Redneck Neighbor

Every neighborhood has one. Maybe it is family that never takes down their Christmas decorations. Maybe it is the family that never mows their lawn or cleans their pool. Maybe it is the old coot that crowds his lawn with yard gnomes. My favorite Redneck Neighbor story is at this website:

http://www.joespc.com/carlos/redneck.htm

Not long after we moved to the farm, our new neighbor put this yard ornament outside his trailer house! Joshua and I have a few questions: (1) Is it white? (2) Is it yellow? (3) Is it a white toilet so filthy it appears to be yellow? (4) Is it just a filthy yellow toilet? Moreover, what is its purpose? Joshua noted its position near the grill and wondered: Is it a grill seat? Your thoughts, go!

Also, in an effort to say good-bye to the old neighborhood, I felt like I should officially document the story of our former Redneck Neighbor. For old times sake, I have included a highlight reel for my blog readers. Enjoy!

First Encounter: I went over one summer afternoon to do some landscaping at our new little white house next door to Crazy Lady, who, at the time, told the realtors she planned to move soon. (As of today, January 13, 2008, plans are still in the works.). I took some hedge-clippers for trimming some bushes, including a disgusting shrub leaning against one side of our house. To be honest, I almost just cut the thing down, thinking that it was already dead and could not be saved. I started trimming off the dead branches when a woman with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth suddenly appeared, screaming in my face about my trimming her tree. I apologized repeatedly, but she berated me with a stream of profanity that would make George Carlin blush. She went back inside her house and emerged with a business card with some name like “Billy Bob Brandenburg, Attorney at Law” (her lawyer) and told me, “I was going to learn a little something about destruction of property.” For the next year, every time Crazy Lady saw Joshua or me in the front yard, she dramatically flipped us off, raising her hand with finger extended in the air over her head or out of her car window. I often spotted this special greeting in my rear view mirror as I left our house. The little shrub, however, made a startling recovery and flowered nicely the following year.

Family Feuds: About once a week, Crazy Lady engaged in screaming, profanity-laced arguments with one or both of her daughters. Typically, these exchanges occurred around 2:00 AM, and occasionally, they ended in our front yard. Some common themes in each argument: Smoking (a necessity), barefoot, short shorts, cottage cheese thighs, profanity, greasy hair, Tweetie Bird tank tops. When we didn’t hear profanity coming from Crazy Lady’s house, we smelled some sickly sweet smell coming from an open bedroom window. Incense? No. Burning Rope? No...

The “Baby-Sitter”: Crazy Lady had two daughters, one in her mid-twenties, the other who enjoyed her 12th-16th years of life during the time we were their neighbors. The latter, I will call Crazy Daughter. About a year or so ago, we started noticing that Crazy Daughter had a boyfriend. He was a skinny, greasy punk who rode a scooter, often appeared shirtless in their front yard around sunrise, and “watched movies” on his laptop sitting on the curb in front of Crazy Lady’s house. Joshua and I averted our eyes many times after we pulled into our driveway to find them literally grinding all over one another in Crazy Lady’s front yard. After this went on for about a year, Crazy Lady knocked on my door and wanted me to talk to a representative from the State of Oklahoma Department of Human Services. She said that she was under investigation by the State and that they alleged she was leaving her children without adequate supervision. She wanted to know if I could vouch that her 19 year-old “baby-sitter” was often at her home, watching her children. “Watching” her children? Hmmmm….I don’t know that that is precisely how one would describe it. I told her I hadn’t really noticed him at her house and probably wouldn’t make a good witness

Family Pets (Warning: Not PETA approved): During the five years we lived in the neighborhood, Crazy Lady, a self-professed animal lover, had numerous “pets.” When the wind came from the right direction, you could smell the feline urine from our driveway. Often at night, Joshua and I would awake the sound of “babies crying” and after a little while, all of Crazy Lady’s 25 cats would have kittens. For Crazy Lady, leash laws did not apply. Food for the “pets” came from the neighbor’s trash, and Bob Barker would have approved of her reproduction management techniques. When the street cats weren’t mating beneath our bedroom window at 3 in the morning or sleeping on top of one another on our front porch, they were eating garbage and depositing feces in our flowerbeds. These little presents were particularly charming on a 101 degree day in August.

After a few years of being overwhelmed by Crazy Lady’s cats, Joshua had enough. He called animal control. They informed him if he purchased a trap ($80), they would pick up the trapped animals at a rate of $20 per cat. Given the pet population at Crazy Lady’s residence, we estimated it might cost more than our house payment to make a dent. Joshua opted instead to visit them with violence: He started with BBs and moved up to pellets when the BBs seemed to have no effect whatsoever on the fat cats, always promising to aim for the behind. Still, through months of popping cats in the behind on a daily basis, his aim improved. The last shot hit a particular specimen directly between the eyes. The animal crawled into our flowerbed (after defecating all over himself….probably just because of the proximity of the flowerbed) the tip of its tail spinning in circles for hours. It rained on the cat. We approached the cat. It never moved. It just licked its lips and stared off into space. I felt a little sick about it, but when the cat finally died after some extended suffering, I think my husband felt avenged.

