Better Living Through Chemistry

The Street Hustle

The fire alarm went off at 3:30am. I crawled out of bed, my eyes slits, found my glasses, jeans, shoes and shirt. I still managed to trip over the corner of the coffee table as I made my way to my desk to grab my MacBook and keys. Why is it building fires always seem to come between 3 and 6 in the morning? It must be Walter Winchell, Patron Saint of the Sensationalist Media, getting his weird minions something with casualties to put on the Internet and 7am news.

The Security Guard caught me as I was walking out the fire entrance at the far end of the carport. “Go back to bed. There’s no fire. Those stoner kids on the fourth floor pulled the alarm,” he told me.

The Phoenix PD had been called to investigate the strong stench of marijuana coming from their apartment three times weekly for the past three months. After two weeks worth of warnings, the cops had deemed these burn outs as morons and had started sending the summonses for disturbing the piece by snail mail. The four stoners had received 6 tickets at $500 a pop in the past two weeks alone. If I were a more conspiracy minded individual, I’d believe the ‘G’ put these idiots in the building to single handedly make sure drugs were never legalized in the state of Arizona.

Although the security guard for the complex was sure these guys were the culprits behind the first fire alarm incident, he had no proof. Thus, the police were powerless to do anything to the offenders. Per procedure, the police left an officer behind for a couple of hours just to make sure no smoke or flames had been missed by the fire department during the hemp-produced chaos. Shortly after 4:30am, two of the stoner’s in question came downstairs and walked right over to the fire alarm, giggling and pulled the alarm. They ran several steps before stopping to laugh. Their bout of hysteria made it easier for the Phoenix Police to arrest the boys. No cop likes a runner.

This time there will be no $500 tickets or warnings. The boys won’t even be allowed to do their time in pink pajamas out in Sherriff Joe Arpaio’s Tent City. No, this was an act of graduation that led straight up to the Maricopa County Jail in West Phoenix where daily advances from a short Mexican drug cartel hitman with eyelid tattoo’s should take up their time before arraignment.

So much for better living through chemistry.