Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

Fred Rogers always had a smile when he welcomed you to his neighborhood. It is quite apparent from the reruns that this man in today’s society would belong in a loony bin. The soft spoken television geriatric patriarch of the baby boom generation lived in fantasy land! No such community exists today to impart such pleasantries as any homeowner can attest.

Whether it is the guy on the block that mows the lawn before the rooster crows or the family with the dog that only yaps at 3 am our neighbor's haven’t attended the Mr. Rogers School of neighborly etiquette!

Ms. Floozy of the block doesn’t keep her window shade all the way down either. I think she likes the view of the street because she’s always looking out of it while screaming and bouncing on a trampoline. What a silly thing to keep in the bedroom!

I can appreciate the precision of the neighbors who are capable of pulling into their driveway at 60 miles per hour. However, the little old lady who lives next door to them is getting tired of tossing her groceries and running in the opposite direction whenever she hears their car coming.

When we throw parties there are always some folks who you swear don’t even live in the neighborhood. They are only seen on such rare occasions when there is some banquet of free food or booze. At such a function we might hear them speak in some formal communicative grunts in between their slopping down whatever carefully prepared swill we select for our guests. These are the same folks who seem to find us invisible when we give a casual greeting or wave as we drive away. Their only form of communication seems to be Australian hand gestures.

It is harder to get to know the good qualities of neighbors further up or down the block. However, it is interesting to note that the family with the pyrotechnics skill can gently land rocket shells softly on the hood of my car some 200 yards away with such precision. I’m sure the military will be interested in the children in that family. I plan to call some recruiters and give out that family’s phone number.

The chain gang family who live in a two room house must double as circus folk
because they can cram all 14 members into the cab of their pick up truck. They have great balance when it comes to tossing ladders, shovels and jackhammers to each other. It is fun to watch them load the truck while we debate who will be the first one to catch a pitchfork with their face. That never happens however, because they are so good at what they do. I think they rent themselves out as entertainment at children’s parties.

The busy-body neighbor is probably the one on the block with the astronomically priced phone bill. They are the one always flapping their lips like they are driven by a supercharged motor. They can talk to anyone about anything for hours. Their insights regarding what goes on in the community is amazing. They are the vicinity hub for idle gossip; in other words crucial information. The networking proficiency they have established is phenomenal.

Don’t forget about the family with the children who are happily running through our prize winning azaleas, crying in screams as if they are being branded, or repeatedly in competition as they see who can whiz the longest distance. This is especially entertaining if the kids are not boys.

There is always one member of a normal household who can hear the sound of a water faucet dripping incessantly within a 3 mile radius at 4 o’ clock in the morning. At my home that is the woman of the house. I cannot tell you how many times I am jabbed in the middle of the night as if I am the one doing the barking three blocks over at some ungodly hour. She must use a poker because I wake up feeling black and blue to the complaint “there’s a dog barking and I can’t sleep.” Of course when I open my bleary eyes and strain my ear to the wind all I hear is roaring silence. “There’s a dog barking I told you!” I hear again. “It’s a dog barking nightmare” I assure her. “Go back to sleep!” Unfortunately I have to deal with the bloodshot version of her the following day and she seems as upset as the dog she claimed to hear the night before!

Is it troubling to anyone when their next door neighbor is too lazy to put out their own garbage cans and just kind of adds their trash to yours at the curbside for pick up? More fascinating is the older person on the block who inspects everyone’s garbage on trash day. They are the one who has the back yard filled with odds and ends rescued from the neighborly rubbish heaps. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure perhaps but a tree made from old rotten banana peels should not be considered art, nor salvageable.

Growing up I remember many children driving their “Big Wheels” down the hill on my block. They can go about as fast as that neighbor positioning for their high speed car parking session. The plastic tricycles make a noise as they blast down the street not unlike the sound of German Luftwaffe aircraft diving in for the kill. These 3 wheeled plastic bikes cause just about as much destruction especially to the elderly unless the 5 year old drivers carry themselves with a cache of precision like an Indy car racer. As an adult I don’t see these menacing crafts much so I assume that they’ve gone the way of the tandem bicycle.

