Confessions of a Bad Neighbor

I never thought of myself as a bad neighbor. The crazy neighbor? Perhaps. I believe I achieved crazy neighbor status last Halloween. I handed out candy like everyone else, but I was armed with my daughter's lightsaber and insisted on dueling every Darth Vader who visited my house. As I told the mother of one Darth, if your kid insists on dressing like a Dark Lord of the Sith, he better be able to walk the walk.

The force was strong with me, but in the end I pulled an Obi Wan and allowed the Darths to win the duels and receive their Fun Size Snickers. I only dueled the Darths; when approached by a pirate I had to remind the naive child that his sword was not fitted with a cortosis weave, therefore my lightsaber would slice through his primitive cutlass like a knife through a warm Three Musketeers. In retrospect, I believe it was at this exact moment that I earned my crazy neighbor status.

(For the sake of honesty, I should admit that I embellished this story just slightly. It wasn't my daughter's lightsaber at all; it was mine. Hers doesn't light up or make those cool fwoom fwoom sounds like mine does.)

The letter I received came from concerned members of my neighborhood association. It contained the following notification of my bad neighboring:

During a recent community inspection it was noted that your trash cans were still sitting out by the curb. Trash cans are to be removed from the curb on the evening of trash pick up day and stored in your garage. In the future, please do your part and help keep our community beautiful!
Sincerely,
Self-righteous Jackasses
(the names have been changed, not to protect the innocent but for personal satisfaction)

I'm guessing it was a surprise inspection, much like those given to army recruits during boot camp. I'm imagining something along the lines of R. Lee Ermey's drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket, equipped with a white glove to assess gutter cleanliness and a ruler to determine if the grass meets the height requirements outlined in Article IV, Paragraph B of the community charter. Any abnormalities found would result in a dressing down by the inspector with a stream of obscenities that would make a sailor wince. My letter, which was condescending yet pleasant, was mild compared to the reprimand my trash can received from the inspector.

What is your major malfunction? Refuse removal was yesterday, didn't you get the memo dirtbag? Do you think you're better than everyone else? Perhaps you think you can hang out by the curb for as long as you damn well please? Well your majesty, community regulations require trashcans be decurbed within twelve hours of the waste retrieval! Now get your polypropylene keister back into the garage before I (extremely creative swear involving goats and orifices of the human body removed).

Granted, the community I live in does require paying yearly fees for maintaining common grounds and agreeing to abide by certain rules, trash can stowing the night of refuse removal being one of them. Before you get the idea of vast estates, heated car ports, and gated entrances that require pass codes to enter, I would like to point out that I do not live in a wealthy neighborhood. I do live close to a wealthy neighborhood, so my subdivision is chock full of people who think living near rich folks means we should pretend to be rich as well. According to some of my neighbors, pretending to be rich means acting like anal retentive control freaks whose status is inversely proportional to the distance of their trash cans from the curb on non-trash collection days.

Despite the warning, I am highly tempted to leave the can down by the curb again after the next trash collection day, just to see what happens. Judging by the overreaction of some of my neighbors, after two days my house will magically convert into a trailer with a rebel flag welcome mat. On the third day a car on blocks will appear on my front lawn. By the end of day four my dog will be chained to it. The dog of course will morph into a hunting dog by the fifth day; on day six he'll be just a huntin' dog. By day seven the disease will spread to my neighbors causing them to inexplicably affix Git-R-Done decals on the windows of their minivans.

Soon after the property values in my subdivision will plummet creating a ripple effect in the local economy. This effect will lead to an economic depression that will continue to spread throughout the state, then the country, and then the world. The world will be mired in a global depression, all as a result of my trash can being left at the curb. Could I live with myself knowing that my derelict trash can led to a global economic collapse?

To quote a wise philosopher of my people, "Git-R-Done!"

(Originally posted to my online humor column, The Dimmer Switch, on 2/13/06.  Link to original article.)