The following is a true story. The names have been changed to protect the stupid.
Dialogue is taken verbatim.
So picking up from my last blog, I never got my Indiana Government approved mop and bucket. My neighbors are still on the waiting list for theirs, and may not receive any until the end of May. My house is now much drier, but my mom discovered cracks in the foundation. I'm no house inspector, but I'm pretty sure that's a bad thing. Ah well, at least it's a bright and sunny day, and the weather is really nice, so really, what more can I ask for?
.... How about new neighbors? Yeah that would be rad.
Behind my house is an alley, where the entire cast of Jerry Springer circa 1998 lives. Which is funny, since I legit live four blocks down from a couple that really were on an episode of Jerry Springer. This was back when Jerry took cameras to peoples' houses, and there is an episode where he showed up, and his crew videotaped a brawl between two sisters fighting over the man they loved... who was also their cousin. It's both sad and thrilling to say "My neighbors were on Jerry Springer" and it's so true too.
Behind my house are three houses, crammed together really closely. Chain-link fences, yards full of old garbage, half empty pools, dilapidated garages, and each one is owned by a half dressed couple with about 3-5 children, under the age of 8. And each child has pockets full of little fireworks, cherry bombs, snappers, and the ring leader has a Budweiser bottle, lovingly strapped to his bike by dear old Daddy. I shit you not.
These are the people who've been getting drunk on and around my property the last few years I've lived here, and have some pretty mean dogs.
Now granted, these beasts are not as dangerous as Maria's Hell Beasts, but this is the third chain-link fence the neighbors have needed in two years. I was outside the day one of the dogs bent a fence almost completely open, as he was barking at me.
Generally, I adore dogs of all breeds ...It's just badly trained dogs and their dumbshit owners I can't stand.
So today I get up to take the trash out. But maybe I should have seen a mirror before I did that?
I was still in my pajamas, my hair was a wreck, and because the ground is still damp, I walked out in pink with blue polka-dotted galoshes. All I was missing was a pair of goggles and a fanny pack, and my Crazy Nut Freak costume would have been complete. Considering where this story is going, I can't decide if my Saturday Morning Cartoons attire works to my benefit or not.
So I head outside, feeling purdy an like I looks guuuud, and I put the trash into the trash bin. A novel concept really. Keeping trash inside of a trash can, it's a shame not many people here believe in not polluting.
Suddenly, the three dogs all zip out, bending the fences and barking like mad. And let me say that there's nothing quite like an early morning heart attack to start the day right. The tallest of the dogs at four feet in length, starts using his paws to leverage himself up, and he almost succeeds in climbing the damn fence for the second time since it was installed.
I don't know. Maybe fear brings out the worst in me. Fear and stress. Usually I either race back inside the house or I try using a few dog calls I learned in Kindergarten. Things like "sit" and "nice doggie" but instead of my usual polite fear, I took a deep breath, and released a very loud and commanding.....
SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!
All three dogs went "Yipe!!" and ran straight to their equally frightened owners.
With that I slammed the gate shut, erroneously thinking that this mess was done for today. When suddenly a group of kids start poking the fence, with one being so brave as to try and jump it.
"HEY!! I can see yew. I heard yew scream shut the fack up. It's not funny."
I don't know why they do this, but my neighbors and their kids speak with a very fake Virginia-New Jersey accent. It's probably the most annoying, self-racist, fake accent a person of Caucasian descent could have. What bothers me the most is that the entire lot of them were born and raised in Illinois and Indiana, and have boasted openly before about never even having traveled as far as (and I quote) "the far away country of Minnesota" so where did these accents come from??
Worse? You can hear them trying to have a "Chi-KAH-go" accent underneath. Want to see someone have a jaw workout? Ask them to say "milk". The fake Jerseyginia accent fights with the "Kahgo" one, producing the word "Mwaaaaaaaaahlk", it's rather hilarious to see them make a fool of themselves with dairy product.
Whatever. I see the kids poking and hanging on my fence.
So I storm over to the fence and rip the door open. "What you say to me BOY??"
The children hop onto scooters and the Bud Bike, and start speeding. I turn the corner, just as they make it halfway down the alley, only for them to stop, and check to see if I'm still back here.
"KEEP runnin' BOY!!" I boom. I am in no mood for this.
The children speed off.
Suddenly, all of the other Squidbillies pop over to bat at the fences. Here's a good shot of where this is going, I'll let you decide which one is me:
"Excuse you, what is yer problem?" Says a fat woman in a hoodie, hot pants, greasy hair, an ankle tattoo of a melted butterfly and no shoes, with again, a very fake and self-racist accent.
"Those kids were on my property!" I snap. I've learned that small words work best, but "property" is one of a handful of large words they seem to understand.
"They only did that because you were being mean to to these poor, defenseless dogs! You deserve it!" As she's reading me the Peta act, the dog jumps the fence and starts barking too loud for me to hear her. Soon the other over 30 year olds start barking with the dogs, so without hesitation, I bellow:
SHUT THE MUTHAFUCKIN' HELL UP!!
Two dogs bow their heads in shame, one runs to his porch and barks from there. In the distance, I spot two very small children, looking to their elder siblings, and in baby voices I hear "Fuck? Fuck? Fuck? Fuck! Fuck!! Fuck Fuck!! Motha Fuck!!" in a Jay and Silent Bob approved moment, while another child from across the street yells "HEY!! I didn't know Madea lived here?" I have been told that when I am pissed, I tend to sound like I belong on BET.
So of course I got the "you've got some nerve" speech, which is followed by another neighbor, Butterball.
