Had a few drinks with a few people last night, at the end of the night it ends up being just my good friend R. and myself. He lives very near where I live, so we walk home as normal, and sit out back of my place chatting a bit. I was pretty tired, and another guy we know comes up -- nice guy, I decided that I could spare 5 minutes of conversation, but as those two began yakking like they could keep it up the rest of the night, I said I had to am-scray.

So, seeing as I'm a cripple and now a bit tipsy, R. decides to help me inside, hold doors open and that sort of thing. We get up to my floor -- and my lock has just stopped working. It's just stopped working. The caretaker of my building happens to have gone on vacation, when? Why, just earlier that evening, of course. So I get the owner out there around 3 am or so -- can't stand the guy, he's one of those schmucks who actually thinks the most sleazy and insincere "friendliness" is able to hide the general contempt he has for most everyone. You know the sort of person who looks down on you, but thinks you're not bright enough to realize you're being looked down upon?

So whatever buzz I had was quickly wearing off at this point, and unfortunately so was the vicodin that's been keeping me from actually feeling the little broken bits where my ankle used to be. After taking maybe 45 minutes and three different keys to verify what I'd already concluded by the time he arrived -- my key was fine, it was the lock itself that was broken -- the genius finally calls a locksmith.

It's around this time, when I'm left alone with approximately an hour to myself (having sent my friend home before landlord showed up), that I honestly began to wonder exactly when I started to live a life that has just pissed God off.

I mean, we're supposed to believe in cause and effect, right? Our lives are not supposed to be random? Things happen for a reason, and so on. Well. After the locksmith shows up, he takes about another hour before finally just drilling through the lock. At this point, any vicodin effects are gone, my ankle is a knot of diffuse throbbing pain, I overall have that icky I-need-sleep feeling you get when your buzz is gone and it's very late at night, and all this time I've been laying on steps, trying to get into some sort of position that might be somewhat easy on the broken limb.

So. I'm saying, I don't recall punching any old ladies in the face lately. Not in the habit of kicking small animals into traffic. Or whacking irritating strangers in the knee with an aluminum bat. I mean, really -- I've been a fairly decent human being. I'm nice to my mom, I usually at least try to laugh "with" my friends rather than just at them.

So it's almost like the screwed-up situation I recall having found myself in a few times in my younger life -- the one wherein the person I'm dating is obviously upset with me, yet refuses to tell me what it is I've done to upset her.