For those who may not know this, I moved to the town of
The area I live in is called Lindemar and it’s the straight burbs. Every other house is pretty much identical except where the owners have tried desperately to turn their three bedroom single story into an 8 bedroom mansion by expanding everything out and up until their walls are pushing into the neighbor’s yard. I looks ridiculous in a neighborhood where one of these revamped mansions could easily happen to be next to a neglected home that looks broken down (kind of like the house I live in).
After living there for almost a year I am just now starting to get a sense of the community. Not that I’m talking to the people, but I am getting a sense of the mentality of the community as a whole. For instance: I woke up the other morning, came outside to drive to work and found the driver side mirror smashed off the side of my car. It was like the innocence of a whole town was destroyed with one quick swing of a bat or whatever they used to inflict the damage to my vehicle. Insult was added to injury when I scanned the rest of the cars along the street I live on and saw all of the other car mirrors intact.
The next slap in the face was just a few nights ago when me and my girlfriend were walking our dog in the neighborhood. We were both having a great old time, talking about how swiftly winter is coming this year with the night’s frigid air and the smells of chimneys. We had just stopped in front of a house just a few blocks from our own when we heard a voice coming from the second story window: “Hey! Would you do me a favor?!”
I looked up only to see the fleshy pink rolls and full oval breasts of an over weight man with glasses looking down at us with his shirt off. “Would you please not have your dog shit and piss all over my lawn.” I looked at our dog and she was neither pissing nor shitting. “I mean you don’t see me coming over to your house and shitting and pissing all over your rug right?”
Jesus, the visions this guy was putting in our head were revolting. What he was doing was what I like to call “mental terrorism”. I was dumbstruck and a little taken aback but my girlfriend stood her ground and spoke. “This is our first time on this street. Our dog doesn’t do that.” Yes. We had come back at his vulgar onslaught. The fat man’s blubber rumbled a bit and then he spoke: “Well you’re here now. And you do know there’s a leash law in this area right??”
I looked at our dog. She was clearly on a leash. Obviously this robust near sighted freak couldn’t even see our dog in the dark. This was my chance to come back and feel like a man: “Our do IS on a leash!” God that felt good. But the fat man was ready: “All the more reason you keep it from shitting on my lawn!” Damn this bastard. He got me. There was no choice but to move on down the street while the bare chested behemoth closed his window and retreated back into his second story bear cave.
All the way home I marveled at the audacity of this man’s actions. He had spoken with such confidence as he falsely accused of us dirtying his sacred lawn. I had almost felt guilty at first. He had been so steady with his accusations he must have been waiting by the window, prepared to pounce on some unsuspecting dog walker. Who cares if the dog was actually relieving itself! As long as they had a dog he was going shower his grievances upon them while his man cleavage hung out in the cold night air. After a baptism of fire and false accusations I am now a true Pacifican. Angry, frustrated, and ready to bash a mirror off a car.
