You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The Old Bitch next door.
Who’s the old bitch next door you ask? The wicked witch of the West who was crushed by a falling house?
No.
The old lady in the shoe who had so many bleeding hemorrhoids, she didn’t know what to do?
No
She’s just the next door neighbor who comes and goes like a stealthy CIA operative.
She is clandestine sneaky. She is stink bug unfriendly.
The old Bitch is the crappy next door neighbor who single handedly can make an entire neighborhood feel like a sour stomach the morning after a night of tequila shots.
she is old and cantankerous. She is stomach bile burning your esophagus. She is limburger cheese baking in the sun. She is a sidewalk crack filled with crab grass and weed killer.
This old goat can chew a tin can and stick a nasty notice under the wiper blade of your car.
This gaseous reptile turns off her lights at Halloween. Her house is as dark as her serpents heart.
She’s so anonymous that even God doesn’t know who the hell she is.
She is bug guts on the front of my front grill.
I rarely see her. She enters her garage like a hawk swooping out of a tree. Then she closes her garage and disappears like hoodini.
She acts like her home is the fortress of solitude.
She could be, should be, a footnote in the history of who cares.
But she makes herself painfully obvious like a puss filled wart that needs lancing.
Why do I talk about this stain in a hobo’s undergarments?
Because her disenchantment is so publicly repugnant.
I mean how many times can you call the police on two black labs?
Black Labs? They are cuddly teddy bears of dogs.
You hate Black Labs? Not black widows? Not black lives matters movement?
BLACK F***ING LABS!
They wag their tails and spend all day dreaming of a tennis ball to fetch and a warm hand to scratch their nose.
If everyone thought like a black lab it would be hard to pull the trigger on a gun, or punch someone in the face.
Black Labs only want to please.
And yes, they do like to bark.
If I was the dog ambassador of the United Nations I would go to her house and ask “What’s your problem, old woman?”
Were you ignored by a litter of puppies when you were a child?
Did you step in dog poop the day your prom date stood you up?
Why do you feel compelled to call the police every time a dog barks in the neighborhood?
Are you always home? Do you have no life? Are you there recording each yelp and woof on your flip phone from the 90’s.
Is your rocking chair poised at your bedroom window staring out at a world you find so inhospitable?
Do you have your ear to the wall, listening for signs of trouble on a Saturday night?
Don’t you have any friends who can take you out to a blue plate special?
Isn’t there a movie you could go to occupy your time?
Where are your girlfriends to play canasta? Where are your grand kids to bounce on your knee?
Are you filled with so much self loathing that you set your alarm to sit by the front door and watch for trouble?
Woof. Woof.
“What’s that?,” You think. “That black lab is barking again in the bark yard.”
We can’t have that you think to yourself. That’s unacceptable.
That noise is as unwelcome as a cock roach in a peanut butter sandwich.
Do you have the police on speed dial, in case you hear a woof or yelp?
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“I want to report barking. It’s 9:30 on a Saturday night. And I want it to stop.”
“We’ll send an officer by as soon as we wrap up the blood letting and the DUI investigation.”
“Do it fast. Those dogs are loud.”
Hey old woman, Why don’t you turn your hearing aid up and chillax? Put some Tony Bennett on and roll your walker around the living room.
Your nasty calls to the police affect people. Each time the police come and put a noise ordinance violation in the mailbox it costs $126.
This is the 2nd time you’ve done this.
What if others spent as much time staring at your house wondering what is not in compliance as you do listening for barking dogs?
You know your siding is pretty moldy. We don’t like the height you keep your lawn. I personally hate the silhouette of your skull as you drive in an out of your garage.
Maybe neighbors should put the Codes Department number on their speed dial and call on you.
Listen. I know that good fences make good neighbors, but so to does compassion and patience. They are dogs, not four legged members of ISIS.
I know you are an old crustacean who was conceived in a petri dish filmed with slimy squid ink, but lighten up.
Live and let live.
One day you might fall and can’t get up.
Guess what.
Nobody will hear your cries for help.
We’ll just assume it’s a black lab woofing in the dark of night.
Life’s Crazy™