The Bellefonte Cruise is in town this weekend. For those of you that don't know what that is, it's a car show that takes place in downtown Bellefonte, closes all the streets, and attracts people from all over the county. There are food vendors, souvenir sellers, and cars -- ranging from Model T's to Muscle Cars to suped-up imports. And there's drinking. Lots of it. Obviously, working all the time, I have been unable to enjoy any of the festivities, but have certainly had to contend with the headache of them.
I was tired. My bed felt great as I slid beneath the sheets. It was just so damn nice to be horizontal. I rolled over, turned out the light, and was sound asleep in minutes.
I awoke to voices. Why is there a party in my bedroom? My groggy, sleep deprived brain thought. I looked at the clock and had to blink several times to bring it into focus. It was 1:27am. I had been asleep for a little over an hour. I groaned, and rolled over, pulling the sheets over my head, realizing that the voices were not coming from inside my bedroom, but from the street and sidewalk outside my open bedroom windows. People were heading home from the Cruise and the downtown festivities.
For the next hour and a half I drifted in and out of sleep, as the voices and ruckus continued to drift by the windows. At a little after 3am, I heard my upstairs neighbors clomp drunkenly into the entry. There was laughter and stumbling, which was followed by choice words. Then I heard the sound of splintering wood and snapping plastic and the lights in my apartment tweaked out. Most went dark, including my alarm clock, appliances and electronics, but for a little variety, my overhead living room light turned on. And it stayed on, no matter how many times I flipped the damn switch.
Swearing, I pulled on my bathrobe, snatched the steel MagLite off the top of the fridge, and stepped into flip flops to go investigate. In the lobby, which was now vacant, I found a light switch panel and junction box completely ripped off the wall, live wires severed and sparking in the partial darkness. I stepped closer, and saw that two of the wires were touching each other, and were causing the electricity to arc. I was worried about it starting a fire, so I picked up a plastic piece of the destroyed lighting panel, and used it to separate the wires, The lights in the lobby flickered back on, my overhead living room light went out, and I shuffled my tired, irritated ass back to bed.
Fists pounded on my door. "Brandon? Brandon!"
Ugh, what now?? I looked at my cell phone. It was now 4:30am. "Go away," I said loudly enough to carry into the lobby.
"I will not go away. I want to talk to Brandon!" I rolled my eyes, and swearing, donned the same robe and flip flops as before, and snagged the same MagLite from where I had left it sitting on my dresser and stormed to the door. I undid the deadbolt, and slammed the door open against the security chain.
"Look, lady, I don't know you, and believe me, I don't want to. It is 4:30 in the fucking morning, and there is no goddamn Brandon that lives here." I pulled the door back shut, and was turning the deadbolt to lock it when she started pounding on my door again. So, again, I slammed the door open against the security chain. "Are you fucking hearing impaired??" My patience was wearing thin.
"I'm not leaving until I talk to Brandon. I know he lives here." The petite, drunk woman crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at me in defiance. The thread to which I was holding on to my temper and control snapped.
"Ok, princess, let me spell this out for you. BRANDON DOES NOT LIVE HERE. There is a Brandon that lives in the apartment upstairs. That is all I'm going to tell you. I swear to God, if you knock on this door one more time, I'm going to take this flashlight," which I held up for emphasis, "and bash your pretty, delusional head in. Then I'm going to call the cops, and have you arrested for Public Drunk, Disorderly Conduct, Causing a Disturbance, Harrassment, and for being a waste of perfectly good sperm. Get the hell off my doorstep. I won't tell you again." As first shock, then fear slid over her face, I slammed the door in it.
A few minutes later I heard her stomp up the stairs, and repeat the scene at Apartment #2's door. I heard Brandon yell at her to go away. She pounded some more. He yelled some more. I got out of bed, and headed for the coffee pot. My alarm was going to go off in an hour anyway, and clearly, I wasn't going to spend that hour sleeping.
So, coffee in hand, I sat down at my computer to get lost on the interwebs for a bit. That's when I heard, "Look you crazy bitch, I don't want to sleep with you anymore! My fiancee is going to be home any minute, and your ass had better be gone when she gets here."
Ah, that explains a lot, I thought, as the woman burst into tears, and called Brandon every name in the book. She then stormed down the stairs, and as fate would have it, ran into Brandon's fiancee at the door. A cat fight ensued, complete with hair-pulling, bitch slapping and biting, and was broken up when another neighbor yelled that he was calling the police.
And over my coffee cup, I couldn't help but chuckle. Who needs TV when the Jerry Springer Show lives upstairs??
When I got home from work tonight, the wiring was fixed. And it's amazingly quiet. So on that note, I'm going to go thank my lucky stars, and go get horizontal to catch up on all the rest I lost.
I'm so glad the Cruise is only once a year....
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