Call The Poe-lice

*I'll explain after.*

Speakeasy #132

She is warned yet again through her closed bedroom door. “Ally, don’t wait until the last minute to write that paper.”

“I know, mom.” She sighs and taps her pen against her notebook.

So far all she has managed to do is write the name on the top of the page. She reaches under her bed and pulls out the walkman she stole from her brother the week before. With a shy smile she takes the mix tape Brandon made her.

“Ally, you better be doing your homework.” Her mom calls through the door again. “Don’t stay up too late.”

She rolls her eyes, and turns to the blank page as The Police serenade her with their latest and greatest hit.

Why Edgar Allen Poe Is Relevant Today by Ally Stevens

The words mock her to fill the void of the blank page. He isn’t, that’s the problem. Some old, boring guy talking about birds. Lame. Totally, lame. She doodles in the margins for good measure, another five points taken away by the terrible Ms. Thomas.

Ally writes “HE ISN’T!!!” in big letters with a smirk. She rips out the page and carefully writes the title again. She’ll step in front of the school bus if she hears “points for neatness” one more time.

The first song fades out and the second one starts. She smiles again to think that Brandon picked those songs just for her. He is the most handsome boy in the entire school, in the enire world, and he picked Ally. Tiffany will scream when she hears about it in school in the morning. Ally can’t wait to see her face, that will put that blond fake in her place. Little miss my hair is naturally crimped and aren’t these new Reeboks just rad?

Something slams in the house and she slips the headphones off. Everything is silent, her mom must have dropped something or her brother is coming home late from work. Whatever, she has this stupid paper to write.

A song starts again and she pauses to look at the walkman as though it can give her answers. She’s pretty sure this song has already played, she fast forwards to the next one, definitely the same. Why would Brandon make her a mix tape of the same song?

She sighs and figures there must be some reason, so she keeps listening. “Edgar Allen Poe is relevant today because he writes about stuff that still happens.” It doesn’t even take up two whole notebook lines and she still has the rest of the page to write.

She finds herself humming to the tune of the song, now on it’s seventh play. She figures it’s meant to be romantic, but some of the words seem a little creepy. “…every move you make, every vow you break, every smile you fake, every claim you stake, I’ll be watching you…”

The sound of glass shattering from somewhere in the house isn’t heard by Ally as she focuses on the words of the song. It starts to play again and she’s definitely creeped out. Maybe it’s because it’s pushing midnight, maybe it’s because she has to think about that weirdo Edgar Allen Poe, maybe it’s because the cutest boy in school made her a stalker’s mixtape. She pulls off the headphones and tosses the walkman onto the ground.

The lights go out.

She is keenly aware of the sound of her breathing and she’s pretty sure she heard the floorboard at the top of the stairs creak.

The door to her room opens and the lights come back on.

“Brandon?”

He smiles, the boy of her dreams dressed in black and smiling like he knows a secret. “How’s your paper going?”

Ally can’t answer, this is too strange.

He walks over to her page, reads her first sentence and adds another. “The point you missed about Poe, is that he’s all about lost love and the tragic deaths of fair maidens.” Brandon turns with a strange gleam in his eye and a large blade in his hand “Oh, can't you see, you belong to me.”

He smashes the lamp to the ground and the room is dark again.

The knife clatters to the ground and a scream pierces the night.

*so, this is a weekly writing challenge, think of it as Fiction Friday, but with no continuity and not on Friday. Click HERE for more information!

Ain't No Showgirl.

So, I'm nearly recovered from the trip to Las Vegas last weekend. Nearly. Almost. Probably.

I learned one very important thing, I don't love Vegas like everyone else loves Vegas. I'll admit, I did have fun, like 75% of the time. The other 25% I sort of hated it.

The Boyfriend went because he was going to a Hypnotism seminar, so now he's all qualified to be a hypnotherapist, which is awesome. Like seriously, if you want to loose weight or stop smoking or be more confidant; he's your guy. (He also can make you do silly things if you want that, and magic.) So, pretty much contact him for everything, because I'm dating a certified hypnotherapist and highly talented magician.

Anyway, he was going for the seminar which would give him his official qualifications, complete with diplomas, and I was to go with him. We stayed in the Paris, which was beautiful. It had a fake sky which was lovely and it reminded me of my own trip to Paris in 2004 (let's not count how many years ago that was).

Outside the hotel though, it was an entirely different animal. There was more than enough stimulation for me inside the hotel, what with the crowds, lights, sounds, slot machines, roulette wheels, blackjack tables, and tourists. Once outside, I was completely overwhelmed. My poor little crazy brain couldn't handle everything.

