Lifestyles of the Not-So Rich & Shameless: Vol. #48
Up early on a Sunday morning I figured a good time to get my dirty sheets clean. I used by resident building key to open the door of the laundry room. Out of the dark room a funk monster jumped out attacking me all over. My nostrils flared and my stomach flipped upside down with a loss of an appetite for breakfast. I seriously doubted my desire to eat anything for the rest of the day after an alcohol reeking funky muthafucka leaped from his not-so secure safety place for the night and kick-started my heart into panic mode so bad I had to pop a Klonopin to take the edge off my fears and anxieties about discovering a homeless person in the laundry room the 5th floor of my building. Forever vigilant I dashed into my Wonder Woman hideout to grab my phone and call security. Before I pressed the green dot on my cellular device, I thought maybe I should take the blurred high road and give them a chance to exist stage left on their own. However when I got back to the laundry room that funky bastard left his funk to merge with the heat of dryers trapped in a tight space. I confirmed food would not be an option for me, yet I knew there was the possibility they were funking up the castle in another part of the building so I went ahead and tapped the green dot for a security dispatcher who seemed uninterested in my report but said he would send someone out.
I told my lil’ sister that supershero work demands follow through so I had to stand outside and wait for the janky security guards to zoom in front of the building like a bat out purgatory hell bent on whooping some ass ready to bust a cap in a funky muthafucka if there appeared the slightest smidgen of resistance. To protect the names of the not-so innocent, I’ll just say Vesta stood outside the castle as usual chain-smoking cigarettes while looking pregnant and holding up the building like she does all day every damn day. If anyone had the 411, Vesta would. I asked her if she saw security pull up yet and she said no. I decided to kick it with her while waiting to watch the janky security guards pull in the driveway like a police tactical force sneak attack. Instead I received a healthy dose of Vesta, the Not-So-Pregnant-But-Smoking-Girl running down her life story once I mentioned the person in my laundry was a homeless drunk. She was like, “I used to be homeless too, and I know what that life is all about.” I was like yeah I understand but its still summer time in the AK and there’s no reason to be in seclusion funking open the laundry while I’m trying to get my goals accomplish and not be so funky myself with fresh sheets.
Halfway through our respective cigarettes and still no sign of the janky security guards, Vesta went on about how she moved up from California in an effort to run away from her problems but learned that her problems only followed her into a life on the cold Anchorage frosty streets. She brought me back down to earth and kept it real about the issue of homelessness yet said, “They don’t have to be assholes about it…drinking whiskey, cussing and fighting all the time. So I don’t feel too bad. You did the right thing in calling security cause everyone is not simply homeless. Some of them… many of them are pieces of shit with their chest sticking out.” She waved off my smoke plume as if it really mattered to her baby. Now I will take a break and say I’m not the only that thinks, “Oh my, this lady is pregnant as all outdoors and smoking like a runaway locomotive.” However I knew she was only overweight and it all formed in her belly like a set of 34 weeks old twins due any moment. Yet I still thought I should give her my smoking is bad for the baby’s health speech but I knew that would only lead to her putting up dukes to punch me out in the building parking lot at 9:30 in the morning. So I played it cool. Before too long she started talking about not being able to afford her rent this month with no way to earn money except from playing Bingo and the Pull-Tabs. I told her, “I like bingo but can’t get down with the pull-tabs. I wish Alaska would just get a statewide lottery so I can feel like I have an opportunity to come up with money without I resorting to knocking an old man upside the head after he withdraws cash from the ATM.” She laughed with me, probably at me while inhaling the last remnants of tobacco from her cigarette.
The false sense of security never arrived so I finished smoking cigarettes with the not-so pregnant lady holding up the building and followed her back indoors She’s cool. Vesta is good people that I placed a negative value judgment before learning she is only a troubled huge piece of a woman gambling her last seven dollars on pull-tabs for rent money. I gave up on the janky security guards and another night without clean sheets. I can’t say I won’t ever talk bad about Vesta again. I mean after all she chain smokes with that body of hers all day every damn day giving off the appearance to the entire planet that she is committing one of the worse crimes against humanity.
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