Crazy Lady also had several dogs during our time together in the neighborhood: 2 completely disgusting mops that we think were probably Pekinese, a Pit Bull terrier (well, obviously), a German Shepherd mix, and whatever neighborhood mutt she welcomed into her litter box house. The last one, however, was probably the saddest pet episode. For several weeks, this black lab mix sat in her front yard and often followed her bare-footed children and grandchildren in and out of her house. In the heat of summer, he panted in the front yard and unloaded every trash can on the street, rummaging through food scraps and leaving unidentifiable bathroom trash in our front yard. Joshua and I started keeping our trash cans in the garage until the last minute, but Crazy Lady never learned her lesson. Her trash was spread throughout her foot-high grass for the entire summer. Shortly thereafter, she talked to me about the “stray” that kept unloading her trash, even though the animal had undeniably been in her house. She told me that she was trying to run off the stray that followed her kids home. The highlight of this episode occurred when Crazy Lady decided she wanted to throw away what had to be one of about 13 sofas she kept in her house. She pulled the high quality item to the curb, and shortly thereafter, it proceeded to rain. The “stray” enjoyed several hours of quality nap time on the sofa in the rain at the curb.

“Home-Schooling”: Throughout the entire time we lived in this neighborhood, Crazy Lady’s children never attended school regularly. I would come home from work for lunch at noon on a Wednesday, and the children would be hitting each other with sticks in the front yard. Crazy Daughter had been in trouble before, having been suspended from school several times for insanity. (Please keep in mind as you are reading this story that DHS never removed these children from Crazy Lady’s care.) Crazy Lady explained the children’s school attendance by saying she was “home-schooling” Crazy Daughter because of behavior problems, including some bipolar episodes that would put Britney Spears to shame. She surmised that her behavior problems could be caused by “eating a lot of spicy Cheetos” because “those things really seem to set her off.”

Juvenile Delinquent: Crazy Daughter constantly ignited Crazy Lady, causing weekly episodes of family drama often culminated by fifteen police cars, an ambulance, and a fire truck (all with sirens blaring and lights flashing) flying down our street at 2 in the morning. One time, the police drug Crazy Daughter out into the middle of the street, pinning her face down on the concrete to handcuff her because it takes several police officers to restrain a feisty 100 lb. thirteen year-old. (Joshua disputes my weight estimate.) After an EMT inexplicitly bandaged up both of her forearms, they sat her in the front seat of a police cruiser. Another neighbor told us she kicked the windshield until it cracked. Still, she returned to her happy family less than 48 hours later. Another time, Crazy Daughter appeared on our front porch during a very cold night, wearing a short sleeve shirt and sobbing that her mother had hit her and locked her out. She wanted to call her boyfriend (A/K/A the baby-sitter). We told her that if she needed medical assistance, we would call the police for her. She sobbed even more. The police arrived. We never heard anything more about it. Joshua and I guessed that we probably saw the police on average at least once per month during the entire time we lived there (5 years), but nothing ever came of any of these law enforcement visits.

Loser Cruiser: Crazy Lady had four vehicles during our time in the neighborhood, each with one common feature: They all had one or more missing windows. The first, a yellow and brown van that never moved and appeared to be crammed with junk; The second, a silver Chevy Malibu promptly repossessed. She also had a relatively new Dodge minivan in good condition. After a while, she stopped driving this one, claiming that she couldn’t afford to tag it. It eventually evolved into a mobile storage unit. Recently, it looked like it had been rear-ended. Seeing as it never leaves the driveway, I can only surmise that she rear-ended herself with her other vehicle, a wood-paneled station wagon Joshua called the “Loser Cruiser.”

Here is why I think my guess about her rear-ending her own van is likely: Every time Crazy Lady left the house, it was like she was running late to her own arraignment-Arms full of junk, trying to light a cigarette, flip-flops, screaming profanity at her children who straggled behind. She always carried a huge QT cup full to the brim with some colorful soda pop. She would climb in her Loser Cruiser, slam the car door, throw it in reverse with her head hanging out of the open window so she could yell profanity at some child she left behind unsupervised at her residence, and then, she would peel out on her bald tires and fly up the street. She always drove angry. If you saw her Loser Cruiser flying down the middle of the street when you were approaching from the opposite direction, you had best just yield or face being hit by an almost certainly uninsured driver.

On my favorite occasion, Crazy Lady started her “leaving the house” act, complete with a 44 ounce QT cup of strawberry soda. Suddenly, I saw it playing out as if in slow motion: She placed her cup on top of the car right over the driver’s side open window. She turned around to scream at her children to get in the Loser Cruiser. She climbed into the car, slammed the car door, threw it in reverse…and you know what happened next. The QT cup fell, hitting the edge of the door, and the lid popped right off, spilling strawberry pop all inside the car and all over Crazy Lady. Now, perhaps I could have flagged her down to warn her about the cup perched precariously atop her vehicle, but after all of the nonsense next door, perhaps a little passive-aggressive behavior on my part was well-deserved.

