Dear Diary 

The college kids from downstairs have all been evicted from the fire. I can still smell the funk from all the wet carpets and fire damage. Fire. The great cleanser.

Yesterday the phone woke me up early. It rang and rang and rang and for a while it was part of my dream where I was listening to a phone ringing. When I did wake, I picked it up. Some robot informed me I had won a Caribbean cruise. Then I was instructed to "press 9" and "stay on the line." A cruise sounded about right. The last time I won anything I was a kid. I won a pocket knife for drawing a picture of some veterans or something. I pressed 9 and stayed on the line like a good soldier. Some lady who seemed pretty pumped about me winning this cruise, told me I'd be gone for a long time on this cruise. She'd stop every few moments and ask me how it all sounded. I told her this free trip sounded fabulous. She made it sound like it was all a pretty big fucking deal. I told her the last time I won anything was a pocket knife for my drawing of veterans or something. She seemed to enjoy this story. Then she asked me how I wanted to pay for this trip. She suggested Visa. I asked what happened to the FREE part she was going on about at length a few second earlier. This is when things soured between us. I told her there was no way I'd be giving her any Visa number for a free trip that's not free. She asked me to "hold the line." After a few seconds some guy with a Rebel drawl picked up. He congratulated me on my "free trip". I told him it wasn't a "free trip". He asked for my Visa number. I offered him a stolen Canadian Tire credit card number. He started to call me "buddy." While on the line I walked around the place in my underwear while this guy kept calling me "buddy." Outside it was freezing. The people walking below had great clouds of frozen breath billowing around their heavy covered heads. The looked like well dress dragons. I went and stood in the bathroom looking at myself in the cracked mirror. I got pissed off at this guy calling me "buddy" and trying to get a Visa number out of me. I cut him off. I called him a dick head. It just seemed right. He questioned my sexuality and I got dizzy from all this. After about fifteen minutes of this back-and-forth I finally hung up.

Now the guy sleeping on the couch just farted and rolled over. I now want him out. This was no longer any fun. The time was 9:23. I started a small grease fire on the stove so the alarm would go off and scare this guy out of my place. It worked. The alarm went off. The guy woke up, grabbed him shoes and yellow scarf and left without saying a word. Then the fire department came and kicked in my door and sprayed the shit out of everything with some foam. While they did this, I smoked out on the sidewalk. I became a dragon. It was the second fire in the house in a week. Uncle Wallace came by at around ten. He bought me a truckers breakfast with some coupons he won by threatening someone on the radio.

Over pancakes, eggs, sausage, coffee and toast, I told him about the time I won a pocket knife after drawing a picture of some veterans. In the bathroom I found some pills. These, unlike the cruise I won, were actually free.