Speaking of leaving, it seems that neighborhoods are always in great flux. It is not like decades ago where a family would buy a house and live in it until nearly everyone had grown or died. Now we are maneuvered by marketing to think that we need to move every 5 or 10 years. Neighborhoods are constantly changing. As Forrest Gump would say “Neighbors are like a box of chocolates. ya never know what you’re gonna get!” Oh yeah Forrest? Chances this is what we’ll get. Their dogs will eat my geraniums. Their cats will leave dead bird carcasses on our front porch. Their kids will break my windows playing ball and they will come to talk and stay for hours on nights when they’re not throwing swingers parties in their back yard with the significantly short privacy fence. These are the same folks who show up on our doorstep during lovey-dovey time. They knock for 10 minutes rousing us from the pleasure room having heard the strange sounds emanating from behind the bedroom window. They either want to borrow a cup of sugar or sell us on the idea of a need for a neighborhood watch program. We are tempted to tell them we need a watch out for neighbors program but we grin and bear it. Our child will have to wait for the next ovulation to get a sibling.

It is easy to grow tired of putting up with inappropriate actions from neighbors. I am getting to the point where I will fight fire with fire. I will blare ungodly bass driven music loud enough to rattle windows of everyone on the block. I will be the one who borrows lawn tools from each neighbor to never return them. I will be the one who cuts down trees unnecessarily with the super loud chainsaw before sun up. I will make sure that I fertilize my lawn only on the hottest day of the year so all the neighbors think that they’re living in farm country. I’ll put in a flag pole and fly 12 different sized and colored women’s panties as my flag. By all means move onto my block and introduce yourself. Won’t you please; please won’t you be my neighbor?!

DREAMS!

One of the greatest inventions known to man is the sleep to wake cycle; especially the sleeping part. Okay it’s really a marvel of evolution that the gods provide a mechanism of rest from the pencil pushing, butt kissing, shoe licking, desperate groveling mode of function most of us call work. Nowhere can we find a complete culmination of laziness more than when flopping on the mattress long before it is time to do so.

The folks who stand out the most however, are the ones who are on their way out of the door after work claiming “the only thing I’m doin’ when I get home is getting in the bed.” It is never my bed it is always the bed as if there is some club-med oasis secluded in their very own home.

Who can blame us? Where else can we close our eyes and live a completely different life? We are forever young in our dreams. We can touch forbidden things and perform feats without consequence. All of it is tailored by our own filthy desires. When sleeping our mind goes where it wants to and there is an assumption that we are not to blame. A spouse can have a fling in a dream and there’s not much a partner can do about it.

It is a fair bet that most of us have affairs in our own beds while our spouse lies right next to us. A typical explanation is “after all it was only a dream.” If you ever try this method then beware. Dreams can also cause black eyes, black and blue brusies, and a weekend sleeping on the couch.

This special alternative universe of the subconscious is valuable. We are spoken to from the great beyond, receive premonitions or are given tonight’s winning lottery numbers. The one who tries to pass off the winning numbers to us inevitably wears broken glasses because they are never correct. In this mysterious mode we are capable of solving the worlds problems, delivering consequential answers to questions of the age and seeing our favorite sexy neighbor naked after all these years.

Of course there are those out of control experiences where we dream about falling, losing control of the steering wheel or the bluebird of happiness pooping on our head. Another problem with the unconscious state of mind is that we often wake and after a period of time don’t remember some of the juicier visions.

In the morning it is fresh and easy to describe just how somebody’s butt wiggled as we watched them falling off their bicycle into a thorn bush. By the time the day is over though we’ll forget about every detail; except the neighbor’s rump twitching like a pair of hams giving us the come hither calling. Even in the loss of dream details there are some things that we consistently commit to our brain permanently. It’s like illegally taking porno pictures and storing them under our mattress. Thank goodness no one else goes there to find them.

Sometimes that refuge recall is seen on our faces as we daydream in front of our work computers. It looks like we’re concentrating on the bosses important excel spreadsheet when, in fact, we’re looking in our brain at a completely different spread altogether.

It’s even tougher to summon up the good material once senility sets in. Ask an elderly person about their dreams and they’ll tell you something convoluted. Usually it is about wanting their, binky pacifier or a story about how they spent a long winter at Mount Vernon. There are only short moments of lucidity for the elderly but in those times the ultimate memory is from their dreams regarding that special someone’s keester; even it belongs to Martha Washington.

DATING vs. RELATIONSHIPS!

Aside from the obvious perks of having a long term steady significant other there is an advantage to such dedicated lifestyles. Sure you have to deal with your partner’s family, mother in law, and strange Uncle Carl but the sacrifice is worth it when you consider that having a steady partner in the bedroom is a great benefit especially for men. Besides they’ve never been able to convict Carnal Carl of anything even though he looks like Tom the Peeper.

In this partnering mode you don’t have to worry about feeding yourself, cleaning the house, going on annoying blind dates or when the next thump session will occur. That kind of constant whoopee happens by itself on a schedule from the gods. In the beginning of a long term relationship there is blissful agile romping with the help of Cupid (actually it is something akin to chipmunk paced interludes that are obscured by the fact that both people are usually drunk). Then substantial time passes by and you come to realize that you’re never alone. Even bathroom time is a challenge when you share space!

