The several things:
  • The ladder landed on top of the fence at its exact midpoint, balanced perfectly atop the fence.
  • The Lady in Peril climbed further out onto her meager ledge.
  • Her colleagues, the ones who had already escaped the blaze, ran to the fence to pull the ladder over, still hollering "Jump!" and "Don't Jump!" at random intervals.
  • Burning hunks of pink whorehouse fell from the sky.
  • Xanthippe, impossibly pregnant, waddled towards a shady spot, Les Paul case in hand.
As the ladder teetered one way and then the other, folks on either side of the fence jumped to meet it. I, on my side, jumped like Dennis Rodman to try to tip it over to the other side. When the other end of the ladder started to drop, legions of half-clad harlots jumped to try to grab a rung and pull the massive thing over the edge and attempt to save the Lady on the Ledge who had had quite enough and decided to jump too. Only down. From her ledge.

The Manager of the establishment (let's call her "Madame X") was able to lay a firm grip on the ladder and her employees helped to wrestle the ungainly thing up against the house of blazing disrepute. So focused were they on their task, so helpless was I, standing on the far side of the fence, that I alone watched the fair L on the L plummet from her perch, landing on her negotiable backside and sustaining grevious bodily injuries.


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