a little more excitement than I need

It's such a beautiful day outside, I can hardly believe all the drama that went down here last night. The birds in the tree must have baby birdlings because when I sat down outside they made a big ruckus until I folded myself up and went reluctantly inside. It's bright and sunny and cheerful and I can't believe it's the same world as it was last night.

I first found out something was wrong last night when the neighbors rang my bell and talked loudly outside. I didn't know who was out there or what the ruckus was about (sorry to use that word twice, but I'm in a ruckus mood), and it frightened me enough to call my mom, who told me to call the police. I dialed 911 and the operator informed me that the ruckus had already been reported by my upstairs neighbors, and that there was a fire in my garage. It was out by the time I ventured out, and bit by bit after the fire trucks and police arrived I found out the story.

Evidently there is a man who scams people in Davis a lot. What he does is, he finds people who need to sublet an apartment. He moves in and doesn't pay rent and refuses to leave until they officially evict him. Evidently this happened to my naive upstairs neighbors (both girls) and when they told him to leave, he decided that what they really meant by "leave" was "go downstairs, use our key to open our garage and start a fire with your magazine", which was exactly what he did. The police encouraged him to leave, which he did, but only after about 10 cops showed up on my front lawn. I share the garage with them, so this is how the fire in my garage started. Nothing and nobody were harmed, so, I guess in the end everything turned out all right. They didn't arrest him because evidently the elements of arson include destruction of someone else's property, and since the magazine belonged to him he didn't technically commit that crime. I feel like he was trespassing or burglarizing our property, but the police didn't agree. So he's out there right now, probably looking for the next apartment to scam.

The whole thing shook me up a lot and, needless to say, I didn't sleep too well last night. But it's all over now and the fresh air and bright sun is helping me forget it all. I'm simply glad nobody was hurt, and that life will go back to its happy normalcy of boring routine mundanity. Who says a mundane life is unhappy? I'm beginning to appreciate it after having it momentarily shattered.