early-morning drunkeness

So I met my neighbors this morning. Yes, these are the infamous neighbors of the Doormat Incident.*

Early this morning, my doorbell rang. That I heard it is an impressive feat, considering that I am a heavy sleeper. A very heavy sleeper. My prayer at night is always that the Big One not hit the Wasatch Front at night because I will sleep through it, which will either lead to my death or me not having any decent stories about it.

So I hear the doorbell ring, and it jars me to complete awareness. In my mind, I'm thinking, Damn. I slept through my alarm and the carpool is already here. I look at the clock. 3:45.

My next thought is that it's Absent Minded Secretary. I reach this conclusion because I happen to know that she was leaving for home for a week at this insanely early hour and that she had spent the previous day baking and that she had threatened to deliver cookies to me at this insane hour. However, I also know that Absent would never actually do that. Which means that something must have gone wrong on her trip to the airport. Naturally, I rushed to the door.

It wasn't Absent.

There was a large man yelling at a short man. "You need to f-----' leave. Now. Get out of here."

I opened the door.

"Hey, man. Do you have a phone?" said the obviously wasted short man.

"Did he knock on your door? Did you knock on his door? You need to f-----' get the hell out of here now."

"Umm. I don't really have a phone you can use. Sorry." I may be dumb enough to open the door at four in the morning when I know it's two men arguing on my porch, but I am smart enough to not get involved in the fight or invite Wasted Short Boy into my apartment.

I shut the door and went back to bed.

*Knock, knock, knock.*

Large Neighbor Boy: "I'm so sorry about that. He shouldn't have knocked on your door."

"Eh. That happens sometimes."

Large Neighbor Boy walks into my apartment. He reeks of smoke. He is slightly drunk as well. He is carrying his phone. "You see, we brought him home from the bar with us. And then he started hitting on my and getting rude, so I kicked him out and told him to go home. But now, I don't think he's left the apartment complex. Should I call the police? Do you think I should call the police?"

Umm. I may have been woken from a relatively peaceful slumber, but I'm still sober. Of course he didn't leave the apartment complex; you brought him here. We live, well, not near anything that resembles public transportation or access to a phone. I guess, technically, Smith's is one and a half miles away (I know this because it's a marker on my running route) and he should be able to find a phone there. And I knew he was wandering the apartment complex since I saw him pass by my window. Had I known the story when he was asking for a phone, I might have let him use mine so he could call for a ride. But whereas I don't necessarily mind Drunk Duty with my friends, I have an aversion to it with strangers.

So Large Neighbor Boy is talking through his dilemma while in my apartment. At four. In the morning. Granted, I can't complaining too much since I found his side of the conversation with the police rather interesting. And it filled in more details of the story.

Large Neighbor Boy finally leaves. I go back to bed.

*Knock, knock, knock.*

Yes, like a fool, I answer the door again. I mean, I'm awake as it is.

"I just wanted to apologize again for this. I'm so sorry."

This time, Large Neighbor Boy is smoking; I don't invite him in. And I have confirmation that he's drunk since he's hyperfocused on this incident.

His younger brother, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, comes to the door.

We chat a bit more. I try and inch the door closed. Chatty chatty chatty.

"Anyway, I'm so sorry about this. Oh, and I'm sorry about that whole doormat thing when I first moved in. That wasn't me. But I'm sorry about it."

"Well, it's in the past now."

"Yeah. After this, we have so got to be friends. Hey, do you want to get intoxicated? We have vodka."

"Um. No, thanks."

But at least now I've met my neighbors. And this is a good thing, because it means that I now know that I have traded my Lawn Decorating White Trash Neighbors (who were really quite sweet) for Drinkin' and Smokin' White Trash Neighbors.

And I got my apology for the Doormat Incident.

*So I thought I had blogged about the Doormat Incident, but apparently I didn't, since I can't find it in my archives. In looking through old e-mails, I found this little paragraph:

Apparently I have a new neighbor. I guess he moved in on Friday or Saturday. I don't know. But I do know that he likes my doormat. A lot. So much so, in fact, that he took it. Three times. That's right, Bozo Next Door took my doormat. I took it back. He took it again. And I took it back. And he took it yet again. It made me rather hostile. [Friend] had to ride in the car with me as I fumed and ranted about it for a half hour and composed threatening notes to plaster to Dildohead's door. Where do people get off thinking "Hmm . . . I don't like my doormat. I don't think my neighbor will notice if I take his . . ."