My neighbor Steve is an odd bird. He even kind of looks like a bird, one of those flighty ones that flit about in the late evenings, maybe like a bat but with blonde hair and tight lycra shorts.
At least once a week I'll catch Steve doing something that makes me do a double-take. Like last night. He was washing his truck by the light of a single spotlight by his garage door. At midnight.
Steve has a day job working at a church. Married, two teenage daughters. Seemed normal when I first met him and he's always been pleasantly polite. But for whatever reason, he likes doing house chores late at night. Last week I caught him trimming his hedges with what appeared to be tiny manicure scissors... this time by the light of the spotlight on the other side of the house, because it was 1 a.m.
Tuesday
Monday
Katie's Latest Misadventure
It started with a text that my 16-year-old daughter Kelly got from her ex-boyfriend. "You're never going to believe what I just saw..."
The brilliance of texting is that a short two-sentence blurb can lead to hours of entertaining snark. So it was with this text about Katie, the 16-year-old girl that lives three houses down. I guess if over the past several years she hadn't been such a self-absorbed, mean, vengeful, manipulative bitch, we would have laughed about the situation and moved on. Instead, the jokes kept rolling off our tongues… they were tart like key lime pie but so sweet that we couldn't seem to stop them – nor did we necessarily want to.
I told my co-workers about the latest Katie story, and they listened with shocked rapture. I looked at their faces – big eyes, mouths in that "O" shape that accompanies all scandalous stories. That's when I started thinking that maybe my corner of the world – Peach Street – which I always thought was just a micro chasm of a larger, very screwed up world, might actually be a uniquely interesting place.
Back to Katie. Katie is the middle child of something like 13 kids. Pretty, kind of Jennifer Garner-ish, with a 1000-kw smile and personality that jumps out at you like a pseudo-friendly Rottweiler. Seems Katie was doing some nude "exercises" with her boyfriend on the floor of the men's bathroom at our local YMCA. Someone walked in on them, and Katie's very religious mother got a very uncomfortable phone call from the Y's CEO.
Yes, 16-year-old hormones and strict (almost strangulatory – is that a word?) upbringing are a tough combination. And if it was anyone but Katie, I'd probably have forgotten it by now. But Katie has been the bane of MY daughter's existence, and has both overtly and covertly tried on numerous occasions to make her life miserable. What can I say – I love my daughter.
So we created all kinds of imaginary scenarios to indulge our mildly evil thoughts. Like all of us lining up in front of Katie's house singing, "It's fun to get laid at the YMCA." (With arm motions and costumes, of course.) And on and on. (Feel free to add your own.)
Ah, just another day on Peach Street.
The brilliance of texting is that a short two-sentence blurb can lead to hours of entertaining snark. So it was with this text about Katie, the 16-year-old girl that lives three houses down. I guess if over the past several years she hadn't been such a self-absorbed, mean, vengeful, manipulative bitch, we would have laughed about the situation and moved on. Instead, the jokes kept rolling off our tongues… they were tart like key lime pie but so sweet that we couldn't seem to stop them – nor did we necessarily want to.
I told my co-workers about the latest Katie story, and they listened with shocked rapture. I looked at their faces – big eyes, mouths in that "O" shape that accompanies all scandalous stories. That's when I started thinking that maybe my corner of the world – Peach Street – which I always thought was just a micro chasm of a larger, very screwed up world, might actually be a uniquely interesting place.
Back to Katie. Katie is the middle child of something like 13 kids. Pretty, kind of Jennifer Garner-ish, with a 1000-kw smile and personality that jumps out at you like a pseudo-friendly Rottweiler. Seems Katie was doing some nude "exercises" with her boyfriend on the floor of the men's bathroom at our local YMCA. Someone walked in on them, and Katie's very religious mother got a very uncomfortable phone call from the Y's CEO.
Yes, 16-year-old hormones and strict (almost strangulatory – is that a word?) upbringing are a tough combination. And if it was anyone but Katie, I'd probably have forgotten it by now. But Katie has been the bane of MY daughter's existence, and has both overtly and covertly tried on numerous occasions to make her life miserable. What can I say – I love my daughter.
So we created all kinds of imaginary scenarios to indulge our mildly evil thoughts. Like all of us lining up in front of Katie's house singing, "It's fun to get laid at the YMCA." (With arm motions and costumes, of course.) And on and on. (Feel free to add your own.)
Ah, just another day on Peach Street.
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