Witness

My neighbors are weird. I’m friendly enough with a lot of them, I suppose, given that I circle the blocks over and over again screaming things like, “Poop! POOP! Go poop!” It’s a little hard to stay anonymous when you’re toting around a snarfing, hoovering dog who’s pooping things like earplugs and cigarette butts and chomping on frogs and dead lizards, but that’s really not the point.

I live in a gated community in a snooty-type town. Incidentally, the Snootypants Factor is one of a frillion reasons why we struggle here, and yet another thing we failed to fully play out in our minds before we got here. We are decidedly un-snooty, if it isn’t obvious, and teenagers should not drive their own Escalades, is all I’m saying. And yet, travel two blocks outside the area, and people like Junior ain’t got no ear!.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on the day, my particular gated community has absolutely none of the snootfactor, and all of the…well, God, sometimes, it’s like every other neighborhood I guess, with drug deals and rednecks and out of control teenagers who break into common areas and steal televisions (three are missing from the gym, and they were taken by a resident. Awesome.) Of course there’s Organ Lady, and I’ve certainly mentioned Mulch Lady, and Domestic Violence Lady, and there is, of course Nice Midwestern Lady, whose version of “getting tough” with the Vicodin dealers (He’s a young veteran, and has been selling his prescription refills to teenagers) who live across the street from her is yelling, “WE JUST SAY NO IN THIS NEIGHBORHOOD!” every time they leave the house.

Anyway, I had too much to drink on Friday night. Too many liters (liters of wine. LITERS.), and it wasn’t on purpose (it never is). I feel compelled to point out that all of this drinking was taking place while I was playing the new-fangled Monopoly “Here & Now” version, and if that doesn’t illustrate the kind of rock n’ roll lifestyle we live, I don’t know what does.

So, Friday night, in my drunken haze, I decided to come home after a walk with the dog and take copious notes of my interaction with my neighbor – the one who, by the way, is fresh from a divorce and living a fratboy-type existence at the age of 39, complete with a Mustang. Every night he scares me by jumping out from behind his truck, which is always mysteriously full of watermelons, and screeches “PUPP-AY!” I can always smell the acrid beer on his breath, and there is always a six-pack of Bud Light within reach.

Near as I can tell from my notes (Notes. I made notes of this. Who does that?*), I walked in on a party of sorts, with my neighbor (who is dating our other neighbor, a single mom with two little girls), making out with what I think was a teenager I recognized from the neighborhood inside the damn car in the driveway. Meanwhile, another one of our (married, with children) neighbors was making out with a 22-year-old OTHER neighbor on a folding chair, and well, it just got VERY VERY AWKWARD when I showed up walking my cockeyed dog, and can I just add that throughout this whole situation, the car was blasting Bon Jovi’s “Bad Medicine” on the stereo system and they were bobbing their kissing heads to the music? And that I was veryvery drunk as I watched this all go down, so I probably stood there open-mouthed for far too long?

I just stood there awkwardly, while the Philandering Men (who are having this sort of drunken make out fest in the driveway – THE DRIVEWAY – of the fratboy’s girlfriend) proceed to act very, very cheery towards me, I guess to try to defuse the situation, by yelling things like “DOG!” and “DOG’S MOM!” because they have no idea what my name is, and I just wanted to die, that much I remember.

It finally ended when Mustangman awkwardly asked if my dog had to poop and then announced:

“BECAUSE I SURE HAVE TO POOP RIGHT NOW! AND WHO DOESN’T?”

Then he ran away into his girlfriend’s house.

I haven’t seen either of them since. And it’s just…well, it’s just so fucking weird.

*For the record, I do this all the time. Not the drunken part, but the notes part. Writing a book has rendered me a fool for the Moleskine, and I document anything and everything out of the ordinary, and some of the ordinary. It’s an embarrassing habit.

**Sarah McLachlan

15 comments October 1st, 2006