Joanie reminds me of the perils of neighborhood living, and the delicious gossip my barely-tolerated next door neighbor sidled over to dispense the other day.  It seems the Garage People have become somewhat reduced in number, thanks to two of the pack getting the old heave ho from the Alpha Female (read: mortgage holder).  

Sir Saggy-Pants (who has increasingly fucking irritated me with his very presence, not to mention his utterly unwarranted swagger, propensity for going about half-clothed, and general antagonism towards neighborhood children) and the Father Figure (who had a nerve-wracking habit of belting out the latest country hit whilst standing shirtless in his driveway, clutching a beer in one hand and idly scratching his increasingly deer jerky-like hide with the other) have been tossed the fuck out, most likely due to their complete lack of material contribution to the Cause over there.  Well, other than that SWEET bench seat stolen from the interior of some hapless van, I’m sure.  

Nosy Neighbor has it that the boy is all of 15 years old, never attended school (to this I can personally vouch, working from home as I do), and was known to amble about the neighborhood with a brewsky of his own screwed into his pubescent fist.  I do wish I had known the child was less than the age of independence, I would have delighted in turning his truant ass in.  Ah well, too late now.  And the reward is no more bad country, no more saggy underpants, and no more duck eggs thrown at my vehicle and neighboring houses.  The Muscovy population around here may recover yet.

Oh mah GOD.

Liberty Dog and I had just emerged from the Liberty Abode, off to pick up the Liberty Kids from their respective schools, when we were transfixed by the sight of one of the Garage People standing in his driveway, wearing absolutely nothing but a pair of excessively baggy navy blue boxers. Being that he’s one of the Trailerians, that of course means he’s meth-chic skinny, and his underoos are dangerously close to falling off his nonexistent ass, potentially – and terrifyingly – exposing his twig and berries.

Liberty Dog and I gave him the requisite fuckeye, since as soon as our own properly-closed garage door began to open, Sir Saggy-Pants began to crane his neck to peer inside, and (somehow magnificently restraining ourselves from (respectively) biting/shooting him in the ass) made our way over to our mailbox. SP managed to remember that was his own task – or was instead suddenly aware of his complete assitude – collected his own mail and blessedly disappeared around the backside (see what I did there?) of his own house.

I swear to Zog, what the fuck is wrong with people??

No, you TOOL, they don’t pass well enough for shorts to actually wear outside. And what the fuck are you doing wandering around in your driveway?? I can *almost* understand making a quick dash out to get the mail, but you were Just Fucking Standing there when we came out. Just gotdamn!

While they still cannot compete with Dogette’s Neighborhood of Awesome Moronity, our own Garage People continue to be sources of utter fucking confusion for us.  Last time we spoke there were two notable Garage-dwelling households in our neighborhood: the Trailerians and the Hoodtowners.  While Hoodtown Ricer Boy still goes through a clutch a week backing that shit into the garage, the Trailerians have far outstripped their rivals in the Sheer Fucking Creepy Department.

For starters, that garage door is open all the time.  All. The. Time.  I’ll have to check with MLG, who regularly steps out on the front veranda to burn one before bedtime, but the damned thing might just stay open all night.  

Most of the time they’re sitting in the garage – “they” being however many adults in the apparently extensive clan that actually live there are home at the moment – on what appears to be the bench seat from a van.   No, not a spare sofa.  Not lawn chairs.  An old seat ripped out of a VAN.  (Which I presume is still parked down by the river.)

And they STARE.  Step out of your house to get the mail, they STARE.  Leave to do errands, they STARE.  Go out to do anything at all during which you have the expectation of NOT FUCKING BEING STARED AT, and they STARE.  Until you look at them, anyway.  Then they look away.

I’ve begun to make it a specific point to bring Liberty Dog out with me to get the mail.  He’s large, red, and when he gives you the prick-eared look, your colon tries to tie itself in granny knots.  They don’t know he’s a big lapdog who’d rather eat ice cubes than bite miscreants, and we’re sure as fuck not telling them.  

I also regularly allow my t-shirt to ride up when putting things into the car, thereby strategically exposing my belt-holstered PPK.  Yes, losers, I have a dog, a gun and an attitude.  YOU CAN STOP STARING NOW.

As I was writing this someone knocked on our front door.  I scoped him out using our super-large door viewer (get you one-a these, people), then yanked the door open and gave him the fuckeye.   He stepped back (as I meant him to), then girded his loins and sallied into his pitch.  Apparently he is a neighbor, just bought a house the street over, and is affianced to some chick.  They’re trying to do a beautiful beach wedding without mortgaging the future offspring and said they’d been admiring our Xmas lights, wanted to know if they could borrow them for the ceremony.  

I honestly don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I said yes.  Maybe it’s because the Liberty Kids are still off at Grandma’s house, I’m feeling kind of vulnerable and at loose ends.  Or maybe I just remembered how we did our own wedding on the cheap, albeit gorgeously.  Or maybe it’s nice to have a neighbor who would ask to borrow the lights instead of just nicking them in the dead of night. 

I hate it when I discover I’m not pure evil, like that time I did NOT swerve to puddle-splash the guy in the wheelchair.  But that’s another story.

As much in awe as I am of Dogette’s Pole People, I would never want to live near them.  But lucky me, we get Garage People instead – yes, I will have to come up with a more clever name than that.  You know these people, they treat their garages like patios, complete with lounge chairs, side tables.  Oh yes, and their actual CARS. 

We have two such specimens within direct view of our front yard…which seems to be an endless source of fascination for them on a daily basis, seeing as how they’re always gaping when one of us exits our abode.  The Garage People on the left I shall dub the Trailerians, because you just KNOW their last home could be towed behind a sturdy truck.  The Garage People on the right shall henceforth be known as the Hoodtowners, for their propensity for sitting in their cars with the doors open, sharing what might dubiously be labled “music,” consisting as it seems to of only a dazzling young urbanite, crooning to his gasping lady friend, accompanied by an over-amped drum machine.

The Trailerians have only been permanent residents for about two weeks, but it is already quite well established they make a good bit of trash.  Most of it was strewn about the road of our otherwise tidy subdivision this fine morning, wind-blown and rain-sodden.  Did they perchance retrieve and properly can it once they returned home from whatever godforsaken Jiffy Lube employs them?  Oh hells no, it’s still right there in the fuckin’ street.

The Hoodtowners most visible member is a youngish gentleman who drives something rather quaintly known as a “ricer,” which features as it’s main attraction some sort of muffler that makes the sound of his revving engine as pleasant and comforting as a fork drawn repeatedly and rapidly across diamond plate.  It is surely some sort of cosmic joke that this individual is A) compelled to back his POS into the driveway, and B) utterly incapable of managing it with a manual transmission sans an ear-bleeding crescendo of RPMs.

These are our audience members whenever one of us leaves the house to fetch the mail, water the plants, and otherwise carry on with our normal lives – the Trailerians sitting on cases of beer, the Hoodtowners on a spare sofa, these are the days of their lives.  There is hope, however.  The Trailerians were witnessed this past Saturday employing a cheap gas grill within the confines of their garage.  Sure, the door was open, but maybe we’ll get lucky one day and they’ll forget that tiny detail.  And the Hoodtowners’ sofa is accessorized with a dilapidated weight bench, which is employed but infrequently by the Ricer Pilot.  Here’s hoping the wobble it emits when he plants his Cheeto-devotee ass on it soon develops into a nice case of metal fatigue.

Pardon me, please, I have to go see if Amazon delivered anything today while I was out.  Those Garage People are sneaky.