The Low Down

Okay, finally I have some time to give you the low-down on the down low...

Last Friday night, Will and I went over to his folk's place to meet up with some of his extended family from Anaheim and an old friend of his and the friend's partner from Palm Springs. Will's Mom had invited everyone up for Fiesta and the Rodeo.

Santa Barbara celebrates "Old Spanish Days", which is quite easily interpreted as a drunken 5-day binge and any excuse for shaking one's "maracas". With all the Mexican food consumed over that period, it's no wonder that the whole place doesn't explode in one massive fart leaving burning embers, smashed Dos Equis bottles and broken terra cotta tiles all over the damn place. And it's no wonder that all the methane didn't contribute to the Zaca fire, which is raging just over the mountains.

Anyway, it's always fun, but we've been toning back on our celebration of it in recent years. It just gets kind of crazy and half the time we can barely keep our eyes open past 10pm...I'm sure all the booze doesn't help.

Will's Mom invited Will's old friend and his partner. We didn't.

Will isn't really one for keeping in regular contact with people. And as nice as his old friend is, he can be a bit...much. He would lick Will's ass for a living if he could, but yet, somehow he also tries to put Will down in a way. AND he ALWAYS turns everything back around to be about him...After awhile, I just stopped attempting to talk and let him go.

So, not only were we sitting outside while smoke and ash were coming down on us from the fire (we literally had to shield our food and drink to try to keep the ash out - it was like snow), I continually had to listen to this guy go on and on and on about how great he is.

If I said, "Oh man, I took the biggest shit today."

He'd reply, "Well, if you think THAT'S something, you should see MY turds! THEY'RE FUCKING MONGO-TURDS, DUDE!! I LAY THE BIGGEST FUCKING TURDS THIS SIDE OF THE MISSISSIPPI!!"

And if I said, "Oh man, my stomach doesn't feel so great after eating all these beans..."

He'd say, "Well, if you think YOUR stomach hurts, THIS ONE TIME I HAD A STOMACH ACHE THAT RUMBLED AND RUMBLED AND REGISTERED ON THE RICHTER SCALE AND THEY THOUGHT IT WAS A 6.6 EARTH-FUCKIN'-QUAKE IN SAN DIEGO!!!"

Or if I said, "My Mom blows the loudest farts."

He would no doubt retaliate and say, "YOU THINK YOUR MOM'S FARTS ARE BAD? MY MOM'S FARTS CAN BE HEARD STATES AWAY!!"

Okay. You and your mom win.

To say that I wanted to punch him in the face at the end of the evening is an understatement. And not just because his mom's farts are so loud.

Well, we hung out there for a while then came home. The old friend and his VERY sweet partner (god bless him) were staying in a hotel. When we arrived home, the guy called and said that the hotel had given their room away and could they stay with us.

I threw up in my mouth a little and said, "Of course! I just need to get the room ready."

So, Will took the dogs out and I cleaned up the guest room really quick and put on clean sheets, and wired the dynamite under the bed.

Well, while Will was outside with the dogs (and I was inside dousing his old friend's bath towel with highly flammable liquid for a little something I was planning later) and in the process of picking up dog shit in a bag and holding our two terrors, this asshole neighbor who thinks she's rather something approaches Will with her little dog that is about the same size as my penis. I know...it's HUGE. The dog is probably about all of 8 pounds (I think that my penis weighs at least 20?), but Gomez goes running and barking towards the little dog while Will is trying to handle both leashes and pick up feces.

In our condo complex, people who have dogs usually have half-a-brain to avoid each other. Most of us just want our dogs to go potty. And that's not going to happen when we continue to walk up to one another outside. So, USUALLY we all turn and walk the other way.

Not her.

By the way, she looks an awful lot like this,

even the position is correct because she's a filthy slut.

She also piles the hair on her head to distract her prey before her ravenous vagina devours their penises

and we remember the last crazy bitch to do that, right?

Yeah, it didn't get her very far...(it's Marie Antoinette, if you're wondering)

Anyway, I think that she's hoping that all that hair will distract everyone from noticing that she actually looks like this,

the Crypt Keeper.

It would be MUCH better if she just combed it all forward,

and did all of us a favor.

So, she approached Will and Gomez charged. Will had a lapse in stopping the leash (it's one of those extended leash things), but still managed to before he could get to them. Gomez DID NOT get to them.

So, she snaps at Will, "DID YOU JUST LET YOUR DOG CHARGE ME??"

And Will replied, "If you didn't notice, I'm picking up crap and have ahold of two dogs. Could you please go the other way?"

And she yelled back, "DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!" And she continued to walk towards him.

And Will said pointedly, "Stop. Go the other way."

And she spat back, "YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!"

And Will said, "If you continue to walk towards me, I have a hand-full of shit and it's going to go all over the place!"

And she incredulously replied, "DID YOU JUST SAY THAT YOU WERE GOING TO THROW SHIT IN MY FACE??? I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT YOU JUST SAID THAT!! I'M CALLING THE OWNER'S ASSOCIATION!!" And finally stormed away in the other direction.

So, Will yelled back, "I AM AN OWNER, YOU FUCKING RENTER!!"

When Will came in, he felt bad that he had called her a "fucking renter". But, he was floored by the rest of the interaction.

We've been tired of the scene that our condo compound has taken on in the last couple of years. It's beginning to see its fair share of trash and it's not fun. There's a bad element that is moving in and for those of us that own and live on site, the degradation is difficult and extremely discouraging to watch.

