Saturday Night and The Secret Life of a Misfit

Saturday night around 10:30, I’m sitting on my sofa watching the final half hour of Dune on HBO Max and my eyelids are feeling a bit heavy, and I’m wondering if it’s worth staying up to watch the 11:00 news. 

My smartphone makes a soft chiming sound then and jerks me fully awake.  I’ve only heard this ring-tone a couple times before, when someone was buzzing me from downstairs.  I grab my phone, and see a text from Amazon.com. 

An Amazon delivery person has left a package on your front stoop.

Gee it seems kind of late to be getting packages, but who am I to complain?  Given the current state of the US Mail system, I should consider myself lucky.  I head downstairs, collect my parcel.  It’s dead quiet in the lobby, no one else is around.  I get back on the elevator, press 4 and as the doors shut and the elevator rises, I hear a loud, weird honking sound.

The elevator stops with a jolt and the doors bang open.  That honking sound is easily twice as loud now, and I’m only on the second floor.  That’s the building’s fire alarm.  When it goes off, the elevator will automatically stop on the nearest floor.  It will remain there until the alarm is turned off.

I step off, look in both directions and hurry over to the stairwell door.  As I begin climbing the metal stairs to the fourth floor, I hear a clanging noise above me.  A young couple from the fifth floor are coming down those steps fast.  They’re dressed in workout attire and look like they just got off their Peloton bikes.  The guy says “You’re headed the wrong way pardner”. 

I’d like to tell him to get bent, but I just say I’m going back up to get my jacket.

When I open the stairwell door to the 4th floor, I can hear a murmur of voices up the hall and around the corner, where the elevator is.  Should I tell them it’s not coming?  I then hear Jerry (our floor’s long-time resident, he’s lived here 31 years) tell them they have to take the stairs and I make a dash for my apartment door before they come around the corner.  Whew, made it!

Once I get inside, I toss my Amazon box in the chair and lock my door, then proceed to turn out all the lights.  This isn’t my first rodeo!  Soon a fireman or police officer will go door to door, seeing if there’s light or moving shadows underneath the doors and telling people they have to exit the building.  I don’t intend to be one of those people.

I hear sirens, grab my camera and head over to my living room’s picture window.  The first firetruck, ambulance  & police cruiser arrive.  I turn off my flash and take a picture. 

(I should’ve waited, there will soon be a dozen fire & police vehicles out there.)

Minutes later, I hear the THUNK of the stairwell door opening, and a couple of men’s voices in the hall.  I put my ear to the wall behind my sofa—yep, my next door neighbor Lonnie’s TV is on, and he’s on the phone with either his mom or his sister, complaining about the incessant honking inside our building, and the sirens outside.  I jump about 2 feet in the air when a heavy, loud thud lands against my door.  A man says “FIRE ALARM, EVERYONE EVACUATE.”  

One potato, two potato, three potato… I am right on the other side, holding my breath!  I then hear 3 loud knocks on Lonnie’s door.  They know someone’s in there. A man shouts for him to open his door, then tells him in person to go downstairs.  I hear Lonnie mutter okay.

Heh heh!  Very softly I sing “I am the Phantom of the Opera….”

When I heard Lonnie on the phone complaining this happens all the time, I thought he was exaggerating but on second thought… I’ve been here 4 1/2 years, and this is the fourth fire alarm.  I lived in my last apartment building 23 years and fire alarms went off only twice (and for good reason) but that property only had 24 apartments.  This high-rise has 88. 

At least the ones here have been false alarms, for the most part.  Still, the last time this happened I stood outside along with 40 or 50 others at midnight for a good 90 minutes.  It had been cold & drizzling, and I just wasn’t up for the chilly temps, grumblings & small talk from umpteen strangers again. 

I looked out my big front window again, saw dozens of tenants below and more trucks.  I thought if this place lights up I’m going to climb out that window, stand on the ledge and yell “MADE IT, MA!  TOP OF THE WORLD!”  right before everything blows up.  You know, like James Cagney in White Heat. 

Think I’ll take my BP medication and lay down for a couple minutes.

Okay, it’s Sunday morning and all looks right with the world.  I laid down on my bed last night and passed out, apparently everything went back to normal around midnight. 

(I later learned a young woman’s trash had begun to smoke in the third floor’s trash room, she’d thrown away incense or something.  These hippies!)

It occurred to me this morning as I began typing this, I never opened my Amazon box from last night—here’s what I bought, a couple birthday gifts for myself.  One of those microwave egg cookers that David & Gigi Hawaii endorsed on her blog, and a Star Trek coffee table book celebrating the original series 55th anniversary.

I promised myself no more print books after the ‘Great Purge of 2016’ (when I moved and gave away 95% of my books) but this is Star Trek!  For your coffee table!

Now I just have to build the coffee table from IKEA I’ve had under my bed for 4 years.