I wake up at 3 am. Can’t sleep. Open my iPhone and start scrolling. There’s an ad for a sleeping product.

Stop walking up at 3 am, it promises.

Ok pal, that’s it. I slide open the second story window and hurl the phone hard at the sidewalk. It connects with a thud and slides for a few feet before coming to a scratchy stop. Lights flip on across the street. My wife rolls over and grunts. That’s on you Zuckerberg!

Theres a knock at my door.

“Do you know what time it is” I say, buttoning together my pajamas.

It’s a man in a tan trench coat. Squirrely eyed. He looks like he’s strung out on glue or about to be.

“iPhone insurance! How bout it? Cracked screens – we got you covered. Dropped in toilet – covered.” He pulls open his trench coat. I gasp but I’m suddenly relieved. He’s only displaying insurance brochures. He holds out a pamphlet eagerly. “Caught ought in the rain—youbetcha. Run over by a truck – wegotya! Buy now – pay later. 4 installments. Cancel anytime. No commitments!”

“I’m not taking any of your brochures.” I say. “This is my house.” I say. “You simply cannot knock on a man’s door at 4 in the morning and expect decent results.”

“Take off your shoes!” he shouts.

I look down and I’m not even wearing…

Rookie mistake. He slaps me hard in the face.

I fall to one knee but then I raise myself back up and grab him by the collar. Twenty-seven years of swallowed aggression is about to be unleashed on this perp. All the videos they made me watch in HR. I’ve got at least an inch and ten pounds on him.

“You can’t!” he says.

“Why not?” I say, biting my bottom lip.

“I work for the TSahhh!”

I smack him succinctly on the cheek to get things started.

“Oh yeah?” I say “Can’t I?” I’ve got him by the tie and he’s squirming like a panicked trout on fishing wire.

I hurl invectives at the top of my lungs. Spittle forms upon my lips and a droplet launches towards his eyeballs. I feel no remorse. I feel nearly nothing. Only an intense burning in my gut. I’ve delivered two slaps maybe four and am preparing a knockout punch. My fist clenches tightly in anticipation.

“Hey Mister!” a young girl in a green plaid dress speaks in a high pitched squeal, interrupting my tirade. She and her twin have set foot on my porch. Both clad in matching buckled shoes with doily socks pulled up to their knees. The rosy fingers of dawn have crept upon us. I bite my tongue.

“Would you like to buy Girl Scout cookies? It’s for a good cause.”

“Fine” I say. “I’ll take the Samoas” I say.

They look at each other and giggle. “He means Caramel Delights” they say in perfect unison, pronouncing it Carmel instead of Car-a-mel. They erupt into psychopathic, synchronized laughter.

“Take my money” I say and gesture towards my wallet.

They hand me a dozen boxes. One after another, stacking them like Tetris bricks upon my outstretched forearms. The little one has let herself inside the house. They’re both little.

She finds my wallet on the table by the front door and proceeds to empty the bill fold. Then she takes my credit card and holds it up to a gadget on her phone. It makes beeping sounds. One after another. Beep, blip, beep. The sound of my wasted days converted into sugary treats. The sound of my life transacted into nothingness. Why was I even born? Boxes of thin mints are scattered across the carpet like a tornado just rolled through.

“What’s his problem?” They ask the perp in the trench coat in between credit-card swipes.

“Hey, come back here” I say. I turn and hurl the rest of the cookie boxes towards the couch. My dog is licking the cardboard. She commences to nibbling on the corner of one of the boxes.

“Hey, I’m not through with you!” I shout.

He’s halfway down the driveway already, ducking behind the Girl Scouts for cover.

“Don’t or I’ll report you!” He says. His voice whining like the air let out of a taxidermied pig you just stabbed with a mail-order bayonet.

I give chase but he’s off to a solid head start. The Girl Scouts are running back towards their mother’s Subaru. She revs the gas.

“Hurry!” the mommy shouts. “That man is crazy. Did you get his money?”

Now I’m in the middle of the road. The perp has gotten away. I’m left all alone.

“Go ahead report me!” I shout after him as he tails it out of view. I watch as he recedes into a bouncing dot on the edge of my perspective.

Son of a bitch, what do you know? My phone is lying at my feet.

The cover is a mishmash of spider web cracks but the screen is still flickering light.

Sleep better now! Guaranteed results! Click on the link for more.

I pick it up, raise it above my head with both hands, like an angry silverback, and smash it into the pavement. I do this again and again. Plastic shrapnel explodes and flies every which way. I wince as a shard slices into my shin and embeds itself in the soft flesh. A sliver of broken screen whizzes by my eye, and scratches the blubber beneath my eyebrow. My forehead is leaking blood. We are traumatized soldiers. All of us.

I’m wearing my comfy socks, Gatorade t shirt, and Santa Claus boxers.

“Go ahead report me!” I shout. “Report me to your damn superiors!” I shout. “Go ahead I dare you!” I shout. I’m not even angry anymore. I’m just beginning to have some fun. This is the most fun I’ve had since I can’t even remember. Middle school maybe.

My head is craned back and my esophagus is pushing through my neck skin. I’m yelling at stars 4000 light years away.

By the time my voice reaches them, your progeny will have been dead for millennia.

My wife, Courtney is standing in the doorway clutching her robe at the neck. She’s 36, tired but not exhausted.

Everyone else has long since disappeared. I wonder if she caught a glimpse of the perp or the crazy girl-scout mother. You know the girl scouts should go to prison for child labor infringement. Not the scouts themselves. They’re too young and stupid. It’s not their fault. But the greedy mothers and the scout leaders and everyone up the chain until you’re Bill Burr at an illuminati party, choking out an antler bedecked Rothschild.

“Honey” she implores. “Pepper has gotten into the cookies.”

“Aha!” I say, setting sight on the tattered boxes of thin mints. “So it wasn’t just a dream.”

“What?” she says. “I’m going back to sleep.”

“Don’t worry” I say. “I’ll clean up this mess. Go back to sleep sweetheart.” I say.

A neighbor in his pajamas chew on his coffee mug and waves at me from a few yards away, his head cocked slightly askance. He is pretending to look inside his mailbox. Bill or Bob or Paul I think. Allen? By now I’ve had dozens of neighbors. What’s the point in even remembering. I ignore the plastic carnage and carry myself back inside.

It’s almost five am now. I pour a strong cup of coffee. There’s no way I’m getting back to sleep. I’ve got a big day of work ahead of me.