The evenings were better. The Boyfriend was back from his classes, I was properly dosed with Xanax, dressed up all pretty, and headed to get a few drinks with his classmates and instructors; who are all pretty cool guys. So, to recap, I liked Vegas when I was xanaxed and somewhere in the hazy border of tipsy and drunk. Not quite the way I wanted to experience the world, but it was sort of the only way at the time.

You know that whole "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas"? Most girls, when they get way a little too drunk in Vegas end up with hilarious and somewhat embarrassing stories of dancing on tables, kissing strangers, and falling down. I ended up crying in the bathroom of our hotel room because "I didn't want to be drunk anymore" and "I wanted to go home". If that doesn't describe my inner introvert, than nothing does. (Also, naturally the crazy took the next morning to convince me that I ruined everything, stress and crazy are great friends). Then the flight home was more crying, because my bag wouldn't fit in the stupid overhead bin and I had to wait for everyone to board so I could bring my bag up to the front to be kept in a closet.

There were good things, though. There was meeting up with a friend I haven't seen in years, feeding ducks at a park, meeting new and awesome people, and having fun at shows (Anthony Cools, Kevin Lepine, and Penn and Teller. Here are pictures to prove that I did have fun.

And OHMYGOD guys! I have found heaven, and it is The Pinball Hall of Fame. I'm pretty sure that just about every pinball machine ever made has been restored to it's former glory and everything is completely PLAYABLE!!!! I played pinball for hours with my friend, and then The Boyfriend and I went there before our flight home. Oh man, when I die, I'm gonna haunt that place forever.

Even the handicapped parking is awesome at The Pinball Hall of Fame.

So, all in all I learned that I am no Vegas Showgirl. I am not made for Sin City. I do not love the lights. When I go back again, I know it will happen, I will bring books and stay in the room until I am lured out by the promise of a few drinks and a game of pinball.

Laundry Jerks

Tonight, I have to do laundry. I'll pause here for the appropriate responses of horror that follow that statement.

I've noticed, whenever people say they have to do laundry or they did laundry the night before, it causes the same response as though they had said they had a limb removed or were hit by a car.

Think about it.

"Hey, Jane, what'd you do last night?"

"Laundry."

*gasp* "Ugh, that sucks! I HATE laundry!"

"I know, right?"

...and so on.

But the thing is, laundry is a relatively painless chore as far as chores go. You shove it in the machine, turn a knob, press a button, and come back in 40 minutes; then repeat until things are clean and dry. You totally have time to do other things, like read books and eat cookies other chores.

There are circumstances that do make laundry more painful, though. They are thusly.

1.) Having to go up and down stairs to do laundry.

2.) Having to pay for laundry; inversely having to find enough quarters.

3.) Having a disproportionate number of people to washers/dryers.

4.) Laundry jerks.

I, luckily enough, have all four challenges in my laundry life. Most people who live in an apartment building or a college dorm have to deal with several of these unfortunate factors.

My washers and dryers are on the ground floor while I live on the second floor, stairs. Each washer and dryer costs $1.25 per load, paying for laundry. There are four washers and four dryers, there are more than four people living in my apartment building. And finally, laundry jerks.

What is a laundry jerk, you ask? Why, let me explain. A laundry jerk is a person who decides to do laundry, puts their clothes in the washer, and then NEVER comes back. Okay, "never" is maybe a slight exaggeration, but they definitely don't come back within the half hour or hour it takes to run the washer or dryer. They leave their clothes in there for at least an hour after it was finished; putting poor, anxiety riddled people like me in a predicament.

I am stuck in the laundry purgatory of waiting for all of eternity for them to come back to their forgotten laundry; or be insanely paranoid that they will come in just as I am putting their clothes on top of the washer and we'll have that awkward moment of one stranger caught holding the laundry of another stranger. Then I might have to TALK to someone. No. Unfortunately, I've been known to wait upwards of 50 minutes in the laundry room for a dryer or washer to open up, convinced that the moment I leave the person will return.

Tonight is laundry purgatory. There have been poor, damp clothes in a washer for 3 hours already; another load in the dryer completely dried and just waiting to be brought home.

Dear Laundry Jerks,

If you are not responsible enough to remember to get your clothes after the allotted washer or dryer time, then you are not responsible enough to own clothes. I will confiscate them until you have proven yourself to be able to at least pretend to be an adult for two hours; I somehow have managed to.

If you want to see your clothes again, they will be deposited in an undisclosed location and a small ransom will be required to get them back...preferably, the ransom will be paid in laundry quarters. Please, get your shirt together.

-Elayna