“The night in question, I had put aside my perpetual lavatory read, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, because of all the manuscripts (inedible green tomatoes) submitted to Cavendish-Redux, my new stable of champions. I suppose it was about eleven o'clock when I heard my front door being interfered with. Skinhead munchkins mug-or-treating?Cherry knockers? The wind?Next thing I knew, the door flew in off its ruddy hinges! I was thinking al-Queda, I was thinking ball lightning, but no. Down the hallway tramped what seemed like an entire rugby team, though the intruders numbered only three. (You'll notice, I am always attacked in threes.) "Timothy," pronounced the gargoyliest, "Cavendish, I presume. Caught with your cacks down.""My business hours are eleven to two, gentlemen," Bogart would have said, "with a three-hour break for lunch. Kindly leave." All I could do was blurt, "Oy! My door! My ruddy door!”

“Six hours later, when I returned, I was greeted at the door- and this before it was even opened -by the overpowering smell of vinegar. What were my neighbors thinking? That a douche-obsessed woman with a gigantic, three-foot vagina lived next door?”

“I froze like a startled bunny. Fumbling the disk into my purse, I cut my eyes toward the hallway. Had I locked the front door? Of course I had. Only a moron would break into someone’s house and forget to lock the door. Damn it! I’d forgotten to lock the door.”

“Last night I placed a handwritten note on the front door of my neighbor’s house that said, “Sorry, we’re closed. Come back tomorrow after 9 am.” I wouldn’t have done it had I known he’d knock on my door and ask to spend the night because he thought I was open.
”

“I can sleep like a champion. I once slept through a smoke alarm going off. For three hours. In my bedroom.”

“All I know is that the fear I have been battling all night is breaking down the door of my ignorance. As my feet slam down I feel not the hard, wet asphalt but the soft Persian rug that led to the staircase in my father’s home. In the glow of lightning the dancing trees are illuminated but I see my mother in the glow of candlelight, spinning, twirling, her hair fanned out behind her. It is falling over me, saturating my thoughts, and I cannot. I cannot let it in.”