Debbie Downer, come on down!

today had all the earmarks of a good day.

easier time at work. approval for some vacation time so i CAN FINALLY GO TO VEGAS WITH MY GIRL!! (Vegas, Kristie...yeah, baby! it's only taken us five years...or more!)

it was hotternhell this weekend...and today, too, but i got to spend today in an air conditioned office, so not so bad.

i stop @ El Pollo Loco for some dinner, because again...it's too dang hot to cook. drive home. open the back gate from our parking to the apartments and...

damn. daaaaaaaaaaaaamn.
my downstairs neighbor is on the ground.

flat on the ground.

drunk off her bum.

i call Brendan to call the cops. the cops transfer him to the paramedics. 15 minutes later six paramedics are there, sitting this woman up, taking her vitals and trying to talk to her.

she goes between answering and crying.

this is so sad. the only part that made me giggle to myself, was the ROP kid, training with them and taking her pulse. makes me think he's thinking 'i have GOT to find me a new line of work.'

one of the paramedics and i talk quietly, i explain this has happened before, and one of them gets the assistant manager. he takes one look at her and says no, i won't let her in the apartment, because she's not on the lease.

now, i understand he has to protect the property. however, there is something called the right thing to do. what if she wanders out in the street in front of our place and gets killed? so you protected the property at the cost of a human being?

whatever.

then, of course i'm angry at our neighbor who allows her to stay but doesn't want to give her a key or put her on his lease. who leaves for hours, leaving her sleeping it off on a chaise lounge across from his apartment.

i'm angry that our new neighbors and their young kids feel like they're stuck in the house while she sleeps it off at the bottom of the stairs.

i'm angry that no one seems to want to help this woman, especially when one of the paramedics is pouring out what's left of her cheap vodka and asks me to toss the bottle.

who's got to die before something can be done? how sad and pathetic is it that this woman is sleeping it off on a lounge chair, with a bruised cheek, waiting for my dumb ass neighbor to come home so she can be safe inside?

what does it take?

i'm angry. waste makes me angry, and that's all this is - a waste of a God-given gift: life.
and angry that no one will help this woman get some help.

and that she has to sleep it off in front of the entire complex.