White Trash Knows The Law, and Other Neighborhood Observations

When we first moved into our house, we were so excited to just be buying something instead of paying rent and having someone hold power over every little decision. I wanted to paint every room, and I have. I wanted to change things to suit me, and I am still getting there. I wanted a yard that I could plant things in, that I knew I was not going to have to leave for someone else later, and this too has taken place. My eccentric style has led me astray more than once in my decorating, and my yard technique leaves a lot to be desired, but it's mine, and I try. There weren't a lot of choices in the for sale bracket when we were looking to buy, and at the time, we weren't in the market for anything fancy, but we found this 40's built home, with quirky cabinetry and shelves that just screamed for someone to continue the love. WE bought it without much time to spare, we had been staying with my in laws for a couple of weeks until the paperwork went through, and I was on the verge of hurting someone, myself not excluded. We took possession of the house on the same day my son started kindergarten, and the same day I started a new job at the local florist. Fortunately for us, the owners were kind enough to let us bring our things the week prior so we would not have to drag it out between school and work. We were moving from a small house in the country about an hour away, so it was a chore to get all our stuff from there to here in as few loads as possible. My family always stepped up to the plate for these events, and they were all here helping on the day of the move. My mom and step dad, my real dad, my brother, us, and maybe a couple of others were working like cranberry merchants at Christmas time to get it all done in one or two days, and we did just that. The first thing I noticed while we were moving our stuff in was that I had not really taken notice of the neighbors. Who were they, and what were they like. I know now that this should be a first priority when purchasing a home, but then I was just to dumb and happy. The sky almost always produced some sort of weather when we were trying to move, and this last time was no exception. It was cloudy and threatening the entire time, and we were pressured further to cover the wood furniture and so on. We were tired, exhausted, and moving to a rhythm. So much so that if we stopped for a moment, the pain set in, and it seemed suddenly impossible to get it all done. We were unloading the 2nd or third load, which we had loaded into the trailer the first half of the day, when I happened to look up and notice that our new neighbors across the street were perched in lawn chairs at the end of their drive way, watching us kill ourselves and having a very chipper time doing it. I immediately thought we would have problems with these people, and we have. My down the street neighbor was an older widow woman, and she brought us cinnamon rolls on the first night's stay, so we wouldn't have to make anything in the morning. She is now about to leave this earth, and I have not been down to see her in a very long time, but am not sure why. My next door neighbors are Hispanic, and think their re-fried beans don't stink. We kind of got along with them in the beginning, but things have since gone sour. When I think of what we were up against that first few days, I know it would scare me to death now, but then, we just had to get it done, and we did. I intend to tell you about a few neighborhood incidents that I think you might enjoy, starting first with the across the street PWT. It was no time before we realized our tremendous error in location. They had a momma, a daddy, a teen aged daughter, a teen aged son, a small child son, and a small child daughter, and a teen boy that was the mama's sister's kid that she didn't want anymore. Their house was small, and always loud. There was always a scuffle in the yard, between the boys, the mom and dad, the boys and dad, the mom and daughter, or any other combination you could think of. It seemed like once a week we would be watching TV and those familiar blue and reds would disrupt our viewing. We would race over and slide our window open on our glass door, and try to listen, but as we now know, the acoustics in this neighborhood suck, and you can't hear even loud talking clearly. God forbid you be out watering your own grass, getting your mail, getting out of your car, or smoking on the porch (I use to smoke), because they would zero right in on you and ask you point blank what the hell you thought you were looking at. You would, of course, look around thinking they were surely speaking harshly to someone near or behind you, but soon we realized that it was always to us. I am not the quiet type, but I will avoid confrontation as much as possible too, so I would usually say something like "I am just watering my grass, I don't care what you are doing", or something of that nature. This was never good enough, and you could almost see them posturing for a rumble due to your unbridled nosiness. On one occasion while my parents were visiting, and I was watching my sister in law's children, the mother figure (I am using the term loosely, the teen daughter was pregnant by now) became enraged when my husband got on the one of the older boys for peeping with binoculars into my old widow woman's house. The mom just wasn't going to have this crap, and because she was an expert in the law, she was going to stay on her property, yell at us, expose her boobs, and call the cops on us for...we never got that far. My husband said that would just be fine, for her to call the police and he would wait outside for them. They went in, but this was the start of a very ugly turf war on our block. The White trash DeArmonds against the Super Less Classy White Trash So and Sos. (can't really say names here can I) The teen daughter eventually married a bald albino looking kid from Kansas, moved and had her child, the 4 other children remained in the home. My son was forbidden to go to their house, as I had an idea what kind of people we were dealing with, and I am pretty sure momma was the sister of a paroled child molester. We kept a sharp eye on them, and had several run ins with them over the years. Things got even weirder around there. Mama's sister moved in with her mixed race son, and for a moment even the older daughter and her kid and albino hubby came home to stay a while. None of these people worked except for the dad, and we never ever saw groceries being carried in. I am pretty sure this house was a cramped three bedroom at the most, and could never figure out where all these people slept, although the young boy did tell me once that he slept in a chair. The two older boys were in alternative school for repeat offenders, and we just never could feel comfortable in our own yard, or leaving town. The daughter and the albino eventually left, sister left leaving her mixed race child, the older of the two boys kind of disappeared (he was the son of her sister, who I hear was a hooker) and all that was left was the Mom, Dad, little boy, colored boy, little girl, and teen son. This kid was no good, you could tell. He had all American good looks, as white trash often does, but he was almost certainly going to