So, I know I’ve mentioned my downstairs neighbor (the one that’s quite irretrievably bats) at least a couple times before, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the absolute highlight of my day today was seeing her hauled off in handcuffs. I heard her starting another incredibly, obnoxiously loud monologue outside earlier (I mean the incredible part literally - her normal speaking voice is simply too loud to be believed, and can wake me up from a sound sleep when I’m two floors above her). She’s always liked to yell at people for real or (more usually) imagined slights, but lately she’s started yelling at people who aren’t actually there, which I’ve taken to be a good sign. As it turns out, in this particular instance the strident flow of invective that distracted me from my post-work Simpsons watching was intended for the benefit of the guy who owns the house next door, who had parked in our driveway briefly earlier today. This enrages the Beast, despite the fact that she does not and has never owned a car and there is in fact no one currently living in the house who does own a car and would need to use the driveway. So this guy is back in his house but gradually becomes aware that he’s being yelled at, so he steps outside and says something rather rude but to the point.

Unfortunately, the moment he chose to do so happened to be just the very same moment when the Beast’s sleazy pothead boyfriend was arriving home from work. He’s a construction worker, and had one of those big aluminum level things with him. He does not react kindly to his widdle Beasty geting called certain names by the irritated neighbor, regardless of provocation, and in a matter of moments both men are stripped down to unappealingly stained wifebeaters and are engaging in admittedly tentative fisticuffs. At this point, the Beast takes up the discarded level brought home by sleazy boyfriend and starts having at the neighbor, succeeding in whacking him several times before the poor guy just falls over and his wife makes her presence known on the front steps, phone in hand and telling everyone she’s calling the police. Beasty and boyfriend scurry into their apartment and lock the outside gate.

After an impressively brief interval, three or four separate police vehicles arrive in a hurry at my building and are, of course, unable to do much since our outside gate is now locked. I resign myself to finding shoes and go down to let them in. I stand around answering initial questions while a couple of the cops go about trying to rouse the Beast from her lair. Apparently, they have been summoned to our address over remarkably similar incidents on three separate occasions, which I guess must have taken place at times when I was at work or class. One cop asks me what exactly was the deal with this instance, since the whacked guy and his wife don’t speak English and the Beast/boyfriend alliance isn’t being terribly forthcoming, so I tell him what I’d seen and he’s not terribly shocked.

Eventually my favorite person is extracted from her basement apartment and attempts some sort of Burly Brawl escape sort of thing that ends up just being a few seconds of flailing cut off by prompt handcuffing, after which she is inserted into a police car and taken far, far away. I hope. I am told something about being a witness and something else about a court date before I lock up and go back inside to catch the end of the Simpsons. Today was a good day.