UPDATE

Remember Unsolved Mysteries, and how every few episodes they’d solve a mystery and announce “UPDATE?”

Well, here’s my update. You’ll get the whole story in a post later this week, but I got all kinds of laid off last week. Financially this is extremely inconvenient, but a) Goddamn, I hated the job and b) as soon as I get my last paycheck I can write a post about the job, which will be a treat for me and hopefully for you. The layoff happened Thursday. Friday, I was hemming and hawing over whether I should go out Laid Off Drinkin’, when I heard your favorite crazy neighbor and mine, Wacky Wanda, clanking around in the hall. Of course I started to eavesdrop, and it turned out she was making a long, emotional farewell to another neighbor, Girl-Who-Slams-Doors, in which Wacky Wanda thanked Girl-Who-Slams-Doors for the “positive energy.” Doesn’t “positive energy” sound like an aerobics class for people with HIV?

Anyway, fool that I am, I assumed Wacky Wanda was saying goodbye because she was leaving, so I went out and got xX lol drunk Xx on half-price Applebee’s Long Island Iced Teas, because I’m a 34-year-old divorcee. I then didn’t see Wacky Wanda for a few days, and thought she was gone.

Well, no. At eleven last night (Monday 20^th) Wacky Wanda starts banging on the door screaming, “Somebody, please, help me!” over and over. Now, not to sound cruel, but Wacky Wanda has broken into my apartment, called me a thief, almost burned down my apartment, aired her plumbing-problem stench into the hall, blared the Cranberries with her door open at night, and woken me up twice. I’m on the side of whatever she wants help against. So Giant Camel and I gather ‘round ye olde peephole to watch. “Please, I did it before, and I don’t want to do it again! I SMELL BURNING! SOMEBODY HELP ME!” Girl-Who-Slams-Doors rode to the rescue. Why Wacky Wanda feels like we’re on good enough terms to come to us for help is an unanswerable question.

About an hour later, Giant Camel went out, and what did he find leaning against our door?

An umbrella, a dress, three shoes, and a glove. Later, she went downstairs and put a box of raisins and a pile of k. d. lang CDs on the free table. She’s still not the worst neighbor I’ve ever had.