C’mon guys you know you’ve never had it as good as when you’re in the beginning of a relationship! It’s the only way you’ve gotten that much bedroom activity since your leg was in heat, at least according to your pet dog Fido.

Women however can accomplish all of that satisfaction practically without a man in the bedroom. Because the male is the desperate of the species in pursuit of the female, she is in command and can pick and choose her flings. Basically if you’re a guy you should bow to your woman for gracing your slovenly hideously hairy personage with some actual desire and willingness to spend time with you! Geez man look in the mirror! Get her to a shrink or simply thank her! If she has a heart she pity’s you of course and has done so since you made yourself such a pathetic target.

It usually begins when she first sees your swinging bachelor pad. No man can live in such Oscar Madison style without having a woman come to the rescue. That is her maternal instinct taking over that leads her to believe that you need her. Of course you do have needs and she fulfils them with her pogo stick-like hips! This feeling you’ve inspired in her is misidentified by women who have never been pregnant before. They think they are saving you when in fact you are drawing her into your life of a solo guy digs in a cleaver little gotcha dance. But who’s zoomin” who?

Can any man actually live in such poverty and sloth as his single apartment represents? If so then he really can’t respect himself very much. Debauchery, perversion, alcohol in volumes befitting an elephant and as we use to say “sex drugs and rock and roll” is the hallmark of the single guy (and college frat houses). One can only carry such hedonism so far before the intervals between encounters become overpowering for him and he realizes that a steady squeeze is the right way to go.

The ladies however display their "I’m going to save him" strategy in such a way as to actually lure men into believing that they are in it for him. Once there is a ring on her finger and a child on the way the man wakes up from his Rip Van Winkle fog to find out he has a mortgage, screaming mouths to feed, and a woman named Bertha that outweighs him by 50 pounds. The shocked look on his face is precious. But facial expressions are ever changing and the perplexed look is replaced by the dismayed one quickly when she screams at him over the office speaker phone to bring home a box of tampax, a package of diapers and some fruit.

The other viable method of pursuit is blitzkrieg dating. For many individuals this is a natural state of being if you are young or young at heart. Having countless freakazoids glomming your phone number, throwing pebbles at your window (even though you live on the first floor), and dragging their potentially disease ridden parts into your silky linen covered mattress doesn’t phase you at all. The ultimate goal is to get as much and as many as possible.

There are clubs these days where you can wear appropriate colored wrist bands in a bar setting that display your intent of the type of get-together you are seeking. It’s advertising at its finest! The ability to party until 3 am thump all night long and then get up an hour later in order to work all day in the meat factory is genetically possible when in your youth.

For the older crowd however such work is tiresome and without a couple of power naps during the day (especially at the office) we’d be useless. Besides if we’ve been with someone a while we are pretty well trained to the partnership and know what wristband items we can get away with! It is an easy fit. Despite what you may hear about declining libido and grating nerves the underlying benefit to finding that special someone and sticking with them is a quantum leap ahead of one night stands especially if the Kama Sutra manual is what’s on the nightstand.

There is a proportional formula as to which lifestyle makes you happiest based upon the pleasures of the flesh frequency. The longer you go between lusty sessions the better the eventual romp will be and learning to hang from the chandelier also is helpful. If you’re getting it on every night it is more likely to become stale and routine. So in long term relationships being married to an ogre is actually a benefit if it keeps you apart for the required amount of time to make your togetherness times even keener. The dating scene’s natural catch as catch can type of timing is similar and keeps it enticing because when you do finally talk someone into sharing your lame bed it is usually a powerful pleasure pinnacle.

In new relationships there is the artificial glow that many people mistake for love. The word is lust and it is quite valuable but can lure more self centered individuals into a false sense of achieving what they’ve long sought. When the familiarity of your partner overpowers you then your sensuous princess looks like Phyllis Diller or your hunky macho partner seems like Porky Pig.

Friendship first is a good rule of thumb (that and plenty of bedroom toys). If you have been able to pal around with the member of the opposite sex for an extended length of time perhaps even living with them for a time in somewhat platonic situation you are more likely to go the distance when the thunderbolt strikes. Of course like anything else you must work hard and reinvent yourself by doing things outside of a normal routine to keep it fresh. Lots of whip cream seems to help! This will go along way to keeping the two of you together for a long time. It also helps if you don’t mind standing in the checkout line with a lime and a box of tampons.