Funny. She Didn't Strike Me as Violent...

When you hear the reports in the other blogs – and you will – please be sure to mention, somewhere in your comments, that I must’ve really been pushed because you, personally, never noticed a violent streak.
Come on! Do this for me! Tell them I was never violent, dammit!!
Sorry. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. Apparently I was not meant to run on less than four hours of sleep.
That’s right, you heard me! Four stinkin’ hours of sleep, and you know why?
Because last night, starting at 1:20 and ending at an obscene hour that dares not speak its name during the work week, the downstairs folk took up door opening and closing.
All the kids are doing it.
Sure there were a couple “slams” in there – I mean, who could resist? – but primarily this was just a matter of wanting a cigarette every 20 minutes or so.
Shhhh. Let’s pretend we’ve been asleep.
Mmmm. This is nice. We should cuddle more often.
Wait.
You hear that?
That’s the sound, at 1:20, of someone opening the front door, the one directly under your bedroom.
And that? That’s the sound of them pushing the door shut, with a hip, if I’m any judge.
Now let’s wait 20 minutes, shall we?
And there it is! Ladies and gentlemen, I give to you the sound of the front door opening again, being shoved shut with a hip and – what’s this? Forget something on the porch? In an unprecedented move, the two-person cigarette-smoking team from the United States has gone back to the porch! Ladies and gentlemen! The Ukrainian judge has thrown his score cards to the ground but the Canadian judge is allowing it!
On and on it went, from bar-close until just before sunrise, during which I drifted in and out of a vengeful sleep.
I began composing letters in my head.
“Dear Inconsiderate Non-Full-Time-Working Nincompoops. How are you? I am fine…”
Sure, I could’ve called them, but why? It did not work the last six times they took up competitive smoking, and I don’t like the odds for the seventh.
The time for civility has ended.
I’m going to need a truncheon, a sleeping bag, and a good length of heavy-gauge chain.
And if anyone asks you, just tell them: You know, she seemed so normal…