Your Unemployed Daughter

Lots of drama last night. Remember the bed-burner I wrote about just yesterday? Well, she’s at it again. (The above is a not very good picture of my building surrounded by firemen, you know, those dudes with the reflective stuff.)

To recap: I went to the gym yesterday around 7, stayed for yoga until 9, and then came home, showered, and started to make dinner. I smelled something funny when I came in the building, but it was faint, and they’d been working on one of the apartments upstairs, so I figured it was related.

As I browned my ground turkey, however, suddenly I smelled something pretty major (not the turkey) and heard fire alarms going off. I opened my door (I know, you’re supposed to touch it first, but I forgot) and there were clouds of smoke billowing up the stairwell. It was hard to see, but I could make out the form of a fireman coming up the stairs, and he yelled at me to stay in my apartment and shut the door.

My apartment is probably 20 feet long, so I went to the other end, where I have two windows, and opened them both. There was a firefighter down on the yard below me, peering up with a flashlight. I do have a fire escape, and asked him if I should use it. He said I was okay where I was. I was dubious, but stayed put.

Then there was a pounding on my door and a fireman yelling that I should leave the building, so I shoved on some shoes, clutched my pajama pants that no longer have a drawstring to my waist, threw on a jacket, and grabbed my keys. I thought for a second and went back for my Blackberry, turned off the stove, and then got out as fast as I could through the hall without breathing.

(This experience, it must be said, has not improved my cough, which I’d chalked up as pretty much gone earlier in the day.)

I do find it interesting that I didn’t even think about my computer or any valuables, or the fact that my pants were falling off. I just got out, so I guess that’s good instincts at work, though later when I saw my apartment-mates standing outside with their laptops and cats and purses I felt kinda dumb.

Anyways, the firemen did their work and the fire was put out, and the woman who started it given oxygen and apparently taken to the hospital. Rumors are that she’s a drug addict, and one does wonder about someone who sets a fire not once but twice in the same week in her own apartment.

So, man, I did not sleep so well last night. Fire is scary! And you’d think that someone who set her apartment afire, even accidentally so, would be evicted post-haste, no? Apparently the cops can’t even arrest her.

The good news: I’m on the second floor, my bed is next to the window, and I’m a light sleeper. Also, I have renter’s insurance. But still. Every time I hear yelling in my building I cringe a little. And just now my coffee maker beeped the end of its heating cycle, and I jumped.

Trying to see a bright side and I guess it’s…all that commotion musta burned a lot of calories, right?