October 13, 2006 - Friday
| | 2:21 AM - what I woke up to It's not unusual for me to wake up an hour or two after I've fallen asleep. Usually the reason for my waking up comes in the form of a phone call from a certain bartender-musician I know, a lad whose schedule is even more nightowlish than my own. But tonight that phone call came before I fell asleep, so I figured that I'd be getting all of my sleepytime hours all at once.
Not the case, dear readers.
A few minutes ago, The Dog Barking woke me up. This oft-mentioned dog barking, coming loudly from my next-door neighbor's house, is, unfortunately, far from rare. Usually it passes within thirty seconds or so and I drift back to sleep. Tonight it kept going and going, growing more intense and fevered and--what was that?--was seeminglly accompanied by human yelling.
My sleepy mind could hear only the following:
1. some wooden objects crashing and one nearby thud
2. voices, most of which sounded like 20-something drunken male voices, yelling incoherently
3. an deep baritone voice bellowing something about cab fare
4. my next-door neighbor telling people to leave immediately
5. either the baritone voice or the neighbor voice threating to call the cops
6. feet scampering on my neighbor's porch (which is mere feet from my window, mind you)
7. more wood crashing to asphalt
As soon as I got my wits about me, I rolled out of bed and peeked out the window. The voice invoking the cops is what got me, I think. There was a large man, presumably the cab driver, roaming the area between my neighbor's house and mine, yelling something. A group of 20-somethings, all guys, were running around the lot. One of my neighbor's nice wooden rocking chairs were out in the grassy area across the parking lot. One dude ran up to the porch, grabbed the second chair, and threw it into the grass alongside the first as the other dudes cheered. (What is going on? I thought.)
After some more pacing and yelling, everyone got in the cab. Neighbor nowhere to be seen. Cab backed up and over something loud and wooden in the parking lot, back and forth. I heard a snapping. Then it squealed out of the lot.
A second later, I switched vantage points by looking out another window--saw the neighbors pacing their house inside. Figuring all was safe, I went out to make sure they were okay. Turns out their bag of charcoal had been thrown at my house--that was the thud I initially heard that helped wake me from dreams. I guess the cabbie had bargained with C., my neighbor, and asked for $5--but when they got home, he demanded $10. C. gave him $5 and the drunk guys in the van rebelled on behalf of the cabbie, the cabbie who had threatened to call the police. So they threw everything off C.'s porch, including the furniture and his charming little Lake Burton Fish Camp sign--that's what had been snapped in the parking lot.
So now I'm all riled up and unable to sleep because of a rather ridiculous episode. Everyone but the cabbie was seemingly soused (or at least I assume he wasn't boozin'), but I can't see that or the cabbie's anger as justification for this behavior. Maybe C. misunderstood the situation, or maybe that's exactly how it played out. It doesn't really matter to me--it seems utterly ridiculous that people would react in such a violent and destructive way. At 2:11 AM.
I remain extremely confused and moderately crabby...
Janet 2 Comments |
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