The disapperance of the flower pot

Things are starting to get a bit hectic lately that I've resorted to jotting stuff down on that ancient daily organizer of mine. The workload is starting to wear me down, with absolutely no help from my newly-implemented diet regimen. Welcome to the mid-year!

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Someone stole my ashtray today. On the third floor of our building, right outside on the front deck, there's this empty terra-cota flower pot that I use as an ashtray. The former resident, a leafy, thorny plant, had succumbed to the intense heat of this summer and had wilted and died a slow, agonizing death. It was then that I discovered a new use for it's home, and made cigarette breaks a bit more convenient, doing away with the need to flick my extinguished cigarette butts as far as I could, over the 12-foot wall, down to the asphalt on the street.

For over a month, that little pot had been a good friend to me, swallowing my excesses without so much as a peep out of it. The soil within it had disappeared under a sea of gold-banded white filter-tips, with the occasional half-consumed hard candy or gum. Some days, I made a game out of flicking my still glowering roach into it, waiting to see if it will ignite the other filters into a smoky inferno. On other days, I'd take aim with my empty crumpled soft-pack and try a 15-foot jumper, deliberately "boarding" against the wall behind it.

This morning however, as I lit up and took my first few drags, the pot was gone. I scanned around the deck, hoping it was some improbable game of hide-and-seek, but it was nowhere. I walked around, interrogating the other pots and the plants they harbored, but no one would admit having anything to do with nor having a clue about the pot-napping. I kicked over the spiny cactus (or is it cacti?), hoping to strike fear into the other plants, but still, no one budged. This came at a time when my cancer stick was down to its last couple of millimeters, and I could feel a panic coming to my person.

Alas, I dragged the last breath out of the cigarette, and stubbed out the remaining embers underneath my left shoe. Now what?

Dejected, I let loose a couple of curses before turning around and opened the door back into the building. As soon as I got in, I closed the door, and chucked the cigarette carcass into the garbage bin behind it.