Locked out

By Tuesday night I was feel pretty sorry for myself after The Talk and the ensuing pondering and analysing. Suddenly I realised that my Sister, whom I do love dearly despite our differences, is not going to change her mind or beliefs, in the same way that I am not going to change mine. I knew this all along, of course, but it finally hit me on Tuesday night and suddenly I was overtaken by a wave of melancholy, the likes of which I haven’t seen for some time. I plodded through the evening: cooking dinner, eating, washing up. I did it all silently and moodily. By eleven o’clock I was ready to crash into my welcoming bed, to sleep through the drudgery.

I went out the front for a final cigarette. With all the crap that’s been going on lately—living with the Space Cadet, suppressing murderous rages and whatnot—I’ve been smoking way more than is perhaps generally considered as healthy. But fuck it. Anyway I went out the front and sat on the chair on the front steps, watching the traffic roar past. The sound of traffic has always been calming for me, like waves on a beach. I stood, after extinguishing the cigarette, and reached into my pocket to get my keys out. There was nothing there.

I checked my other pockets, all were equally empty. I remembered putting my keys into my backpack, ready for the next day. I was locked out. I stood for a moment and assessed the situation: I had no keys, no phone, no wallet, no shoes. I swore rather loudly and started the journey around the block, so I could get into the house by the back door, hoping that the door to my bedroom was not locked too.

Arriving at the back of the house my heart sank. The bedroom door was locked too. I went into the kitchen and looked at the benches, hoping that I had absentmindedly put them there while doing the washing up, all the while knowing exactly where they were: in my bag, in my room. Finally I walked out the back to go and find The Optimist so I could borrow his phone. I guessed he was in the common courtyard, drinking and being rowdy (which, I might add, doesn’t bother me one bit except that there have been so many complaints that the housing office has called a compulsory meeting to discuss noise pollution for all residents…not happy about that at all).

As I stepped out the back door I nearly collided with The Optimist, and very nearly scared the shit out of him. (He got me back two nights later: I was standing in the space outside the back door, lighting a cigarette, when he rounded the corner, rather quickly. This made me yelp in a very unmanly fashion and jump backwards, crashing into the two screen doors and coming to rest against the wall, cigarette and lighter on the ground, heart pounding, mouth yelling “Where the fuck did you come from?? Make some fucken noise next time dammit!”)

I told him the situation and he said, very consolingly, “Ahhh shit man, that sux. Of course you can use my phone; you should come over have a beer with us while you’re waiting for them”. I called security and was given an estimate of a fifteen minute wait. I silently prayed that this would be fifteen actual-minutes, not fifteen tradie-minutes, which would see me waiting for two and a half hours (one tradie-minute is roughly equal to about ten actual-minutes.

In the end the security guy arrived after about twenty actual-minutes (or two tradie-minutes) and let me in. I was so awake now after the night’s drama that I took up The Optimist’s offer to go over to the courtyard and have a few beers (or water, in my case) with many of the people living in our street.

It was so nice to spend some time with people who know nothing about me or my melodramatic dramas, especially when they are in varying states of drunkenness. So at least the night had a silver lining, noise complaints notwithstanding.