Taking Us Home

It’s cold here in the south, and the natives are clueless. There are frost warnings, and in the late nights, it has gone down as low as 34 F. And they are not one bit pleased. The nightly news crews have been devoting somewhere in the range of 1/4 of the evening’s coverage to educating us all on how people can function in frigid weather. There was talk of freezing pipes, even though it wasn’t supposed to go remotely below freezing, the pipes might freeze and your WHOLE HOUSE COULD EXPLODE! GAAAH! PANIC PANIC PANIC. Sometimes they even took a moment to tell people to do really daring things…like wear jackets.

JACKETS! OH MY GOD!

It’s back in the 70s today, thank sweet Jesus, because I’m pretty sure the world would stop if this kept up. It’s not a joke that they don’t know what to do when it dips below 65 – on my way to work yesterday, I spied a jogger in a North Face puffy parka, mittens and a face mask around 9 a.m. It was 48 degrees. I was wearing a jean jacket. And I survived. There was talk of the miracle girl in denim who survived the blistering cold with no clothes on.
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We had our homeowner’s association* meeting this evening, and the natives were no less restless than they were the first time. Despite the fact that our home was attempted to be broken into, and the other night I *swear* I saw a kid with a Taser wandering the streets of our fair neighborhood, and a few teenage punks were attempting to teach their pit bull puppy to swim in our pool, the issues at hand were not related to our safety or health concerns.

It was mulch. I guess the landscaping company isn’t doing enough to keep up with mulch, and THESE PEOPLE NEED MULCH, dammit, or their lives will end and the sky will fall down in large chunks around their pine-strawed gardens. MULCH MULCH MULCH! A rotund woman in a red sweater actually yelled, “I HAVE THREE BEDS WITH NO MULCH. YOU PROMISED ME MULCH LAST YEAR AND WHERE IS IT?! I NEEEEEED MUUUUUUUUULLLLLLCCCCHHHHHHHHH!!!!” and fell into a pile on the floor. And she wasn’t alone. At least nine more mulchmongers were waiting in the wings to express their displeasure at the quality of mulch the “poor immigrant landscape workers” smear on our little 8×10 yards every month or so. Because mulch, you see, makes the world go round.

Finally, the subject turned to the punky kids in the neighborhood. I see these kids every night at the clubhouse gym when I do my little run on the treadmill, iPod blaring while I try not to be distracted or frightened by the giant teenage boys lifting eleventy million pounds and grunting while their girlfriends sit by in tight jeans, swearing at them between cell phone conversations. Or listening to them tell stories of their recent shoplifting escapades or their repeated attempts to figure out how to get a gun on the black market. When I’m there alone at night, I often close the blinds so that I don’t invite people into the gym to maul me, you know, just in case. I’m not willing to DIE for the sake of a toned ass, you know.

I didn’t think it was a big deal until tonight, when one woman launched off on the behavior of teenagers at the clubhouse, and busted out with, “Don’t think I don’t know what kind of SEX goes on when I see those blinds closed at the gym. CLOSED BLINDS MEANS SEX!”

“That’s me!” I spoke up in the back for no good reason, trying to explain why I close the blinds. Heads swiveled and mouths gaped, because everyone had just figured out that *I* am the one having sex in the gym. ME! I AM THE SEX MACHINE AT THE GYM! They turned on me with the fury of hell. I’m pretty sure the fat woman in the red sweater drooled at the prospect of fresh meat. Before I could defend myself, the head of the association, sensing a mutinous and likely bloody turn of events, distracted us with more mulch talk, promising truckloads of red mulch by Friday, staining of the sidewalk be damned! THESE PEOPLE NEED THEIR MULCH! And please don’t kill the cute girl in the back! THANKS!

Meanwhile, Husband stared at me, horrified, “DUDE. THEY THINK WE’RE HAVING SEX AT THE GYM.”

Mulch. Can we talk about mulch? I AM SO MUCH MORE COMFORTABLE WITH MULCH.

*I live in a gated community. It’s not that I’m rich or snobby or anything fancy. EVERYONE lives in a gated community down here. It’s like, law. Meh.

**The Samples.

6 comments February 16th, 2006