Posted by EDW in Life, Musings, My Crazy-Ass Neighbors, Rants/Diatribes, Social Commentary.
Tags: anthropology, Crazy shit my neighbors say, eavesdropping, fights, Mother's Day, people, rednecks, sociology, theater
So, I have these neighbors. Here’s what they have in their yard:
- A horse.
- A giant pile of trash.
- A busted boat (with trash in it).
- Dogs. Many, many dogs.
- Fights.
My neighbors’ yard kind of looks like this, only there’s a horse, too.
Their fights are of the cataclysmic, thermo-nuclear variety. They hurl epithets like sharpened tree branches, they kick holes in their door, they use the “n-word.” These fights happen on a weekly basis, and when I hear raised voices next door, I turn out all the lights and sit on my back steps, eavesdropping. I can’t help myself. I have a prurient obsession with my neighbors’ fights. Maybe it’s because I don’t watch television, and therefore suffer from a violence deficiency. Or maybe it’s because I could never come up with dialogue like this, never, no matter how hard I tried. Here’s a snippet from tonight’s episode.
HIM: You did that shit in fronta my MOM!
HER: (unintelligible shrewish shrieking)
HIM: This is just a repeat of last night. You’re just drunk and you can’t handle it. It’s the same thing all over again.
HER: (more of same shrewish shrieking)
HIM: Bitch! I didn’t steal nothin’ from you–I bought you cigarettes! And a lighter!
HER: (shrewishness, etc.)
HIM: (wheezing) Why? Why would I do that? You need to grow the hell up!
HER: Me! Grow up? At least I don’t destroy other people’s property! (enters house and slams door)
HIM: Oh no, you just destroy people’s lives!
~Fin~
And by “Fin” I mean that he got into his truck and peppered their house in a spray of gravel as he revved the engine and peeled out. Because that’s how things always end. And really, what other kind of ending is there?
Posted by EDW in Life, My Crazy-Ass Neighbors.
Tags: Andy Griffith, Home, modern-day-Mayberry, Texas, Wimberley
I’ve only been back from Mexico for nine days, and my expansive, adventure-filled Caribbean summer is already like the wisps of a dream recalled hours after waking. Maybe that’s because three months ago, when we were alternately depositing truckloads of our worldly possessions at the thrift store or cramming into a storage unit those things with which we could not bear to part, I was reasonably certain that we were also saying goodbye to the small town of Wimberley, Texas, where we’d been living for the past three(ish) years. I was convinced that when we came back to the States, we’d be moving to Austin, or at least to San Marcos, where I’ll start my graduate courses next month. Maybe I’m just bad at anticipating, but it seems to me that fate has a funny way of consistently arranging events in the least-expected ways. And so it is that I find myself back in Wimberley, freshly installed in a wee house tucked among the fragrant junipers and hunchbacked live oaks so characteristic of the Texas hill country.
This could totally happen in Wimberley.
It occurs to me that many of my far-flung readers may have never visited or even heard of Wimberley. Which means I’ve been remiss, because in three years of living and blogging in Wimberley, I never once described the place where I lived. Shame on me. (more…)
Crazy Shit My Neighbors Say (Mother’s Day Special) May 8, 2011
Posted by EDW in Life, Musings, My Crazy-Ass Neighbors, Rants/Diatribes, Social Commentary.Tags: anthropology, Crazy shit my neighbors say, eavesdropping, fights, Mother's Day, people, rednecks, sociology, theater
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So, I have these neighbors. Here’s what they have in their yard:
My neighbors’ yard kind of looks like this, only there’s a horse, too.
Their fights are of the cataclysmic, thermo-nuclear variety. They hurl epithets like sharpened tree branches, they kick holes in their door, they use the “n-word.” These fights happen on a weekly basis, and when I hear raised voices next door, I turn out all the lights and sit on my back steps, eavesdropping. I can’t help myself. I have a prurient obsession with my neighbors’ fights. Maybe it’s because I don’t watch television, and therefore suffer from a violence deficiency. Or maybe it’s because I could never come up with dialogue like this, never, no matter how hard I tried. Here’s a snippet from tonight’s episode.
HIM: You did that shit in fronta my MOM!
HER: (unintelligible shrewish shrieking)
HIM: This is just a repeat of last night. You’re just drunk and you can’t handle it. It’s the same thing all over again.
HER: (more of same shrewish shrieking)
HIM: Bitch! I didn’t steal nothin’ from you–I bought you cigarettes! And a lighter!
HER: (shrewishness, etc.)
HIM: (wheezing) Why? Why would I do that? You need to grow the hell up!
HER: Me! Grow up? At least I don’t destroy other people’s property! (enters house and slams door)
HIM: Oh no, you just destroy people’s lives!
~Fin~
And by “Fin” I mean that he got into his truck and peppered their house in a spray of gravel as he revved the engine and peeled out. Because that’s how things always end. And really, what other kind of ending is there?