That's What I get For Tempting Fate

I should not have written either of these lines yesterday:

“I like to come home and know that no one will be having an impromptu party despite the fact that they know I have to get up at 4 am the next day.”

and

“I can’t wait to find out what awaits me when I get home today!”

Karma can be a mother fucking whore.

I stopped for a couple of drinks at Tai’s, a trip which has its own set of bizarre stories (remind me if I forget: Holdup at the Citgo, the bartender’s new lecture series “What not to do if you want to score with chicks”, Brawlin’ at the Bar: Drunk Chicks vs. Arrogant Pricks).

Being a person of the grown-up persuasion, I had to work in the morning, so I said goodnight to the bartender and headed for the serenity of home and sleep.

I walked up the stairs and was about to put the key in the lock, when I realized there was a loud buzz coming from inside my apartment. “Huh,” I thought to myself, “What could Vicodin Jim be doing in there? Installing florescent lighting?” I shrugged and entered.

I walked into the living room…and stopped dead in my tracks.

On the couch, cuddled up like two lovebirds, were Hot Heather and her little girlfriend. I will call her Hot Chef Girl (she’s in culinary school). They looked cozy, spooning there under a pink fuzzy blanket (which belongs to Jim) and watching Trainspotting. My coffee table was littered with empty wrappers and cups from Burger King. Also scattered about the table were packs of cigarettes, some lighters, half a dozen half-empty glasses of Kool-Aid and assorted cell phones. My lounge chair was blocking the entrance to my bedroom. Shoes and jackets were scattered about the floor.

Jim was sitting in one of my dining room chairs, which he had pulled into the living room. Beside him was a fold-out card table that I didn’t recognize, containing some tools unfamiliar to me, a huge box of latex gloves, and a few rags. I cast about for the source of the incessant buzzing.

Directly behind Jim in another of my dining room chairs sat a scruffy looking boy I did not recognize. Beside him on the floor sat a sharps container. Jim’s right arm was extended out behind him, and was resting on a little stand, which the scruffy boy was hunched over, peering at it in what appeared to be great concentration. The buzzing sound seemed to be coming from his general direction.

As it turns out, Jim was not installing florescent lighting – the scruffy boy was installing ink into Jim’s elbow.

Jim acts as if this were all perfectly normal. “Where’d you go? Tai’s?” he asked me with a patronizing smile. “I wish you wouldn’t go there anymore,” he continued in his best benevolent tone of voice. “He’s just going to do something to make you cry again, and I don’t want him upsetting you anymore. He’s not good enough for you anyway.”

He is referring to the bartender. I find this entire lecture about my being upset to be very odd, given that it was coming from the mouth of someone who had invited a stranger to set up a tattoo parlor in my living room without telling me.

I attempted to maneuver through the obstacle course that has overtaken my home and get to my kitchen. There I found a sink full of dishes, an empty box of Girl Scout cookies and the remnants of the last of my Texas toast. Defeated, I went back to the living room and flopped down in my lounge chair. Figuring there was nothing to be done about it, I decided that I too should pretend there was nothing amiss and did my best to watch Trainspotting in lieu of strangling Jim.

Hot Heather turned toward me. “You’re out of sugar.”

“Oh?”

Heather shrugged. “I had to make Kool-Aid.” Yes, cherry Kool-Aid is a necessity in a living room tattoo parlor. I looked at the glasses of Kool-Aid dregs. There were far more glasses than people. This means one of two things:

1. There were far more people in my house earlier than the ones I see now. If this is the case, I don’t want to know because I will be livid.

2. These non-dishwashing children feel the need to have a fresh glass every single time they pour a drink. If this is the case, I don’t want to know because I will be exasperated.

I address Heather. “So what you’re telling me is, I’m out of sugar AND Kool-Aid. Is that correct?”

“Um, yes.”

I don’t respond to this. My head turns at a flash of motion on the other side of me. Kristen has opened my bedroom door a crack at the sound of my voice, and has poked only her nose out into the room to try and find me. “Did you guys lock her in there or did she do that herself?”

“She must have done that. We haven’t seen her all day”. All day? You’ve been here all day?

I give up on the genius brigade and climb into my bed. Ahh, sweet rest.

But no.

Through the door I hear ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ from the tattooing as loudly as if scruffy kid had been drawing a thorny rose tattoo on my ear drum. It’s like Chinese water torture. Kristen and I stare at each other, dismayed and wide awake, until Jim’s new body art is completed. This momentous event finally occurs at 3:30 in the mother fucking morning. By the time they close up shop, retrieve their belongings from the places they had thrown them, admire Jim’s arm for 10 minutes, dance a reel, and leave, it is 4. Wisely, Jim decided to go home with Heather, thus preventing his bloody early demise at the hands of his completely frayed roommate. I need to get up at 6. I can’t go to sleep or I’ll never get up, so I text the bartender and tell him to call on his way home so that I’m forced to stay awake. As of this writing I have been fully conscious for the last 36 hours and 14 minutes.

I will not be including any flippant remarks about what might be going on at my house today in this post. Clearly that’s just asking for it.