use his talents for evil and you could not trust him. He acted like a gangster, which is funny because we live in a very rural part of America, and a real gang member would have eaten him for breakfast. A few years ago, my husband and a friend were organizing a bull cutting which requires an immense amount of beer. They had purchased a lot of it, and my husband had one cooler full on our back porch icing down for the next day's events. The next morning when he got up and around, the beer was missing. This was not the first time beer had vanished from our property, but it was important this time, and it really pissed him off. He marched across the street and in the alley of our Super Less Classy White Trash across the street neighbors, was a trail of beer cans leading to their dumpster. My husband threw open the door, and there was his cooler. It could not have been more than 5 o'clock in the morning, but he drug that cooler right across their property line, and up to their front door, and proceeded to beat the coon dog hell out of the screen door. Here came a bleary eyed mom, and he did chew here ass out right then and there, with her making lawsuit threats and screaming the whole time. He was really mad. About six months later we were out of town, and had left our door unlocked for our in laws to come and go in the interest of our son. When we got home on Sunday night, we were so tired. We all bathed and got ready for bed, and were just about ready to hop in the sack when our door ball rang. It was our Hispanic neighbor. She told us that earlier that day she had witnessed our house being robbed by the teen son from across the street, and that the cops had come and arrested him. We freaked, kind of, and began to search around for misplaced things or missing items. I remembered instantly that I had some cash set aside for our son's show hog purchase that fall, and ran to the drawer to check on it. It was gone. Well, feeling weird, we kind of crept down to the cop shop to see what the hell had gone on, and they had thankfully retrieved our money, and he was going to jail. He had robbed quite a few more residents around town, and this was the last straw. We were really glad. He had quit school, impregnated a girl form the orphanage, never had a job, unless you count that 4 days at the Dairy Queen part time, and was not doing anything that we could tell but walking around town bored most of the time. The girl that had his baby tried to kill herself in their house one day, and I don't blame her. The mom never comes out in the day light, and kind of reminds me of a much scarier Boo Radly character. Daddy just works, and eats his Allsups grub, and tries to be nice, but the rest of these people are nuts, including the now teen younger daughter and son. It isn't hard to tell where they are headed. The colored boy seems nice enough, but I don't think he is the brightest bulb, so who knows about him. The other neighbor we have trouble with is the Hispanic family next door. They never do a thing wrong, and that includes the two children that belong to the older couple's daughter who lives with them to. When we first arrived, we had one dog, and we tried our best to keep her contained in our aging back fence. In no time at all they showed up with a dog, but made no effort to contain her in no kind of fence. Her name was Dottie. My first spring in this house, I bought a few meager plants for my beds, and no sooner had I planted them, than Dottie had dug them up and chewed the roots off of them. She would sleep under our bushes, and chew on the decaying wood of our fence while attempting contact with our dog. She ate the cat food we put out for a cat we acquired, chewed up trash, and just tortured us to no end. We would always try to comment loudly to the dog when the owners were outside, and say things like "Dottie, GET, Shoo, don't chew up my flowers". They just looked around like they knew nothing. One hot summer day, I spotted Dottie under our bushes, and when I bent down to shoo her out, I could smell the sure scent that only Parvo leaves on a dog's breath. She was having a hard time living or dying, and I did not want her to die under my bushes. I finally had to be direct with my neighbor and plainly tell her that her dog was perishing under my box-woods, and she needed to remove her and have her put down or get her treatment right away. They did come and drag that poor dog out of those comforting bushes, and laid her on the ground , in the sun, under a plastic tarp on the side of their house in full view of every neighborhood child. I said nothing as the day dragged on and you could see that tarp move up and down from time to time. She was going to die anyway, but it seemed to me like even Super Less Classy White Trash would not treat their beloved pets this way. Dottie was finally laid to rest in the dumpster, which makes me crinkle my brow when I look around our yard today and see all the places where everything including birds, bunnies, dogs, cats and fish are buried around our house. Then a couple of years ago, my kid was using a shortcut through their unfenced yard to the dumpster when some bits of trash escaped the bag he was dragging. They jumped all over him like brown on rice, and threatened my 9 or 10 year old with legal action and the whole nine yards. He came in crying, and I, even though I will avoid confrontation, did march right into their living room and let them have it. Big momma informed me that he was trespassing, and blah blah blah, and the law, blah blah blah, and this and that, and I told her her little bratty family had better stay the hell off my property and I intended to call her on every little thing from that point on. Oh no, they never had trash in their yard, oh no, they never let their kids mess up other people's property, oh no, their kids didn't lie, blah blah blah. To this day I hate them, it really is all their fault too. She parks right directly under my son's basketball goal so he is at risk of hitting her car if he plays, and they regularly leave their trash in plastic bags on their back porch for dogs and cats to spread around. They collect cans, and when the wind really gets up, it rolls those Shasta cans all over my drive and the area by my garage. Do you think they ever mosey over and get even one of those cans? I am telling you people, this is a serious matter. If you are going to buy a home, check to see who the neighbors are first. You will not regret it, and I would even ask people I kind of knew in the area if they knew anything bad about any of them. All we can do is hope they will move away, and no one worse will take their places. For the time being, things are kind of quiet on our block, and we are enjoying a little peace, but one thing is for sure, it won't last, and they won't hesitate to use a little legal jargon on ya. What's funny is that my much adored step brother is a lawyer, and I am not worried in the least about their threats. What I worry about most on my block is having something stolen, or someone painting a house Aqua Fresh blue, which in all honesty we have already endured. Unless it's Victorian, and can qualify as a painted lady, we need to be a little more neutral than that, don't you think readers? Have a good one, and judge based on pretty high standards.