What the What?

At about quarter to midnight, I am roused from dreamless sleep by the sound of the buzzer. At the top of the stairs our neighbors' grown daughter is peering down as far as she can see.

I have some sort of vague recollection of sirens (?) maybe.

Anyway, Beth - or someone - is trying to get in, and I have to let them in. At the bottom of the stairs I nearly run into three firefighters who have just come up from the basement. In retrospect, it is an awkward encounter, although at the time I am barely cognizant of this fact (or anything for that matter). See, it has been SUPER. HOT. here lately. I have been resorting to drastic measures to fall asleep. Ice pops. No pants. Snuggling with the kitchen tiles and cool metal pots. So this night I have only just barely managed to drift off when the doorbell wakes me from my slumbers. "Did you ring the buzzer?" I demand of the bewildered firemen. They say no and try to maintain eye contact without looking at the rest of me. I am suddenly aware that I'm not wearing any shoes.

I mean pants.

I adjust the sheet (which, luckily, I have brought) around myself as though that is what I always wear when lounging about the apartment. Yeah, just your casual loungewear. They ask me if our power is out too. I say no, anyway, I have to get my sister. I step around them, bedsheet trailing behind and they tramp up the steps in full firefighting gear, axes, hats, heavy coats, boots... all in a day's work.

UGH. Turns out there is nobody at the door. Go figure. I catch up with the firefighters and try to explain how someone rang the bell and now there is nobody there and I just can't understand it. "Oh... maybe someone was confused and rang the wrong bell," one firefighter suggested helpfully.

We climb up the stairs. Three burly men and the oh so delightful Prancibald. On the second floor they file into the apartment that must have called them there in the first place. It is the recent grads who moved in just last week. They must have caught something on fire with their stove. I wouldn't put it past them. I mean, for RILL? One has her face covered in some sort of opaque cleansing substance and her eyes and mouth are making the same wide, round shape as she stands back from the doorway to allow the firefighters to enter.

"Seriously, get your life together," I think, scornfully, as I return to my apartment and shut the door. Yes, that is right, recent grads. The pantsless, barefooted wonder thinks you need to get your lives together.


Take that.