I like to break things

Last night there was some major excitement here in the Jinxed hood. Not the fun kind though. The “Oh my god, someone is going to burn my house down” kind.

I was sitting on my porch, happily beating the hell out of little green pigs in Chrome’s “Angry Bird”, when I heard a strange sound across the street. Because I’m the most nosey person I know, I looked up to see what my drunk neighbors were up to that late at night. Those are the neighbors that should’ve been passed out by 4pm. Well, the couch one of the neighbors had put on the curb months ago was on fire¹. It was just a small fire, but I called 9-1-1 anyway. While I was on the phone trying to explain to the operator that they needed to send someone to put this fire out, the flared and half the couch was engulfed. . The flames were burning the leaves of the tree beside it. Finally, a sheriff’s car comes cruising by and soon after the truck shows up. I tweeted the action. The fire is put out.

I walked across the street to talk to the other neighbor, who has only lived in her house for a couple of months, and we chatted about the crazy drunks that live in the house behind the couch. The nuDrunk neighbors (who like to shoot guns in their backyard and burn trash in their front yard) were clapping and a screaming “Way to go!” and generally acting inappropriate as the fire was being put out. The neighbor I was talking to mentioned she thought it was probably those people because they’re ridiculous and rude. I said I wouldn’t be surprised. Then the police came to talk to us about what we thought we knew. I told the cop what I witnessed and then said good night.

I go inside and fall asleep watching something on tv. A little while later I hear another fire truck coming. It stopped further up the street this time. What the fuck? I tweeted that there’s another fucking fire. Then, of course, I take my happy ass outside and back across the street. I want to know what’s been set on fire this time. We think it might be the hoarder guy’s house. He’s got all kinds of trash and junk all over his property and his house would go up like a dead christmas tree. My neighbor hopes they get all the dogs out before the house goes up in flames. Once again, the nuDrunk neighbors are having a good time watching the action. That’s when we decided it was probably them acting stupid. They’re exactly the kind of imbecile fuckers that would do something like that.

There was a fireman standing there watching and I go ask him what happened. He said that it was a promotional sign on the drive thru beside the hoarder’s house. I told him about the conversation I was having with my cool new neighbor and he said that the nuDrunk neighbors were “reliving their college days. College kids like to set couches on fire.” Aha! So, they too suspected the nuDrunks of even more nefarious behavior. Awesome sauce! I didn’t say that, of course. I pretended to be very thoughtful and said “That’s a shame.” I told him that the other neighbors and I were concerned that the firebug was going to get more bold and burn our houses down. I asked if they were going to be doing anything about that. He assured me that there were going to foot patrols in the area for the rest of the night. I again nodded thoughtfully like a mature adult would do and went back to report my conversation to my new cool neighbor. We talked a bit about how we were going to douse our houses with water and perform a rain dance to protect our respective lives and property and then it was good night again.

I went back on my own couch, which was fire-free. It’s an over-sized, microsuede couch with ginormous cushions. It’s perfect for relaxing. I like to snuggle deep in the cushions, get all comfy and fall asleep watching tv. This is how I relax. It’s heaven for me. So, that’s what I did. I started to fall asleep when I heard another fucking siren. Really? Fuck me! I tweeted (someone should hire me as their tweet-beat reporter).

This time they’re at a house to the south of me. I couldn’t tell exactly where at first, but it was definitely a house. The neighbors are all coming out to see what’s what now. The sheriff and the city police are here, there’s an ambulance and here comes a truck from the neighboring house. As I’m sitting here wondering why it’s not raining, a young dude comes sauntering down the alley across the street. As soon as he made his happy ass visible, the cops snatched him up. He was up against the cruiser with flashlights in his face in seconds flat. Wow! I thought for a second that this would be the perfect time to take a picture. We’ve got firetrucks to the left and the police questioning a perp to the right. I thought it would probably be bad form to take a picture right then, maybe even a little suspicious, so I tweeted instead.

The dude is yelling that he knows his fucking rights while the firemen are putting out yet another fire. I managed to see that they were going inside the vacant house across the way, so that was a relief. Except for the fact that the firebug had indeed graduated from nearly harmless vandalism to targeting a possible dwelling. That was fucking scary. This time there was no conversation among the neighbors. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only worried that some motherfucker was going to burn my house down. At any rate, I watched the police question the alley dude, but they didn’t cuff him or throw him inside the car. He was surrounded by city cops and sheriff’s deputies. I wonder if he was pissing himself. I would’ve been. He was irate, though. One of the cops got in his face and jabbed a finger in the direction of the third fire. Dude didn’t seem to give a flying fuck.

Pretty soon, the fire crew started packing up. They hadn’t used the second truck and I’m not really certain what kind of damage that house sustained. Looking at it in daylight, it looks like there wasn’t a lot. I’m certain that it was reported by a patrol in the area, otherwise we wouldn’t have known until it was too late. No one was hurt, so the ambulance left. Some of the cruisers left too and pretty soon the alley dude was left to go on his merry (probably drunk) way. That was it for that fire. What was next? The trees behind my house. I was a little freaked out, but I’d taken an ambien, so I was way more tired than I was freaked.

So, I tweeted that it was over and came back inside. I left the porch light and livingroom light on while I laid on the couch with my tv on. I figured if they thought I was being vigilant and actually was keeping my eyes peeled, then they’d leave my house alone. Right? I have a good alarm system, so if they did target my house, I’d at least know about it before it was too late. I fell asleep lickety split. Guess I wasn’t as worried as I thought I was.

Then I woke up and all was well. No more fires on my street. I logged onto the local newspaper’s website to see what they said about it. Nothing, of course. They did recently install a popup asking me subscribe to their online content. I laughed hysterically because someone in their sales department is seriously smoking crack if they think for one second they’re even close to prestige of the New York Times. As a matter of fact, that fucking paper is as big as a mid-sized Times advertorial page. Pffft. I don’t even buy it when I need packing material. But, I guess, that really isn’t the point.

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