary and acts
as though she just says all the goddamn time and
(03:22):
the goddamn world to get to whatever it is she
might be going, probably to the nail salon or to
visit her personal trainer. Claude snarling rides her bumper so
close Lucy can see the dab of toothpaste Claude missed
when he tidied up after this morning's vigorous brushing, which
(03:47):
was exacerbated by the fact that his elder daughter home
from college on spring break, had absolutely positively used his
razor despite him repeatedly threatening death. Ah I drowning if
she so much has touched his sixteen blade Gellette fusion
razor blade again. Ever, and now Lucy long forgotten. Claude,
(04:12):
eyes narrowed into a scowl, stares at the Porsche in
the rear view mirror some dude behind the wheel in
his mirrored sunglasses. Hey, listen, jackwad I'm five miles over
the speed limit. Already cops on every street corner. I
ain't going any faster, so just cool your heels, just
(04:33):
cool your jets, dude. But these irritants are just child's
play compared to what befalls Claude once he enters the workplace. Here,
the irritants are so plentiful and egregious that it can
be difficult for Claude to know when one irritant ends
(04:55):
and another irritant begins. Betty, for instance, always at the
front desk, as though she lives there, doesn't need to
eat or go to the john, always chipper, always with
a cheery good morning, mister Richardson, and always always always
with the gum smacking the damn gum. Claude would fire her,
(05:18):
except for two small details. She is an exemplary receptionist,
beloved by all, and well, Claude's not the boss. He
doesn't have the power to fire her or anyone else. Now,
safely behind his desk with the door closed, Claude fires
(05:38):
up his computer and is hit, as he is every morning,
with a virtual bombardment of emails, all of them, every
single one of them, and irritant. An international data processing business,
there is always someone somewhere New York, Chicago, La, Tokyo, Singapore,
(05:59):
New Deli, By Athens, Paris, London, generating emails, most of
them which are entirely insignificant and irrelevant. But which ones
That's the irritating, goddamn problem. Which ones? Claude has no
choice but to open each one individually, scan the contents,
(06:20):
and instantly decide if it needs his attention or it
can be jettisoned with a quick cap of the delete button.
Half his morning is taken up with the communic cays,
and still he's not quite through when the time comes
to attend the monthly review meeting. Typically he foregoes these
(06:44):
meetings as they are a dreadfully boring waste of time,
but his boss is in town, so he leaves his
office and trudges down to the conference room, where he
sits for the next two hours and eleven minutes, irritated
to the point where he has to physically refrain himself
from climbing over the huge mahogany table and punching Ed
(07:08):
Stokes right in the nose. Ed is an ass liquor supreme,
and he's not even subtle about it. The idiot pulls
down the pants of every higher up in sight and
licks away like some happy hound. Claude would like to
enact a law wherein every citizen can assault another citizen
(07:31):
without fear of prosecution who is being overly irritating. The
workday finally ends. The ride home is slow, one long
irritant from the pace of the commute to the truly
meaty ocre Spotify playlist that relentlessly pumps out crapola. Claude
(07:54):
does not want to hear bon Jovi. Seriously, Dude, Kansas,
you gotta be ki ac DC. Claude smacks the advance
button and once home, what does he find. Well, he
finds that dinner is going to be late. Why because
the wife was out with the college kid buying a
(08:15):
dress for the new spring formal and dinner Jesus spaghetti.
Claude hates spaghetti, leaves him bloated and constipated, But of
course he doesn't say a single goddamn word because if
he does, the women around the table will come down
on him like that hailstorm he encountered while crossing the
(08:35):
Great Plains back in aught seven. So he just zips
the lip and stews doing the dishes. This evening doesn't
irritate Claude as much as usual because the kids actually
clear and scrape their plates without being asked, although, and
this is interesting, he is mildly irritated because he takes
(08:59):
some pervers pleasure in deriding them when they don't help.
The dog makes up for it on their evening walk
by stopping every three feet to sniff some other dog's
peer poop. Claude he just wants to walk get a
bit of exercise, but the damn dog has other ideas.
(09:21):
Back at the house, the wife and kids have settled
down in front of the boob tube and are watching
The Bachelor, easily the most irritating program ever produced in
the history of television. Claude marches through the room with
a sigh and goes into the den, where he pays
bills and goes over the family budget, a couple of
(09:45):
chores that inevitably leave him highly irritated. The college kid,
for instance, in a sorority, now dues two hundred and
sixty eight bucks a month. His son's pitching men tour
three hundred bucks a month, his younger daughter's a math
tutor two hundred and eighty bucks. A month, two hundred
(10:07):
and eighty bucks, and all the kid has stays show
for it as a stinking b minus. Claude sighs and
wonders when the heart attack that befell his old man
at age fifty eight will strike him down. Finally, the
roses handed out, the bachelor ends, and the troops head
(10:29):
upstairs to scroll through their phones. And now finally Claude
has the TV all to himself, just him and the dog.
He fires up the documentary he started watching last night
about the Woodstock Music Festival. He puts the heating pad
on his achy back and he scratches the dog's ear,
(10:51):
and for the first time all day, Claude feels something
akin to pleasure, joy, maybe even rapture. But not to worry.
He knows it won't last. Thanks for listening to this
(11:21):
original audio presentation of Irritance, narrated as always by the author.
If you enjoy today's story, please take a few seconds
to rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast, and then
go to Thomas William Simpson dot com or additional information
(11:42):
about the author and to view his extensive canon. The
ten Minute Storyteller is produced by Andrew Pigleasi and Josh
Klani and is part of the Elvis Duran podcast Network
in partnership with iHeart Productions. Next Time, This is Bill Simpson,
(12:02):
your ten minute storyteller,
Host
Bill Simpson
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