Butterball, all 5'7 and 479 lbs. of him, comes out in a stained wifebeater and Old Navy shorts. Why he just has to have his two cents wafting in my direction too.
"Do yew even understand mah dwogs?" He says in a threatening tone.
"Apparently not, sir. Otherwise I wouldn't be screaming at them to shut the fuck up!!"
Lemme ask you if this argument sounds familiar? "These dogs is trained to protect our property, so when they see a burglur, they is trained tew bark real loud to scare away IN-trudurs." And yes folks, he said that as though somewhere exists a group of out-truders.
"I'm not on your fucking property!! I'm on MY property, taking out MY trash into MY can!!" I seriously can't believe he tried the "protecting my property" speech on me.
"Well they saw yew, and YEW scared 'em, and they was thinklin' yer probably gonna steal from MAH house!!"
By the way, he's three houses down from me. So there's enough of a distance to fit two to three cars from where my footses were placed, to his fence.
"FROM HERE???? *stamps feet* FROM HEEEEEEEEEEERE??? I'm a good several feet from your property, how the fuck am I supposed to steal diddly SHIT from your house, when I am three cars away???"
He stood there for a while, trying to contemplate the spacial distance between my feet and his dog, when joining the party was the mother of Budweiser Boy.
"Heyyyy!! Were you the one yellin' up at mah kiyeds?" growls a woman with clear skin damage from years of tanning. Matted blonde hair, blue raccoon makeup, gruff smoker's voice, crop top, hot pants, barefoot with a tramp stamp and a beer bottle in one hand, and a cigarette in the other. Perfect. "How dare yew yell at mah little angels!"
"Are you their mother?" I yell with a slightly delirious twinge of hope in my vocal chords.
"Why yes ah ahyum!"
"GOOD! Your little crotch rockets have been on my property many times, along with *pointing behind me* those little FREAKS across the street!!" Which is true. I've caught these kids before, sprawled out over my front lawn, playing in the bushes, setting off firecrackers and drinking their parents' beer. The ones across the street have even toked outside my window, stealing pot from their older brothers. Why the cops refuse to do something about it, I have no idea, but it's a sad, sorry and frightening sight to see a couple of 6-8 year olds getting high.
"Mah angels have dun nuffin wrong, they gots every right to do whut they want, an' if this is how yew act then you deserve it."
Seeing no end to the parade of stupidity before me, I decided to do what my mother told me to do as a child.
Tell the truth.
"REALLY? You think so? Well here's a news flash for ya. My fence has rusted nails sticking out all over, there's dangerous shit falling from the house into my lawn, and in a couple of months, this whole thing is going to be torn down. Pardon the FUCK out of me if I don't want your little bar room accidents getting TETANUS!!"
Now like I said, small words work, and telling the truth is a good thing. Because when I said the word "tetanus" Butterball straightened up, and tallied up the cost in his head for medical treatments for each kid, in case they got the terrible disease.
"Yes ma'am, I'll do something about the dogs and make sure the kids stay away from your house." His fake accent was almost totally gone. His shoulders dropped, and he motioned for his kids to move to the front of the property. He told the other neighbors that tetanus was a scary disease that causes your young ones to "grow mutant legs". Of course that's not what the disease can do, but if it prompts these people to ditch the fake accents and curb their kids and animals, then that's all that counts.
I offered an apology for yelling, in the exchange that they re-train the dogs and keep the kids OFF my property. I got a half assed "the dogs are really friendly" comment, with an added "well um um.. I'm friends with yer FAAAAThur" as if that was supposed to sound intimidating. But when they saw that wasn't going to scare me, the three sets motioned for the dogs to come back inside.
As I sat down to tell this story, I heard three more children walking past my house:
"HEY!! You don't wanna go near there. There's a wicked witch inside the house!! She'll turn your dog into a pussycat if you bother her."
Damn straight.
UPDATE: I couldn't sleep after sharing my story with the world. There were two things bothering me about this episode.
For starters, the fat Peta bitch in the hoodie. She got on me for being "mean" to her "poor defenseless dogs" and yet in the very next breath, she and the other clowns were talking about how they had raised these dogs to protect their property. These are attack dogs, trained to attack, yet they are living in the same homes as children.
Which is it? Is he a poor, defenseless puppy, or is he your weapon ~ or rather ~ your shield? Can you really read me the Peta riot after you've bred a dog to kill? And where the hell have you lived where you feel you "need" a dog to "protect" you?? If things are so bad that you feel you need to train an animal to kill, maybe you should MOVE.
The second thing is the children. Not one of them was above the age of eight, yet as I've said before, one had a Budweiser strapped to his bike, and the lot of them have been on my property before, shooting firecrackers while getting drunk and high.
If Junior is at a level where at the second grade, he's already toking, drinking and setting things on FIRE, I doubt very highly that my fowl language is the worst thing that can happen to him. I'm pretty sure we've reached the end of the line on how low this kid is going in life.
And what kind of a cop would openly see children engaging in pot and beer, and opt to do nothing about it?? My local law enforcers have been witness to this and still choose to do nothing about it. If I was a cop, and I saw Junior with a Bud strapped to his lil' bicycle, I'd pull him over, maybe have a chat with his mom and dad.
But the violent dogs and drug abusing children weren't what was the "problem" to these people in the alley. The fact that I yelled a bad word was. That scares me. Look, I know you're proud of your straight D- education, but since when is my saying "fuck" somehow worse than your 6-8 year olds getting high and drunk?
I wonder if any of this wound up on camera?
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