My neighbor committed suicide the other night. I heard the gunshot. I personally have never shot a gun in the heat of the night. (I think that was a tv show once. . .) 

Here’s how it started.

My wife went to bed early so Simon and I stayed up and watched the X Files. Around 10 o’clock I started to get tired. So I got ready for bed.

Then I noticed there were wet clothes in the washer. I threw them in the dryer, got a book and started to read.

 Around 10:30

I heard a loud pop 

Like a gunshot.

I waited for a scream or a thud and thought to myself  “Man, this neighbourhood sure is changing. Maybe we ought to move?”

I imagined a wife finally putting an end to her husband and his annoying habits. Or maybe it was the younger couple who fought a lot. 

I never heard anything else. No ambulance or anything. I guess I would have to wait for the smell of rotting flesh.

The next morning I was going to ask my wife if she heard it also. (Simon and her slept through the excitement.)

But first I had to fold the laundry. 

That’s when I found it. 

Shards of plastic and the head of a cigarette lighter, right there in the clean clothes.

My wife had left a lighter in her pocket and it had exploded in the dryer. 

I stomped into the room to tell her just what I thought about this situation. “Babe! I’m not mad I’m just going to show this to you and it’s important! Really important! You left a lighter in your pocket and it exploded last night in the dryer.

 I thought our neighbour had shot himself or something. You have to check your pockets. It almost gave me a heart attack!”

I wanted to be satisfied blaming my wife but then I remembered. I had washed my shirts. She had some clothes in the dryer, already finished drying. And I tossed my couple of shirts in with them and re ran the dryer. 

The lighter had already made it through a full cycle. 

I was just lazy and didn’t want to put the laundry up.

Because that’s the kind of tasks you want to do at 10pm on a Friday. Fold laundry. 

If I hadn’t been lazy, it never would’ve happened. 

But it’s such a vague and gray area. 

Who’s to know who to blame?