This morning, when I was waiting for the little people to arise, I was laying in bed with my husband reminiscing about when we lived in West Duluth. It's where we met, where we fell in love, and started this insane family. We have only lived on the east side for 4 years.
My husband started out as my neighbor. He didn't know it. He just thought he was my kid's hockey coach. I was married to someone else. He was recently divorced. We both had small children. I saw him one day, and knew he was the guy for me. I began going the long way home to drive past his house and look in the window (which I now know was fruitless because it was Rudy's room I was trying to sneak a peek into.) I walked my dog past his house 5 or 6 times a day. Soon, we were shacking up, and there was a pathworn in the grass between our 2 houses.
Eventually, I was divorced. I was living with Brian in his house in West Duluth. We were the big fish in a little pond. We were the only people in a 6 block radius that made over 60K apiece. We did things like buy new motorcycles on a whim, and our neighbors marvelled at us. Weird, huh? But we both worked hard and often.
We used to shoot our neighbor across the street. He was often freaked out on meth, yelling at nothing and throwing things in his driveway. He was the only 48 year old I have ever known who regularly hung out with 19 and 20-year-olds, smoked dope in his driveway, and had a bumpin' system in his 1989 Nissan Sentra. He was awesome, and we liked to shoot him. We called him Captain Dipshit, because that's what he was. We had a perfect shot from our bedroom window, where I had cut a flap just big enough for the barrel of the BB gun. He'd be out in his driveway, working on his car late at night, with the stereo blasting. Nevermind all the little kids in the neighborhood trying to sleep. Captain Dipshit would be freaking out, doing his Dipshitty things like randomly yelling and throwing tools. So, for fun, we would position the BB gun, let fly, and then watch as he freaked out even more.
I don't think we ever hit him. But the sound of BBs bouncing off the non-running cars in his driveway drove him batty, and set off new rounds of freakouts. It was hysterical.
Captain Dipshit also built a fountain in his yard. For the longest time, it was just a hole he was digging. We thought it was a grave, and we were waiting for some of the neighborhood kids to come up missing. Eventually though, it had a liner in it, some plastic swans, and multi-colored underwater lights. Just what every crackhead needs.
After we talked to him several times about barrelling out of his driveway when the little kids were rollerblading and riding their bikes on the sidewalks, and he still continued to speed in and out of his drive like a bat out of hell, I collected a good bag full of dogshit and launched it into his fountain. Wonder what those colored lights did to the flotilla of dog turds?
Soon after that, we moved to Woodland. We behave here. Its a nice place to live and we are no longer the big fish. We are middle of the road. We keep quiet and the kids play nicely. But sometimes I miss the chaos and noise of West Duluth, and even Captain Dipshit.
No comments:
Post a Comment