Hot Cranky People

Observe the small decorative knife with a ceramic handle.

Be prepared for the disposal to instantly grind to a halt with a sickening crunch sound after you let the the knife go into the drain, disguised by wads and wads of carrot peelings and turnip trimmimgs.

Next, fish out the disgusting wads of carrot and turnip, ceramic handle shards, and other generally gross gunk, and then wonder where the hell the blade went.

Feel around in the dark and creepy disposal hole for a while longer, hoping it doesn’t spring to life in some dramatic horror film moment and chew your hand off, assume the knife blade is wedged in between the disposal blades, and contact the landlord. Wait 6 days for your apartment manager to (not) do anything despite promising to come over “tomorrow” every day, give up, and get your neighbor Jose and his wife to come over. They will arrive with a metal shishkebab skewer.

Watch with wonder as Jose’s wife works her shishkebab skewer magic and eventually pops this out and tosses it triumphantly on the counter.

Promise to make Jose and his wife some cookies, and then chat with them a while about their cats.

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I was recently reminded of a favorite game from my childhood: Stop Thief!

I hadn’t though about that game in probably 20 years. I don’t recall if I actually owned it. I know I played it a bunch. Hmm. Maybe my next door neighbors had it.

Ahh, the next door neighbors. They had all the cool games. Life, Mousetrap, and some game I completely loved but can’t recall the name of. I can’t remember much about it at all, really, except there was a board…and cards, and the cards were sort of magenta… or purple… or hot pink…and there was money, I think, and it was funny. It was AWESOME.

I loved those neighbors, but they were completely nuts. The dad was divorced, and had two girls around my age who lived with their mom in Tiburon, CA during the school year, and with their dad and his second wife in Atlanta for the summer and school vacations. We would hang out every day all summer in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Usually we would play at their house, because they had a pool. One year we just watched Grease 2 on cable every day. EVERY DAY. I can still do all the moves to “Cool Rider”.

The parents were total potheads, and always had a big green plastic container in the freezer called something like a “Juana-Shaker”. And porn. Lots of porn. There were stacks and stacks of Penthouse Forum in their basement. And they got the Playboy channel. They had a friend they called “Shaps” who they said invented EZ Widers and Snoopy Band-Aids. One time we were out in the back yard swimming and the dad got home from work and came out to say hi. The next thing we knew he had fallen in the pool. In his groovy ’70s light blue piece suit. I had to dive to the bottom of the deep end to get his glasses.

Occasionally the dad would drop us off at Jellybeans, the “Rock n’ Rollarena on Roswell Road” to go rollerskating. Bring on the rainbow knee socks. He was also a huge movie fan and took us along all the time to see movies that were totally inappropriate for our age. I remember seeing All That Jazz with them when I was 9. Needless to say, I totally didn’t get it. And when I was 12 they took us to see Poltergeist at the drive-in. I sat with the sisters on the grass in front of the car with my hands over my face for approximately 87% of the movie.

I have no idea where those girls are these days. Last I heard the older daughter, Casey, was going by Cassandra because it was better numerologically, and had moved to Hawaii to join a cult. Or open a hot dog stand. It was one of the two.

25ish years later, I now live in an apartment in California. All I really know about my neighbors today is that they have very loud sex every morning between 9-10am. EVERY MORNING. It is LOUD. Their bed has two “air bladders” (her exact words) and they use some sort of power tool to inflate them at night before they go to sleep. And that’s about all I ever hear from them. Loud sex and bladder inflation. They don’t like it when I watch TV at night and are not shy about knocking on the wall to let me know.

I miss the potheads.