To melatonin. That's right, I'm talking about the hard stuff here. None of that pussy "crack" or "heroin" the grown ups are whining about these days. The real junkies are taking supplements for a good night's rest.

Anyway, I took some last night, zonked out, and woke up this morning even though my alarm clock hadn't gone off. "Oh shit, overslept!" I thought to myself, "I'm going to be late for work!" My next thought after that was, "That is IT, alarm clock, you are GONE."

Visualize my zany "brush teeth, apply makeup" montage now. With circus music.

After sprinting to my car, long jumping into said car, and burning rubber out of the parking lot, I checked the clock to see what the odds were of making it to work on time. The odds were good.

BECAUSE I WAS UP AN HOUR EARLIER THAN I NEEDED TO BE.

Moral(s) of the story: 1. Melatonin makes you sleep very well to the point of being wide awake upon, uh, awakening. 2. Look at the hour, not just the minutes, on the clock. 3. Melatonin will not make you smarter. I learned this one the hard way. 4. I should really apologize to my alarm clock.

I try to be a nice person. I'm pretty laid back when it comes to other people and I believe in live and let live. I mean, I have my rights, why should others be denied, you know? I usually have a "whatevskies" attitude towards people who behave in ways I wouldn't, providing they're not actually harming anyone.

However. I hate rudeness, bullying, and passive aggressive manipulations. These excite me in a negative way and I will not hesitate to dish BS right back at the person handing it out. Being rude, a bully, or manipulative is the fastest way to push my Bitch Button. And I don't even pretend I'm the bigger person. I just Hulk out.

So imagine my reaction to these lovelies, pasted outside three of the four doors in my apartment quad by our new neighbor:

It went a little something like this: "aw, children's handwriting! *reads* Huh? WTF? OMGWTFBBQ! OMFGWTFBBQ(*&#@%*!(#!!!"

People. I'm not evil. If someone is standing at her window blowing smoke in, well, they should probably stop. But. No one in the building smokes, and Monkey King and I quit before this woman moved in. Even if there were smokers in the building, why didn't she go to management and ask for a No Smoking sign for the public areas (like a normal sane person would)? Or write a letter that wasn't completely entitled, hostile, demanding and rude and maybe, just maybe, post it somewhere that is NOT ON OUR DOORS? Signing her name might have been a nice touch. And we wouldn't have missed all the emphatic underlining.

Angry feelings at this total breach of neighborly etiquette were felt. Oh, and indignation at being self righteously told what to do in our own apartment. I fucking hate that.

Also, there was much disgust at the horrible Spanish "translation" that was also posted for the benefit of our one Latino neighbor. Who speaks perfect English, by the way. Take a look:

Nice, eh? Nice and RACIST. Way to not only assume our neighbor can't read English, but that they are also retarded. My favorite line is "Yo haber lung." Bwuh?

So, being the jealous guard of personal space and liberties that I am, I marched downstairs and went to her door (conveniently located on the outside of the building.) I found her door opened, all the windows opened (gee, how does smoke get in that fortress?) and Ms. "On the verge of death" standing at her sink energetically washing dishes.

Me: "HI. Did you post this?" *holds up note* *also: smile of frozen rage on face*

Her: *shocked face* "Ye-es."

Me: "It would have probably been a better idea to go to management." *points to the management office, located five feet from her fucking door*

Her: *Bitchily* "I thought any reasonable person would read that and sympathise with it." She does not note the irony that reasonable people not leaving crazy ass notes telling strangers what to do in their own homes.

Me: "That's nice. You should have gone through management. It's not nice to open your door to this."

Her: "It's my legal right!" I assume here that she means it's her legal right to post inflammatory notes on everyone's door. Maybe she meant it was her legal right to get hysterically defensive. Also, her "lung disease" did not adversely impact her ability to yell.

Me: *"Oh no you DID NOT" look on my face*

Monkey King: "Uh, is someone smoking in your apartment? No? Okay then."

Her: *doorslam*

Me: "Oh reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally."

Vindictive plan of action: *about to be plotted*

LOL, so welcome to the neighborhood. I don't know, usually I try not to draw a line in the sand upon moving into a new area, but different strokes, I guess. The best part was the look of shock on her face when she saw that someone might have actually not appreciated a snotty demand posted on their door.

I totally understand if people think I am as crazy as this nutjob for exacerbating the situation. I know that most people would have probably ignored the note and moved on. But my assumption is that she's one of those people who post these kinds of notes because she's gotten away with it. And she will continue to post her demands as long as she remains unchecked, and the longer that goes on, the harder it will be to get her to stop. One thing I have learned as a renter in bad neighborhoods is that if you give the local bully an inch (even if it's just an emotional bully like this one), they will walk all over you. Pretty soon we would be living in mortal fear of tracking in grass clippings.

So hopefully this woman will think twice before leaving letters like this on our doors now that someone has stood up to her (however lamely). I'm also hoping that when I talk to management this afternoon the verbal fire I spew will leave an indelible black mark in her renters file.