Under where?

So yesterday we were finishing up cleaning out all of our things that had been temporarily stored in the kitchen. The new plastic lawn chairs my dad brought us were taken downstairs to the back patio. While the door was open, birthday boy, Furio, slipped out the back door of our apartment to the stairwell. I went out after him and he headed up the stairs. I headed after him and he rounded the bend and headed for the second floor landing. When he arrives, he sees that Dave, our upstairs neighbor, has once again left his back door open. (Why the man can't just close his door, I'll never know.) In Furio goes.

Now I've been on the record for some time about the fact that Dave's a bit...odd. He's a nice enough guy...but sometimes I wonder if the elevator goes all the way to the top, if you know what I mean. I stop at his back door and holler in, "Uh...Dave? Sorry but my cat's in your apartment." In the meantime, Furio has started inching his way through the kitchen into the living room when Dave's cat, Lover pops up. Lover is a well-known "other cat"-hater. She hisses at Furio and the coward immediately turns tail and darts under the kitchen table.

Dave comes out of the living room where he's been watching tv. In only his underwear. Now, it's his apartment and he has every right to do whatever he pleases but I'm horrified when I realize that he's going to come to the back door and talk to me in his underpants. Stick your head around the corner, for crying out loud! He comes back and tells me that he's afraid he'll get scratched if he tries to get Furio out since Furio doesn't know him very well. He asks me to come into the kitchen and get him. I run into the apartment, crawl under the table after Furio, scoop him up (ignoring his growled threats of violence) and am out the door in under 60 seconds, hollering a "sorry 'bout that, Dave" behind me as I practically leap over the stair railing in my hurry to get away from Dave and his tighty whiteys.

Once we're back inside our own apartment, my brain processes the fact that Dave's apartment is a mess. The linoleum is all torn and grimey, his kitchen table and countertop are covered in junk, papers, and all manner of garbage. At our house, three bacos on the counter means Mike is calling out the HazMat team and cordoning off the countertop. I tried to get Mike to go up the stairs where the door is still open and peek in. I thought that if he saw the state of Dave's apartment, he'd appreciate ours a little more. He chuckled at the suggestion without speaking and gave me a quick kiss on his way out to his recliner. Too bad.

The real question? Will I ever again be able to look at Dave and not picture him in his underwear? Yikes.