Life in the Big City

Suburbia

It scares me sometimes, truly, the people in my development. Today I asked Theresa who lives two doors down from me if her son's girlfriend could maybe babysit for me this Saturday night as I have a birthday party to attend. So this sends her spinning off into a huge and strange riff about her son, Brad, and his friends. And how most of his former friends have started to do drugs (they're so close, Brad and Theresa, he just tells her everything), so he doesn't hang out with them anymore because he doesn't want to be seen with them. Although, they're still invited to the house as long as they are clean. Oh, and they can't be wearing those baggy pants. You know the ones? That hang down below their butts? Because they know how Brian and I feel about those clothes, and if they want to come over to our house they have to dress real nice. And Brian was out in the backyard and he left his cigarette burning on the porch railing (cigarettes are OK, after all), and he forgot all about it, and Brad's friend was over and Brian saw the cigarette and pointed at it, and said, "what's that?" Only the kid thought he was pointing at his pants and he said, "Oh, yes sir, I'll go change." And this kid had brought a CHANGE OF CLOTHES to their house so that he wouldn't offend Brad's parents with his baggy pants. So he went right into the house and changed into some tight jeans. Well, not tight jeans, just jeans that fit right, you know. Yeah, let's go hang with Brad and his parents. Of course there's a urinalysis test at the door, and you have to be in dress code...but still...

OH. MY. GOD.

This was the woman who coerced me into attending a candle party when I first arrived in the neighborhood, and tried for weeks to get me to come to a Bunko game. I think now she's finally figured out I'm some kind of liberal pinko commie new englander freak, with blue toenails and a nutty boyfriend and lots of dandelions in my front yard, so she gives me lots of space.