Methadventures

A sordid confession blog.

I was young(er) and still feeling bulletproof.

Having just borrowed a house from the bank for a thirty year loan I was feeling like a responsible adultish sort of person.

Until I met the neighbor.

His name was Steve.

He had graduated from painting houses to dealing in a much more lucrative market.

The manufacture and sale of Meth.

He also taught Steve-kun-do.

The first time we met he told me how Bruce Lee himself peed himself in fear when faced with the mighty steve in battle mode.

Chuck Norris? Not a challenge for the Steve.

He had really bad skin.

I learned later that when you cook chemicals without the proper protective gear you can get residue buildup in your pores. It creates a sort of "plastic pimple" on exposed skin.

Nasty.

I like to keep to myself, let others leave me alone and I leave them alone.

Sort of.

It was the traffic that did me in.

A constant 24-7 flow of cars, foot traffic, vagrants and bicyclists would come to his kitchen window and trade grubby money for little plastic packets.

And the noise. Loud music, Loud cars, Mowing his lawn at 2am. Always the noise.

So I phoned the gendarmes.

This is when we discovered the boundary dispute. 

We lived exactly on the border between M-city and S-city.

Neither of them wanted to come out, so they sent H-county cars.

Who didn't want to deal with it.

So they left.

And the traffic continued. Day and night. 

So I asked him to stop.

Very nicely.

I even politely kicked on the front door, rather than knocking on the kitchen window.

I may have kicked a little harder then I meant to.

He called the cops on me.

Who showed up and informed me, whilst the traffic never abated, that since there was no "proof" of my erstwhile neighbor dealing drugs that there was nothing they could do.

Oh, and if you bother the Steve again, you get a ticket.

So I pondered.

Shoot him? Torch his house?Accidentally run over him? Squish him?

options and options.

I was at a loss.

So I called about the noise. Every night.

He started getting tickets. Warnings. He would cast me dark looks.

I am afraid I was not subtle.

Standing in front of steves house with a cell phone at 1am calling the cops.

He received a FINAL warning.

It only took a month.

Jail for noise violation if he had one more call.

So he got quiet.

Really quiet.

Damn it all.

The problem was beginning to look insurmountable.

It was solved, miraculously, by the sweet Dutch lady down the road.

She called Protective Services.

Apparently, the Steve had a six year old child in the house.

So, they came, they saw, they took the kid. The policia took the Steve and I figured all was well.

Nope.

The Steve had a Lawyer.

A really good one.

He was out and cooking again in less than 24 hours.

But he got smarter.

He moved into his garage/karate studio in the back yard.

He rented the house to these nice young men.

College age.

Quiet. Polite. Respectful.

Best neighbors we ever had.

The traffic continued to some extent, but since it was going into the backyard and off the street.

Well, live and let live.

Until 3am one morning when the SWAT team raided the house, shot one of the nice young men and let the dog use the other one as a chew toy.

They were cooking for steve.

He escaped. In the confusion and amidst the growling and screaming the steve got away.

At 4am I was out talking to the coppers.

What could I do?

Could I get steve evicted?

Well.

In a word. No.

He owned the house.

They really didn't have much on him.

And he had a really good Lawyer.

So.

The next day, under the cover of a bright noon day sun.

I took his electric meter. I turned off the water and the gas and put padlocks on them.

I took a hammer drill and three inch screws and fastened every single door, window and opening shut.

Then I stripped all the screws.

That night steve tried to break into his own house.

I let him play for about an hour. Banging and Cursing and generally making a lot of noise.

Until he had a fine froth of rage going.

Then I called the cops.

Who arrived just in time to see steve, in a meth induced frenzy of stupidity, trying to beat his own front door in with a decorative rock.

he was making a lot of noise.

They say confession is good for the soul.

I say, only after the statue of limitations is up.

Don't mess with us

evil-doers beware

AMBIEN

I don’t sleep much.

 Not really.  5-6 hours a night is more than enough for me to function semi-normally. Semi only because I could sleep for a year or two and still not behave “normally”

I read an article in the 8^th Grade about how much of our lives we spend in bed, sleeping.

It’s A LOT.

It had a profound effect on me.

 I just quit sleeping. I would go go go until I pretty much passed out from exhaustion.  Or I would just sleep during school. I figured why not? It’s not like I was doing anything important. Life is pretty short, too short to sleep through.

Fast forward a dozen years or so, and suddenly the habit of not sleeping becomes a concern and a problem.  One of those things that seem normal to me but all of a sudden it seems to the people around me that something is “wrong”.   like all of us are bombarded constantly by things that tell us we are sick, we need drugs, we want to be normal we want to be normal. Billboards, commercials and advertisements selling wellness. 

What a crock of shit.

Anyways.

I fell for it. Hard. Went to five different doctors to find out what was “wrong” with me and they all got a chance to practice their witch doctor hoodoo voodoo on me.  All I got out of all of it was a sense of panic and a prescription for AMBIEN. It’s a sleep drug, helps you sleep. They say. Knocks your ass out is what it does.

It works really really well.

Then I started having weirdness.

Waking up in strange places. It wasn’t every day, but it was strange.

I woke up at 330 am in my truck at short term parking in the airport. I woke up walking down the street by my house holding a dog leash with no dog.  I woke up on the sidewalk in front of my old best friends house with truck keys in my hand and no truck in sight.

And then.

I woke up naked on a bench in a strange gym.

At 3 in the morning.

This was something that most certainly was not covered in the boy scouts handbook.

So.

I searched the lockers until I found an abandoned towel, I was hoping for my clothes or keys or phone but no such luck.

 A towel is what I got.

  Clad thusly in towel I ventured out into the gym. It was mostly empty, a few fellow insomniacs (pre-Ambien) working out and a pretty little girl at the desk.

 With really big startled looking eyes.

 I approached her a little warily; she was looking at me kind of funny. The conversation went something like this.

Naked but for a towel me: HI!

Desk Girl with Big Startled Eyes:

Nbfatm: um, did you see me come in?

DGwBSE: a nod

Nbfatm: Great! Um, did I have clothes on?

DGwBSE: a nod

Nbfatm: Excellent! Did you notice if I had a bag?

DGwBSE: a nod, then a point

With a rapid turn I followed her finger direction and saw Child #1s school bag leaned against a wall. Snatching it up I discovered a padlock key and my shirt inside. I went back into the locker room and found the little pink heart padlock that matched the key and discovered some clothes, my keys, my phone and a DVD.

Two problems.

No pants, and I had never seen the DVD before. “Bad Boys 2” was not really on my must see list.

I put on the clothes I had and clad in my (it was mine now) towel and wearing a child’s backpack strode confidently (right) out to the desk again.

Partially Clad me: Hi

DGwBSE:

PCm: Um, by any chance did I take my pants off out here?

DGwBSE: Huge emphatic nod and another point.

I followed the point and found my pants. Safe and sound folded neatly on the leg press.

Three things.

 I never have been back to that Gym, I quit Ambien cold turkey, insomnia is FUN. Oh, and the movie?

 Really sucks.