I didn't know how drunk I was until I got outside. Not to worry, I made it home, bouncing my way upstairs to the apartment. Not fit for any debate, I climbed into bed beside my wife and quickly started to snore, but not for long since nature called and I was obliged to get up.

First leaning against the wardrobe door, some words from my wife would help me refocus, heading towards the bathroom. Next followed this scratching and shouting and banging but also complaints about the plumber who'd recently serviced our toilet. Then came relief and all the noise ended. Slowly and quietly, walking backwards, I made my way into bed. My feet were wet.

She knew to get up, tracking wet footprints along the landing to where I'd pissed against the front door. And as for my bitching about the plumber, it seems I'd been trying to flush the door handle.

I have many siblings but one sister I am particularly closer to. She comes to my place often and we both do our grocery shopping together every week. Every time she comes over, one of the first things she does is immediately head to the kitchen to look for something to snack on. Since I am a year older than she is, she has made it my "older sister obligation" to feed her. I now make sure there is no food for her to snack on the days that she comes just so she can't raid my kitchen.

One day, it just so happens that she finds something to snack on. Now let me say this for a better perspective. I come from a big family with me being the only skinny one. My sister lost a lot of weight after high school and doesn't want to gain any back, so she quite literally snacks throughout the whole day except dinner and sometimes breakfast. So back to it, she comes in hungry and goes straight to the kitchen looking for a snack while shouting about my "older sister obligations." Apparently it is my job to make she does not go hungry. I tell her to stop taking my food but she has already found the cheese. She just so happens to love cheese. She takes it out of the fridge and starts munching on a slice. As she's eating, she starts looking for the calories to see how much a slice is. On her second piece of cheese, she sees the calories and says, "Damn, one slice is 90 calories? I ate two, that's like 160 calories."

I had to stop looking at the phone and really process what she just said. I look at my boyfriend to make sure he heard the same thing I did. He looks back at me and says, "Just don't say it."

I did not listen. "Did you just say 160?"

She looks at me and says with the utmost confidence, "Yeah. 90+90 is 160."

I can literally feel the disappointment on my face. "What's 9+9?"

"18. Why?" Her gears finally start turning as I stare at her dumbstruck. "Oh wait! It's 180!" She laughs boisterously.

All I can do is just stare at her. "Oh my God. You're really gonna be someone's lawyer one day."

Another day walking up along the chipped beige wall. Beyond the plain color, its easy to see the jungle mural with its small ornate leaves painted under it. Cars rush through the intersection to the main road, their axels squeak from the sharp left turn blowing trash and broken car bits towards the narrow sidewalk. At the beginning of the crosswalk I stop and wait as a few hot rusty Junkers rush through it, tired engines putter up one of few steep hills in central Florida. It's hard to hear the beep of the crosswalk button when I press it with my elbow. The intersection crossing 13th street with Archer Road is the hottest place in the city, a solid infertile space of sidewalk and grey concrete that bakes any pedestrian or peddler like a slow cooking egg. I assumed all cars with their shade and air conditioning had it better until the day I turned to see who was parked first at the stoplight.

It was a convertible car with its top up, several people in tank tops and cheap shorts were slouching inside its shiny leather interior. After another inspection of the vehicle I realized the top was not up, but ripped off. While this alone would be strange, the most eye catching area of the car was its front. A series of wild scenarios crossed my mind the second I put my eyes on it. A fire under the hood? A bad front collision? A car part robbery? None of my ideas, brought any certain explanation to what I was seeing. The entire car was black and it looked like the color was applied through spray paint. Any front it had could not be understood by the bystanders terms. Nothing but random parts attached in that area through duct tape or sheer luck. This area too was blackened by spray paint. A windshield or side windows were nonexistent, just a loose car body with headlights dangling off like dead flowers.

There it idled, a poor clunker that had been disemboweled and sewn back together into a disfigured metal Frankenstein with shabby paint. A tired sagging shell of what it once was. That is, if it was anything to start out with. I couldn't believe such a sad machine could drive, but it did. When the light turned green its tires moved forward. All four of them seemed like a separate entity from the car that bobbed on top. Any logical person would suspect the main body was seconds away from sliding off of its foundations as the loose covering trudged through the intersection. It left as quick as it came, some strange anomaly that gave my bizarre dreams a run for their money. I crossed the sidewalk, seeing the last of the thing lurch up the hill and disappear into traffic.