It may seem crazy, but I'm the closest thing I have to a voice of reason

If you can attack from the basement... why the hell not. Why barge in through the front door? Why repel from a helicopter? Why not plant a big ticking, hissing, cantankerous thing in the basement that reeks enough of sulfur that someone is bound to come looking. They will take so long to register the horror of it that you will be long gone, half way across the country - stealing sips of tequila from your patrons glasses when they laugh at the television. Years later, and maybe seconds later, you will wonder what became of that trap. You will never see the shock, the awe, the aftermath. They might have disarmed it with the sadistic smile they often used on you. You might grow tired of not knowing and drive for four days straight to find out what smoldering rubble is left of your old life; this just in time to find that everyone made friends with the phlegmatic monster downstairs that you capitulated and cogitated and conceptualized; that it lives in their hearts like an old aunt and when queried doesn't even remember your name. You will find the old pictures of you down from their spots on the wall because you disappeared Johny, into the hot night like a dying scream. You pissed off like countless deadbeats and grandfathers and we took this grumbling thing in as an effigy of our forgotten worth. You hate your face like you did in high school - you scrutinize your walk and the swing of your arms. Arsonists at least stick around to make sure the job is done.