JUST LEAVE HER THERE

whywhywhyWHYWHYWHY W H Y do people feel the need to get loud at three o'clock in the A.M.? I ask this question because last night I was shaken from my slumber at that hour by people in front of my building who were s c r e a m i n g at each other. Actually, let me back up by noting that I was greatly distressed this week to discover that my one wee air conditioner is a mold pod. Black, fuzzy mold coming out from inside the machine. Which means that I shut it down for fear of getting black lung disease or whatever it is that you get from aggressive mold spores being pumped into your apartment. Also, it makes me wonder if that might not explain the headaches I've been getting almost non-stop for the last month or so.

Hmmm.

Anyhoo, I know you think that is a digression, something for which I am famous, or infamous, perhaps, but you would be wrong. Because the reason why I mention the deadly AC unit is to note that this is the reason why I had my screenless, letting in the moths, window open last night when the offending parties arrived, making it impossible to escape them and their screamy ways.

Bastages.

Now last night was a Thursday, so why anyone needed to be that drunk on a Thursday, or even out drunk at three o'clock in the A.M. on a Thursday, I know not. Do these people not have jobs? Or school? Or frigging something that might make them think that going home at a decent hour might be a good idea? God damn, people. First of all, I am annoyed by non-neighborhood peeps who park in front of my building. Though many of them feel the wrath of something or other, because my stretch of the hood is rather desolate and there is almost always parking available just a little ways down in the Zone Of Car Radio Theft. Many a Virginia-plated vehicle has returned to Shirlington with one less window in tact than when they came. To which, listening to these people last night, I puff out my chest and say Ha-HAAAA!

So. These people had parked not one, but two, vehicles in front of my building. Vehicles that they were too drunk to operate, though none of the people screaming was nearly as drunk as the silent woman about whom they were doing most of the screaming. They were screaming a logistical conversation involving the need to return each of the members of their group to their homes in various places in Northern Virginia. Odd woman out was the Woman Stunned Into Drunken Silence. She lived in Maryland. No one wanted to drive her to Maryland, but she was obviously much much much too sloshed to be allowed to attempt to make her way on her own. Several phone calls were made and another ride was found for her, but this required conveying her to the corner of Calvert and Columbia, three blocks away.

Woman: JUST DROP HER OFF AT THE CORNER OF CALVERT AND COLUMBIA!
Man: ARE YOU SURE?
Woman: YEAH, HE'S GOING TO PICK HER UP THERE.
Man: ARE YOU SURE HE'LL PICK HER UP THERE?
Woman: YES, HE'LL PICK HER UP THERE.
Man: SHOULDN'T WE DRIVE HER HOME? SHE'S REALLY DRUNK.
Woman: JUST DRIVE HER TO THE CORNER OF CALVERT AND COLUMBIA.

Repeat this at least three times, at about ten thousand decibles. I almost expected to see a drunken woman bobbing and weaving like a zombie on the corner of Calvert and Columbia on my way to work this morning. (Apparently, he really did pick her up there).

To add insult to injury, these late night shenanigans cost me half of my nightly slumber. I have reasonably regular insomnia, though it's never been the usual can't get to sleep sort of thing. I can almost always fall asleep. But I have problems staying asleep. Sometimes I'm awake for half an hour, sometimes an hour, sometimes all night. Being woken up by something between the hours of one and four is death. So shaken out of bed at three I was completely done for the night. I ended up getting up and reading an old New Yorker that I'd been meaning to get to. And while it's nice that I got to read that article about Maurice Sendak, I would rather have slept through the night. So drunken revelers of Virginia, I shake my fist at you!