« Previous | Main | Next »
Evil Thoughts
June 25, 2005
Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Suffering follows an evil thought as the wheels of a cart follow the oxen that draws it.
~ Buddha
This morning, I was rudely awakened at 6:freaking:45 in the morning (on a Saturday) by the fire alarm in my building. It's the sort of sound that inspires a dead person to jump out of bed, forget to put any clothes on and run into the street naked. Well.. it didn't QUITE happen that way, but it could have.
I crawled out of bed to the front door – twisted the knob – found absolutely no evidence of smoke – decided to crawl back to the mattress. As far as I could tell, it wasn't enough of an emergency for me to get dressed, herd my two cats into their carriers and go outside. When the alarm abruptly stopped, I figured I'd made the right decision.
Just as I thought I might be drifting off... the alarm went off again.
This time, I squinted under the crack in the bedroom widow shade, looking for neighbors running around naked in the parking lot with their hair on fire. After finding evidence to the contrary, I rolled over trying to ignore the pulsating scream of the fire bell.
Ah... it stopped! NOW I can go back to sleep! (Ha.. "go back to sleep"... I'm a notorious insomniac, who NEVER falls asleep once awakened. NEVER.)
After another 3 minutes, the alarm screamed out AGAIN. Still no smoke. Still no fire. I started to curse the condo association for deciding to test the alarm so early in the morning as I put on my jeans and tshirt, pulled my hair back into a pony tail, found my keys and grabbed my purse and decided to head outside to see what all the fuss was about and maybe go to Starbucks to get myself a well-deserved caramel latte. "Nice welcome home!" I thought as I locked the door... "What a RUDE awakening! I HATE DC! I HATE THIS BUILDING!"
I met my half-asleep neighbor, Jeannie* in the hallway, who bumped into the walls on the way down the stairs in an REM stupor. We emerged from the building to find only one other neighbor with a cell phone stuck to the side of her head ~ her pet bunny inside of a carrier on the grass beside her. He wiggled his nose through the black mesh at me... attempting to ascertain what all the commotion was about.
As we stood outside with our unkempt hair and unbrushed teeth, our neighbor Sandy opened her first floor window to ask what was going on. Jeannie turned away abruptly saying, "Oh Lord, I can't deal with this scene so early in the morning!"
You see... Sandy is a 40 year old... shall I say... LARGE woman... with long greasy hair and a mustache. This in and of itself wouldn't be quite so annoying but... she rarely stops talking once she gets wound up. After signing the lease to my apartment, the landlord mentioned there was a "crazy woman" on the first floor, but quickly added that she was "harmless". <great> It isn't uncommon to see new residents pinned in the stairwell with their eyebrows pressed together– panicked looks on their faces– while Sandy tells them about her dead Lebanese father, her former cat-sitting business, and complaining about the condo association (a completely bonafide complaint, btw.)
As Jeannie turned her back to the window to avoid Sandy's impending Monologue with Mustache, she informed me she had gone through my closets while I was away in order to locate and borrow my drill... "I hope that was okay," she said. I hesitantly nodded my head yes without really knowing what I was agreeing to.
Jeannie takes care of my cats when I'm away and I feel a bit ingratiated to her because of it. I was gone for 6 weeks in December and January, for 2 weeks in April, and just got back from a 5 day business trip. I need her to take care of the cats next month while I'm in Chicago, and then again in August for San Francisco, and although I DID take care of HER cats for 5 weeks while she was in Australia last year, I figure sharing my closets and drawers and all their secret contents is part of the price of not being able to afford the $20 a day cat sitter.... As Paulo Coelho says in The Alcemist, "Every choice has its price." I started wondering how I could increase my hourly rate to cover the cat sitter in the future as visions of Jeannie going through my underwear bubbled into my head.
I NEED TO GET AWAY NOW, and I NEED A CUP OF COFFEE... NOW!
I quickly took off in the direction of the parking lot and pointed the car in the direction of Charbucks. As a drove past the fire truck heading back toward my building I started thinking how totally strange my neighbors are, and how much I miss my mom in Kansas City, and how fucking early in the morning it was, and how TIRED I was, that I had the worst PMS in decades, and how HOT and HUMID it always is in Washington, DC during the summer, and how I've gained 10 pounds in the last 10 weeks. You know, thoughts like these just fuel one another, don't they?
"Every choice has its price."
It was just about then that the speed trap flashed and took a picture of the car racing in front of me. "THANK GOD THAT WASN'T ME!" I said out loud as a I push my foot on the brake. It wasn't long before a bit of gratitude began sifting in....
The building wasn't on fire, business was < strong >really picking up – I have air conditioning in the car – I'm healthy** – I have people who love me – the $20 a day cat sitter probably goes through my underwear too – I'm just as nuts as my neighbors are*** – it's a beautiful day ~ all in spite of it being 7:freaking:08 on a Saturday morning! By the time I had a caramel latte and a blueberry muffin in hand, my morning meditation was complete and it was a brand new day.
OMmmm!
*Names have been changed to protect innocent blog bystanders.
**Despite my positive thinking, I was unsuccessful in rationalizing away a bad bout of PMS... there is simply NO SILVER LINING to be found in it, nor will any amount of meditation or positive thinking alleviate it. ;-)
***Well, not quite, but almost.
Posted by vincent at June 25, 2005 08:55 AM
Comments
I too have a crazy person living on the first floor of my...head. Can't seem to break the lease.
Posted by: Mark at June 25, 2005 09:30 AM
Yes, we all have a gremlin or two on the first floor... or perhaps the basement. I think it's rather unfair we can't collect rent from them, don't you?
;-)
Posted by: Susan at June 25, 2005 10:08 AM
Now if I could only evict the bats in my belfry...
Posted by: dan at June 25, 2005 10:35 PM
Excellent story Susan! As usual. I am very lucky as I live on a very small island. But solitude does tend to attract it's own eccentrics. I think that no matter where one lives there will be "crazy people". But if we all look back on our own lives I am sure that we can come up with memories of when we all acted a bit "crazy" and other people must have wondered about our sanity. Myself, I can think of quite a few times, maybe too many! Thanks for sharing your very interesting and exciting early Saturday morning!!
Posted by: Terry murphy at June 29, 2005 07:39 AM