You can't hide money

I live in a pretty good neighborhood. For the most part I enjoy spending time with the people that live around me with only two real exceptions. Next door to me is an elderly couple who both seem to live off nothing more than toast, coffee, and the happiness of others. They’ve had confrontations with most of us about things like magical moving property lines, accusations that we weren’t living in our own homes because we were renting them, the demand to stop non-existant logging trucks from driving thru their yard, and threats to call the police when people park in front of my house because they can’t use the remaining 12 foot wide lane to get around them in their car. My responses have ranged from laughing in their face, to calling the police several weeks in a row to gain entry to their home due to my fear that my neighbors may have passed away in their sleep. With these two I figure tit for tat, we’re fucking even.

Then we look across the street to see the second exception, a very small brick home overcrowded with a mother and three or four children. The property has been an eye sore since we bought our house although it has gotten much worse over the years. The husband that once mowed the grass every month or so has moved away and now the family either assumes fairies perform the trimming at night or they just choose to ignore when neighbors get fed up enough to mow it for them. Any trees that fall are magically cut up and stacked by the road. Children’s toys seem to be vaguely grouped in the front yard for a garage sale that never seems to occur. Appliances that stop working are moved to the driveway to make room for their replacements, and when additions are made to the home they sit for years covered in tar paper before the siding is applied. None of these things have provoked my rage… until she got a dog. The dog was chained to the front porch for days at a time and between short trips around the yard dodging piles of it’s own shit it spent most of it’s time barking at my house. The 2nd night we lost sleep I worked up my speech for “the bitch across the street.” It was to be:

“I’m not here about the fact you never mow your yard or thank the people that do. I’m not here about the half a garage sale you’re growing in your garden, the fact that you never trim any trees or bushes, or that your fence is falling down. I didn’t walk over here to bitch about the washing machine in your driveway, the fact you leave your trash can in my yard for days at a time, or because I’m forced to listen to the 140 db muffler on your boy friend’s car at two in the morning. None of those things or the big wheel without the fucking big wheel on the front are why I’m here. I’m here because you don’t know how to take care of your fucking dog and if you don’t learn I’m going to steal him and take him to someone that gives a shit.”

I was going to say that. But it was 2 am when I wrote that. It was cold outside and I knew I could find a sleeping pill faster than my slippers. The next night about 5 am it was happening again and that is when I realized that I’ve changed. After only two hours of sleep I decided it was easier to call the cops, let them handle the dog and then get the city to make her clean up her yard. So instead of showing my ass like I’ve enjoyed some many times in the past I let my tax dollars do my bitching while I sat at home on the previously mentioned ass. Is this the change Obama was talking about? I’m not sure how I feel about it yet, but based on the results I can probably do more damage this way.