I flung open the door, wide awake now. “What’s wrong?”

“Water is gushing from your apartment into my bedroom!”

We rushed around my apartment, checking the kitchen and the bathroom, flinging open closets, dropping to the floor to check for wet spots. Nothing. “Let’s go downstairs,” I said, “to check your place.”

In her bedroom she pointed to a drip so tiny that it would have taken twenty-four hours to fill a teapot. “This is the torrent?” I asked. “Call the manager.” I raced upstairs and went back to bed.

Five minutes later there was more knocking.

“What now?” I asked.

“I can’t find the landlord’s number. Please call him for me.”

So I did, and finally, half an hour later, I fell into a sound sleep.

That night I told my friend Claire what had happened: “And she woke me up! And she said it was gushing! And it was nothing! And I had to call the landlord! And we searched my apartment! And it was from the roof and didn’t involve me at all—”

Claire put her hand gently on my arm. “Linda, she was a frightened young woman, who’s probably never lived alone. To her, the drip was a big deal. Now I’m going to write down something that’ll calm you. Keep it in your wallet.”

“What is it?”

She handed me a yellow sticky note: “Thank God there’s no leak.”

God, when I get upset over nothing, remind me about that sticky note.