Volpone
Zombie Hunter
OK. After 5 minutes of looking at the forum titles, I couldn't figure out where to start this so I just gave up and started it here, which is ironic, because after 5 months of trying to think where I could make a snarky vent, I just gave up and decided to do it here.
We all have "That" Neighbor. (And if you don't have him, you're probably it, but I digress.) Camper parked in the driveway, peeling paint, blue tarp tacked onto part of the leaky roof. The only progress made on the roof is that the tarp has been replaced a couple times. At some point, the rain gutter came loose on the front of the house. So it hung there from one end, diagonally across the living room window, for the better part of a year, until it eventually fell down. Mine, rearended someone with his notchback '85 Mustang not long after I moved here 6 years ago, so it was parked next to the camper. Eventually a parts Mustang was added to the yard, along with assorted other odds and ends for other projects he's apparently working on.
And that's the interesting bit--everything up to this point is just sad and depressing. A guy just trying to hang on in a terrible economy. But the bewildering thing is the choices. The other day he was out watering the lawn. This in a terrible drought, where 95% of the lawns are dead and brown. And this guy's lawn is terrible. He and his wife have a couple chihuahuas that run around and root it up (well, as much as chihuahuas can); with assorted crap everywhere. But he's out there watering it.
This spring, he was out in the front yard with a rototiller. He was tilling up the patch of yard between the driveway and the front walk. Huh. That's an odd place to put a garden. But ah well, it's his place. If it makes him happy, more power to him. Except as far as I can tell, he's never planted anything. It's just like the rest of the yard. Only now uneven and torn up from rototilling. As I type this, he's puttering about out there with a shovel, randomly digging out chunks of sod.
Again, not my problem. Apart from property values, he isn't hurting anyone and should be able to do whatever makes him happy, but it just bewilders me. The time and energy he spends on apparently pointless things, he could spend on things like fixing the gutter on his eaves. He could get rid of all the scrap metal (and the not particularly valuable 30 year old car that has been rotting for 6 years in his driveway) and use the money to put a new roof on his place; buy some paint. But he doesn't. Instead he just does things that make no sense.
We all have "That" Neighbor. (And if you don't have him, you're probably it, but I digress.) Camper parked in the driveway, peeling paint, blue tarp tacked onto part of the leaky roof. The only progress made on the roof is that the tarp has been replaced a couple times. At some point, the rain gutter came loose on the front of the house. So it hung there from one end, diagonally across the living room window, for the better part of a year, until it eventually fell down. Mine, rearended someone with his notchback '85 Mustang not long after I moved here 6 years ago, so it was parked next to the camper. Eventually a parts Mustang was added to the yard, along with assorted other odds and ends for other projects he's apparently working on.
And that's the interesting bit--everything up to this point is just sad and depressing. A guy just trying to hang on in a terrible economy. But the bewildering thing is the choices. The other day he was out watering the lawn. This in a terrible drought, where 95% of the lawns are dead and brown. And this guy's lawn is terrible. He and his wife have a couple chihuahuas that run around and root it up (well, as much as chihuahuas can); with assorted crap everywhere. But he's out there watering it.
This spring, he was out in the front yard with a rototiller. He was tilling up the patch of yard between the driveway and the front walk. Huh. That's an odd place to put a garden. But ah well, it's his place. If it makes him happy, more power to him. Except as far as I can tell, he's never planted anything. It's just like the rest of the yard. Only now uneven and torn up from rototilling. As I type this, he's puttering about out there with a shovel, randomly digging out chunks of sod.
Again, not my problem. Apart from property values, he isn't hurting anyone and should be able to do whatever makes him happy, but it just bewilders me. The time and energy he spends on apparently pointless things, he could spend on things like fixing the gutter on his eaves. He could get rid of all the scrap metal (and the not particularly valuable 30 year old car that has been rotting for 6 years in his driveway) and use the money to put a new roof on his place; buy some paint. But he doesn't. Instead he just does things that make no sense.
issed: