“Jesus Christ, this bed’s comfortable,” I mused to Taco as I snuggled in closer to her and the mass of pillows she was perched on.  It never failed to amaze me just how cozy my freely-acquired bed truly was, and I took a moment to revel in my nocturnal fortune.  As Taco pressed her wet nose against my head, my ability to keep my eyes open started to fail heavily.

Comfortable; nestled; surrounded by impending sleep on all sides, when suddenly the blasting sounds of the hallway fire alarm shattered my perfect cocoon-like slumber.  I stumbled from the bed to the closet in a semi-trazodone-daze to throw on some pants, fortunately recalling my lack of proper outerwear, as Taco panicked near the front door.

Standing at the door with the dog leash in hand, I contemplated ignoring this one as so many of my neighbors routinely did.  Taco looked up at me pressingly, making every attempt to shoo me out of the apartment, and reminding me of the more immediate issue: the terrifyingly loud fire alarm which left the dog trembling in fear.  There was to be no ignoring of the alarm. Not this time.

Taco led me down the hallway to the stairwell, where she clumsily (due mainly to her panicked speed) faltered down the three flights of stairs to the first floor.  A thick cloud of white powder poured out of the first floor laundry room, indicating the brilliance with which a resident must have put powdered detergent in the liquid soap compartment.  This is why I was woken up???

We made our way outside and over to my parked car, where Taco excitedly waited for the men in the big loud truck to come and make the bad noise stop.  As two ladder trucks pulled up in front of the building, I spied a scraggly-looking guy making his lone way up the parking lot.

Shit.

I quickly deduced that the scraggly man was, in fact, Captain Teabag, whom I had the fortune of having not seen in about two weeks.  Countless nights of his random, unanswered door-knocking had (or so I thought) finally ceased a few weeks prior after I had finally lost my ability to be polite and simply stated, “No, I do not wish to hang out with you.”

The security of nighttime darkness, coupled with identity-shielding wide-brimmed hat and my positioning on the far side of the parking lot, would soon prove pointless as I looked down at Taco’s unmistakably short stature.  I could hide myself, but I could not, in any way, hide the dog, thus making me as discernable as John Candy at a dwarf-tossing contest.

But I had yet to be noticed by my sketchy little would-be stalker.

I contemplated remaining by the car for a moment, until I noticed Captain Teabag stopping to chat up each and every resident coming out of the building.  I could only assume he was, once again, trying to bum a smoke or even a dollar or two.  Having found no success with the first couple, he quickly made his way over to another, much younger, couple instead.

I took advantage of Captain Teabag’s lack of visibility to lead Taco around to the other side of the parking lot, where we meandered for a moment in the bushes (Taco quickly grew bored of the shrub-sniffing as the rain had washed most scents away).  Bravely, I inched closer and closer to the front door of the building, waiting for the fireman’s go-ahead to go back upstairs.

Within seconds, the Captain was at my side – well, maybe not by my side so much as practically riding piggy-back – rambling and mumbling too fast about his failed attempts to stop by my apartment.

“So, have you talked to anyone lately?” he asked.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked, puzzled.  I wondered what he meant, and if he had actually had the balls to ask me about scoring weed for him. 

“You know, do you have a boyfriend?”

Holy crap, I thought to myself. He’s actually serious.

“That really doesn’t matter,” I snapped, losing my patience at record speed.  “Or, at least, it shouldn’t matter to you.”

“Why’s that?” he questioned, staring blankly at me.

“Because as far as you’re concerned, I may as well be a married ex-nun-turned-lesbian. I wasn’t interested before, and I certainly haven’t had a change of heart.” I desperately looked around at the crowd of residents gathered outside, hoping to find my rather large, gangster-looking neighbor.  Having been kept fully abreast of the situation with the Captain, he was more than ready to come to my defense if needed.

The Captain was still talking – or rambling, I suppose – about nothing specific: shouting out random, nonsensical conspiracy theorist bullshit as if anyone was paying attention.  I managed to ignore him for about ten seconds.

“Do you ever just shut the fuck up?” I asked him, staring him in the eye.  “Because you really, really need to. Like, right now.  I’m going home.”  I stormed towards the front entrance, where I asked one of the firemen if it was safe to enter.  Perhaps he saw my sheer annoyance or a hint of my impending aggression, but he allowed me in, despite the still-blaring fire alarm.  I just wanted to go to bed.

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