Suburbia Texas Style

Tonight is National Night Out. A night for neighbors to leave their homes, stand in front yards, meet and talk with each other. Really get to know your neighbors.

So I'm trying to decide who I really want to engage in conversation.

Option 1:
The neighbors to my left who are in a gang. Really, they are in a gang. Two brothers, early twenties. They live with their mother who I rarely see. Now one of the brothers is doing time for murder. I'm not making this up. The brother who still resides in the house now wants to be a sheriff. When he speaks to you he never looks you in the eye.

Option 2:
The lonely Asian man that lives directly across the street. We only see him when he is out mowing his lawn or when one of my children accidentally hit his garage door with a basketball and he runs out to see what the noise was (this makes me giggle a little). One morning I saw a tall Asian woman wearing very high platform shoes and a fur coat leave his house and walk down the street. Hmmmm, he lives alone. I won't speculate but it was summer and we're in Houston, Texas. Enough said.

Option 3:
The teacher (at my kids junior high by the way) that teaches by day and becomes a nosey, drunkard by night. I do enjoy her alcohol laden breath and her incoherent rantings. Okay, she's definitely on my list.

Option 4:
Then actually my favorite neighbors who I would love to engage in lengthy conversations but....About two months ago someone painted a large red X on their front door. The man of the house thought we did it because he trimmed our trees that hung over onto his property. He told me this, confessed if you will, and in response I looked at the trees which I hadn't even noticed had been trimmed and asked if he could do the others in our yard. I told him I appreciate him trimming the trees as we are lazy homeowners.

Sadly, someone continues to paint red X's on his property and leave raw chicken (we can't figure this one out) in his potted plants and on the trunk of his cars. The last straw for them was this someone painted a red X on a small white T-shirt and left it in their driveway. The police have been called numerous times with no help. He has two small children. One of which just started Kindergarten. To make things worse they are Pakistani...who knows what this red X painter, raw chicken leaver has in mind. They have now put their house up for sale and I feel sad and guilty for some reason. We have nothing to do with this but I feel guilty nonetheless. I think they may still suspect us for whatever reason. I hope they don't. Like I told him; if they did something to piss us off we would have said something. We're not really the passive-aggressive type.

To End:
And here I am, a horror writer put slap dab in the middle of these wonderful cast of characters! How about that? I guess I will go out tonight after all. Maybe tell them all thanks for making suburbia so interesting.

Have a good one. Get out. Meet your cast of characters. Who knows? Might spark an idea.

Forever Haunted,
Suzie