By the building's fire alarm. Listening to it shriek for 20 minutes actually almost makes you upset when there's no fire. When you're pretty darned sure why it went off, though, it makes you wish there were justice.
The stupid cow downstairs. The one who introduced us to Horrid Way to Wake Up #489 (blood-curdling scream). Or, more specifically, her drunken deadbeat boyfriend/husband and his drunken deadbeat friends.
Of course, I leap to conclusions. I'm sure the fact that he and his buddies are outside drinking beer and smashing the bottles against the nearby wall at 3am most mornings has nothing to do with it. Nor the fact that she cheerfully, and rather agitatedly told the firemen, when they finally showed up, that she'd seen "two guys running away". How do I know this was a lie? Because the building fire alarm has never gone off before, and I'm fairly positive that, even if she wasn't asleep like me, she was disoriented long enough to not know what the sound was. Given the unlikely event that the "two guys" who pulled the fire alarm -- the very one that was right outside her door -- stuck around more than a fraction of a second after pullage, long enough for her to figure out what was going on, walk to her door, open it and see them in the pitch of night ... well, it's a suspension of belief that even I couldn't make in my half-dazed, half-asleep state. I was cognizant enough to notice, however that her deadbeat b/h was, surprise surprise, drunk and screaming, and there was a buddy of his inside with him, and that their only window within sight of the fire alarm was closed with blinds drawn, so she couldn't have seen it that way either.
I hate them. By the gods, I hate them.
Of course, I did get to learn something new about myself during the debacle. In a potential fire-related situation, where I'm woken from a deep, sound sleep, my very first thought is "pants".
"The Killer in Me"