Financed by a Felon: During an episode of rather poetic irony, Crazy Lady’s attorney (See “First Encounter”) happened to come into the law office where I worked for a conference. While she was sitting in the waiting room, I made my way to the front desk and started a conversation. I finally confessed that I thought she might have represented my neighbor, but when I mentioned Crazy Lady’s name, I saw the color drain from her face. She told me to stay away from Crazy Lady (not a problem), because she had sued her for extorting a significant amount of money from another client. She explained that Crazy Lady used to work in her office as a legal assistant, and during that time, she befriended one of her criminal clients. Apparently, after this client went to prison, the two continued to write letters to each other. The attorney classified their relationship as “sexual” in nature (Sorry, I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.) The attorney stated that she later fired her for stealing money from her business.

Of course, I couldn’t leave well enough alone, and the next opportunity I got, I mentioned to Crazy Lady that I worked at law office. She mentioned that, surprise, she also used to work at a law office. I inquired why she was no longer working at the law office (or at all, for that matter). She explained that she wanted to spend more time with her children, and now, her former boss was suing her for taking money from a client. She stated that she befriended this client who later went to Death Row for murder! (His mug shot, complete with shaved head, appears online). While he was in prison, she said that his mother died and he inherited a significant amount of money. According to Crazy Lady, he gave her some money as a gift that she used to pay off her house (meaning that foreclosure was no longer realistically on my wish list) and buy the Dodge van she couldn’t even afford to tag. She claimed that the client wanted to have a romantic relationship, but she rebuffed his advances (also unlikely since I am not certain that Crazy Lady ever rejected any advances. Instead, she just procreated with each suitor.) After allegedly rejecting him, Crazy Lady explained that he wanted his money back, but she had already spent it. She told me that if I see any “suspicious” vehicles around her house, I should call the police because she was worried that he might have “put a hit on her.” I don’t know how I would have identified a “suspicious” vehicle. I guess if it is missing a window, it must belong next door.

Property Maintenance: Shortly after we moved in, the seller told us that Crazy Lady was preparing to move but needed to finish repairing her kitchen because “it caught fire.” Well, the side of her house did appear black and charred. We later learned that she apparently spent the insurance proceeds from the fire to open a bridal shop premised on the idea that she would make bouquets out of fake flowers (that she probably picked up at the cemetery after Memorial Day) so that the couple could keep their arrangements to decorate their home. Needless to say, this business just never really seemed to catch on. Accordingly, Crazy Lady’s father, who had to be at least 90 years of age, came over to work in the kitchen every day for several months. During this time, Crazy Lady decided to do some spring cleaning. They rented two Gator Containers the size of her driveway and one small dumpster, and I swear they didn’t make a dent. We saw her trash several full length sofas and multiple refrigerators, including one that had been positioned decoratively on her front porch for some time.

In fact, we didn’t realize how much junk she had until we started to remove some of the shrubbery against our shared fence in our backyard. The previous owners had really let the shrubs grow out into the yard-We couldn’t even see her backyard. In a fit of utter foolishness, we decided to use some 24D (brush killer) to just wipe out the mess growing on our fence. We sprayed and then a few days later, we looked into her backyard and recognized why the previous owners opted for out-of-control shrubbery in lieu of our new view. We saw waste- high grass, three full sheds packed to the ceiling with junk, a broken basket ball goal, several garbage bags full of smelly clothing, an old overgrown garden surrounded by chicken wire, several mangled swing sets, multiple refrigerator/freezer units, etc. The removal of the shrubbery also created another problem: We now had no barrier for the swarm of mosquitoes living in old flower pots full of stagnant water in her backyard. Frankly, after the shrub removal, it is a wonder that nobody ever caught West Nile in our backyard.

During the spring and summer, Crazy Lady devoted herself to forcing her children to mow the front yard twice during those seasons whether it needed it or not. As you might imagine, this decision certainly helped the aforementioned insect problem. With all this high and dry grass, Crazy Lady then failed to pay her water and trash bill, and she spent evenings for several weeks burning all of her trash in the backyard.

Good-bye Crazy Lady: We took some ice cream over to Crazy Lady’s children while we were moving to the farm. We said good-bye, and she mentioned that the neighborhood had really gone downhill over the past few years. She said that she was thinking about moving herself and told me that she had some friends in Canada. Crazy Daughter, she said, wanted the family to move to Alaska for a fresh start. As much as we would love to make Crazy Lady and her slew of children and grandchildren official residents (and social service recipients) of Canada, I think that as long as they don’t decide to move to Bristow, we can happily and genuinely wish them the best in all of their future endeavors.