Home | Links | Archives | Top 10 CDs of 2004 | Top 10 CDs of 2005

08/14/04 -- 6:37 p.m..

So I'm going down to the basement to do the laundry, and I noticed that a nest of yellow jackets had taken up residence about three feet above the basement door. A few of the plugs had come out of the exterior wall, where the insulation had once been pumped in, making a perfect home for the first creepy-crawlies to find it. So I go into the basement, let the jumping spiders clear out of the way, and get the laundry started.

I then retrieve a can of wasp and hornet killer from the house. I spray it as best I can into the hole and flee to the safety of the deck, about ten feet away. Dozens upon dozens of yellow jackets swarm out of not just the hole I'd sprayed, but the two holes beside it. So now I'm out of wasp and hornet killer, there's a whole nest of angry yellow jackets with three known escape routes, and I started this whole thing while I still have to get back in the basement and finish the laundry.

Sigh...this may take days. I'm not sure how good of a job this spray is doing with a hole about an inch wide, about twelve feet off the ground.

Sigh...

In better news, the neighbors down the hill moved away. I never had to deal with them directly, but they were a hard partying group, prone to grilling entire pigs and deer in their backyard. This isn't unusual in the South, but when you live in a row of townhouses and your grill is shooting flames about ten feet into the air every night from a back yard that's about 10' by 10', the cops tend to learn the address by heart.

Their grilling mania was so great that they took a vented sewer grate, bolted it across the top of their truck bed, and did their grilling in that (on special occasions, I guess). Smell that? It's the property value falling with each whole pig or dear that they grill by the side of the road. Furthermore, they'd found a way to construct a platform in front of their den fireplace and hook up the washer and dryer there (instead of the handy little room that was built specifically for that purpose). AND they turned out to be stealing power from their next door neighbor.

Furthermore, the same person who hooked the now-gone-neighbors up with their townhouse, also hooked another couple up in another townhouse. Them? Well, they wrote letters to Charles Manson, and used their real return address on the envelopes.

08/12/04 -- 11:21 p.m.

A situation too bizarre and complicated to explain arose last week, prompting me to say to my sis, "That girl oughtta send a thank you note to my parents. For not breeding in me a sense of petty vengeance."

What they, or at least my mom, did breed in me, though, was an ability to cut ties hard and fast. My mom comes from a family where the siblings literally feud with each other, where brothers and sisters come to blows and don't speak for nearly a decade -- only coming together awkwardly at funerals or other somber occasions.

In its lesser form, as exhibited by me, it mainly comes down to a moment where someone becomes "dead" to me. They might not even know it. But somewhere along the line, someone will betray me, or handle a crisis completely wrong, and that's it -- I have no more use for them. Usually, they don't know it, though. Years can pass, with pleasantries exchanged every time we meet; heck, I might even have a beer or two with one of these people. But they don't get anything out of me. Defensively, I fend off questions with old anecdotes or faux muttering and stammering. I won't invest anything of myself into the conversation (this is pretty easy, since I hate chit-chat to begin with). Or half-hearted questions about the other person.

Some would find this sad, and think, "My goodness. You must be building up tons of stress inside!" But it's not like that; it's surprisingly freeing (and believe me, me and my gastroenterologist can tell you a thing or two about internalizing stress). I'm not investing anything in the conversation, and if the other person walks away a little disoriented by the whole thing ... ah well, so be it. This is hardly an "If they were on fire, I wouldn't piss on them" level of sentiment. Ideally, these people will fade away, the way people generally do anyway if you don't make some effort to hold them close. If they cling like a vine, it's not like I've expended any energy, apart from the occasional noncommittal phone conversation, or fifteen minutes wasted in the Bi-Lo.

So maybe that's a petty revenge in its own right -- this little secret that only I know about the dynamics of an acquaintance. It's certainly not a sense of Southern graciousness; believe me, folks around here have a talent for passive-aggressive nasty-nice Southernisms, so I definitely don't let it descend into that.

So what it boils down to is this: Serious thanks, mom, for yet another nifty tool for dealing with the nature of the world.

(c) 2004 Sweet Tea Prohibition