Nonetheless, he felt bad for calling her a "fucking renter", but the rest of the situation was un-called for. We've had smaller situations with her and her smart-ass kid before and in hind-sight, she was provoking Will. And actually, now that I look back on a couple of recent interactions with another neighbor, I believe that these two mothers that happen to both have hell-raisers for children that egg each other on, are on a witch-hunt. They're on a big gay witch hunt.

Their kids hang out together and stir up all kinds of trouble here. The kids will literally come up to our windows thinking that we're not there, trying to antagonize the dogs. The kids will try and bust light posts, or the fence that surrounds the pool, and the trash parents don't do anything about it.

I don't blame the kids for being kids. I blame the parents for not being good parents.

I often try to question myself. To attempt to look at situations as objectively as I possibly can. So, I was thinking, is it us? Are we turning into bitter old men? But, I firmly believe that isn't the case. I like most of the children in our little village, and their parents. Their parents are good people who are working hard to raise responsible, considerate adults.

Parents are not raising children. They're taking care of children and raising adults. Because that's what they're going to be, adults. And if they're assholes as kids, just wait...they're going to be those same assholes, just bigger.

So, an hour after the incident, I'm SLEEPING. And the door bell rings.

I get out of bed, our guests are slumbering in the guest room with Will's old friend mumbling in his sleep, "My shits are the biggest and the brightest"...*snort* *cough* *snort*..."My Mom's farts are the loudest"...*snort* and their completely unaware of all the dynamite wired just below.

I walked to the door kind of groggy wondering who it could be at this hour. It was 12:30. I looked through the peep hole and couldn't see anyone. So, I opened the door. There stood a very tall county sheriff. He was standing back a little so I actually had to step onto the doorway wearing these,

and only these.

I stood there kind of bewildered and said, "Yes?"

And he kindly replied, "Is this an okay time to talk?" as though we knew each other.

And I said, "Well, I'm sleeping."

So, he asked if I had just had an encounter with a neighbor. I couldn't BELIEVE that she had actually called the police. I told him that Will had and he asked if he could talk with Will.

I got dressed as did Will and we went outside and began french-kissing all over Ponch and John, so we weren't dressed for long.

The police officers were great. And they were decent kissers, although John smelled like an ashtray and Ponch smelled like Obsession for men, which makes me gag. But we were calm, they were calm and Will fully explained the situation. Everything was fine.

Except, now I was

mad.

I didn't sleep much that night. I've NEVER had the cops called on me. EVER...even in college when I was leaping off the balcony onto the picnic table of the evil that lived below me, busting it into a hundred pieces (that's another story), or when we launched all evil's potted plants off of OUR balcony (I replaced them all before she even noticed...seriously.) Okay, so there's a few times that I SHOULD have had the cops called on my stupid ass, I was just greatly bewildered that now was one of those times.

I was mad at her and wanted revenge. I fantasized about doing all sorts of crap to her. I thought about smearing dog shit all over her car. I thought about launching dog shit up onto her balcony. I thought about buying her a vibrator and leaving it on her doorstep with a note that said, "TRY THIS". I thought about commissioning JJ to kick her in the throat, because I know that she would do that for me.

Besides feeling ridiculous that I was standing in my underwear in front of the police, I was pissed that she was SO socially irresponsible that she felt her situation took precedence over anything else going down at midnight on a Friday night on Fiesta weekend. I have a feeling that other things were going on and the county sheriff didn't really need this on their radar.

And then I tried to put my anger aside and I tried to put myself in her place and tried to think what I would be thinking and feeling if I were a

skeletal, filthy slut.

I try like mad to never do anything when I'm angry. Because when I do, it's never good. So, sometimes I'm able to refrain and sometimes not. But, I keep trying.

So, I've waited. I did call our association manager to make certain that our side of the story was known. But, I've just waited.

I started thinking and really tried to put myself into her scabie-filled shoes. She's a single mom. And that's all I know about her. I have no idea what her life is like, or what it's been like. All I know is she accused Will very suddenly of doing something that wasn't intentional.

When I used to work in hospitals and when I was a social worker, it was easy for me to deal with people, with patients and their families. The situations were difficult, but dealing and understanding the people was simple. I had their charts in front of me. I KNEW their history, or their disease, and fully understood WHY their behavior was what it was.

But, when I left the medical/social work field and began bar tending (social work with booze), I no longer had their charts in front of me. I didn't fully know what happened to them earlier today, or yesterday, or last year, or ten years ago. And so I really began working at giving people the benefit of the doubt. And truly tried to grasp that something happened to them, or IS happening that I know NOTHING about, but from their actions, or their demeanor, it must not be good.

I tried to apply that to all the social interactions I could. Even while driving on the freeway with people attempting to give me an anal-probe with their cars.

Many times I forget to try to give people the benefit of the doubt. I get tired and sloppy with my own philosophy, so I have to work harder at it.

But, when I DO grasp it. When I DO acknowledge that something in their chart doesn't look good, even if they're not aware of it. When I DO realize that it's nothing personal, it's as liberating as flight.

So, I'll probably just let everything go and hope that we don't encounter one another often. But, I've decided that if I do attempt some kind of revenge, I'll bring over a big flowering, healing lavender bush, or maybe a bottle of wine, or a basket of strawberries. I don't need anymore pride, I have enough. Maybe she could use some of mine, and that's fine.