I haven't showered in two days, but I smell like a Beckham.
This morning, I used my brother's David Beckham cologne that my parents bought for him for Christmas, but that he doesn't use because he thinks it smells like jocks at the prom. I thought, why not? I could smell like jocks at the gym, which undoubtedly smells a lot worse.
Don't judge me and my momentary lapse in personal hygiene.
It's Martin Luther King weekend, and I have a dream. That dream involves having no place important to be, eating Oreo cookies and playing Elder Scrolls until the sun comes up.
This was going to be my final weekend of Sloth. It is my favorite deadly sin besides, well, Gluttony.
And Wrath.
And Avarice.
And I probably won't have the opportunity to indulge my laziness for another four fucking years.
So, the pity party is in full swing; I'm stuffing my face full of Oreos in front of the television, bearing a strong and rather disturbing resemblance to Jabba the Hutt, when my doorbell rings. I wasn't going to answer it, because it's usually either the shiny-happy meter lady or one of my creepier tenants, but answer it I did. It turned out to be the latter: one of the two crackheads who lives downstairs. Luckily, the other crackhead sleeps too much to ever really bother me (except for in the summer time, when he sunbathes in the tiniest speedo in all the land. Blerg). But this particular crackhead has an obnoxious habit of ringing my doorbell to ask to borrow money, which is only half as annoying as his penchant for trying to burn down my house. So I waited to see which one it was going to be while giving him my best death glare. He asks me to come down and smell his apartment.
Gross, dude.
No, that's not what I mean, he says. He thinks his dryer is causing an electrical fire. Seriously, it could explode any second in a ball of hell flames.
Why? Were you smoking crack with it?
No way. I've been sober for almost thirty minutes.
I go and investigate.
Lo and behold, the place does does smell slightly like burning, and when I open the dryer door, the teensiest poof of smoke curls up in front of my face. Before I can tell crackhead to unplug it and get a new dryer with the money he gets from being a science experiment and his DVD bootlegging operation, he's already called the Fire Department.
"What? Why did you do that?"
"Can't be too careful," he replies.
Douche bag.
As I try to make a stealthy exit, crackhead grabs me by the arm.
"Whoa, you have to stay with me," he says.
"What?!? Dude, this has nothing to do with me."
"Yes, but the Police and Fire Department won't believe me. They'll listen to you."
Won't that be fun, I thought. I'll get to be the asshole that gets to explain to the Police and Fire Department that we wasted hundreds of taxpayer dollars because my crackhead tenant is slightly paranoid from all the drugs he was doing thirty minutes ago.
I grit my teeth and glance down at my evening ensemble.
It's difficult to explain the outfit I was wearing. I call it my Sunday Sweats. My brother calls it Gay Sherpa. It could be described as an extreme Tim Gunn visceral moment.
I can tell you what my look was not: attractive, by any stretch of the imagination. It is the outfit that I tend to pass out in after shoveling my driveway and eating a roast beef sandwich.
Let's be frank.
Disney Princess, I am not.
I will never have one of those moments where the birds and squirrels alight on my window sill and sing along with my morning ABBA revue. At least, not in this outfit.
This outfit scares nature.
The sounds of sirens outside and the crackhead calling me by my Christian name pulled me out of this momentary meditation. I looked at him, then at my appearance, then at him again, then at my appearance.
"Sorry dude, you're on your own," I said as I used one of my Kenpo arm releases. (Kiss my grits, that shit does come in handy.)
As I attempted my daring escape through the front hallway, I was halted by five of the hottest men I have ever seen waving axes in my face.
Where's the fire, miss?
In my pants.
I swear, I've had this dream before.
Except it was a dream.
Needless to say, there I was, stuck in the shifty crackhead's kitchen with five of the hottest firemen I have ever seen--like, Boston's most eligible bachelor material--and I was a vision in sweat pants, with the Oreo crumbs in my hair and food stains on my pants, a greasy top knot, and dorky glasses. Somehow, I get the feeling that if my house did ever catch fire and I were stuck on the uppermost floor, they would have to draw straws to decide who would have to rescue me.
Sadness.
After several moments of questioning, pulling the dryer out and examining it, crackhead acting seriously hide-the-drugs suspicious, they tell me that everything appears to be normal, that it's probably lint caught in the vent, and--
"But we smell smoke," crackhead says.
"Sorry, we don't detect anything. But we do smell David Beckham. Is David Beckham here?"
Blerg.
There is a lesson to be learned from this story.
