dude, I'm not going to smoke that, what. I don't smoke that shit, turns your lungs black, I've seen it no, dude, camels are good, though seriously, like, black lungs. gross. I'm not going to smoke that just because you say no no - we gotta get the american spirit but camels are alright it's like, all natural.Sometimes it is like a dork club presentation, except the main voice is holding forth on, say, the intricate differences between a joint and a spliff.1 Sometimes it starts up later, when I am already asleep, so that frattish commentary invades my dreams and leaves me in a half-conscious stupor of irritation. I find myself wishing for winter, so it can be closed-window season, but then I wonder if that season every really comes here.2
This evening, I was talking to this guy as he gave me a ride home from a debate watching party, and we got on the subject of irritating neighbors. I was laughing about these kids when we pulled up to my house, and there they were, throwin a rager. Drunken kiddlies tiddling around all tipsedy over our shared driveway, and lots and lots of noise. Inside my house, it sounded like there was a crowd on our front porch, standing just outside the front door, laughing drunkenly.
I couldn't imagine direct contact with the party being any fun, but I wanted to enjoy the ridiculousness of the situation... so I decided to throw things over the dividing wall of our balconies, hoping for a solid landing on some unsuspecting partygoers. After discussion with my roomie, we decided that although the cats would be ideal for hilarity value, we couldn't actually bear to put our pets through that ordeal.3 So I decided I'd spray over the wall with the little water bottle that is supposed to keep the cats from doing catlike annoying things. I figured at best the party would think it was starting to rain and go inside, and at worst I'd crack up in the process and get a good cheek-muscle workout. I grabbed the water bottle and snuck out onto the balcony, but there was nobody on the other side of the wall.
Then a voice, from below:
{henh} The neighbor?I looked down, and two cocky young cops were striding across the drive, clearly on their way to break up those crazy kids.
Um, yeah?Wait. Take care of it for me? Did he think I had called the cops? It was only 10:30, for fuck's sake! You just took care of my fun, mr. crewcut, I can't exactly turn the sprayer on you, let alone toss Preto down on your heads.4
Don't you worry. We'll take care of this for you.
And the thing was, they actually succeeded. By 10:45, with the exception of little clusters wandering through the streets trying to find the dearly departed party, it was all over. Now, I wasn't that excited about all the noise still being around at 1:30 when I might want to be sleeping, but before 11?
I just felt sorry for them.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Well, ok, maybe if somebody smart and funny (like sarah palin) was giving that presentation, it'd be alright. But your average 20 year old UCSC dude? Not so much...
2 The thing about google, and tabbed browsing, is that now every time I have a thought with a vague sentiment of "I wonder" to it, I stop wondering. So, no. Closed window season doesn't really come here. Maybe the odd cold night, but the average daily high of the coldest month of the year - January - is 15 degrees (or 60 to all you losers still hanging out with that psychobilly farenheit kid).
3 Preto, in particular - a 25 pound solid black cat - would make an amazingly effective projectile weapon: a silky-soft ninja bowling ball with claws and a temper.
4 Granted, that may be the funniest thing I've had the pleasure of imagining in a long time.
