Marvin's head jerked up from the desk when he heard that ring. It was an awful ring - one that he should have been used to, and probably would have been, under normal circumstances. But the reason why this ring was so horrendous and annoying was because Melinda accompanied it, with her terrible voice, saying "Marvin! Pick up the damn phone!"
Marvin wanted to go back to sleep, but he knew that he shouldn't have been sleeping in the first place. And that voice, "Marvin, Pick up the damn phone!"
The trouble, of course, was that the phone had been moved from the study into the lounge and it was quite a distance from where he was sitting. Not to mention, the stairs. Marvin had fallen down the stairs the week before and was in a large, full-leg cast, so hobbling over to the lounge wasn't the easiest thing for him to do. He though, after being married to someone like Melinda for twenty-five years, he would at least deserve some respect, some lovingkindness. But Melinda sat, slumped on the couch with Potato chips in the living room at the bottom of the stairs, with no motivation whatsoever. She was getting fat too, and Marvin wasn't pleased. Not merely the fact that she was fat, but the fact that she didn't care.
So Marvin's lazy wife was too lazy to get off her ass and answer the phone. Marvin could use his crutches and easily get to the phone, but going by those stairs - that was a stretch of courage. He knew that there was a risk to be taken, that the stairs were a sort of symbol for him now. They were the relic that had destroyed his ability to walk briskly, and they were the one thing that Melinda refused to scale.
Marvin reached the phone in the lounge and sat down. It stopped ringing. DAMMIT!