I know it's been forever since I've written anything. I guess I got busy. Or maybe I was having a patch of good luck. Well, let me tell you - that shit is over. I'm back on the bad bus to hell, which I know some of you will appreciate. The hardest part is deciding which incident takes precedence.
And here's how it happened.
About 5 years ago I bought a rowhouse in DC. Yes, it's sandwiched between two houses. And yes, the walls are kind of old and thin. Oh, yeah, you can hear stuff pretty well too ... people stomping up and down the stairs, doors slamming, beds creaking, bass pumping. Let's just say things didn't improve much for me when my single neighbor moved to Potomac and rented her house out to a group of college kids. Seriously, it's a residential neighborhood and you're renting to a bunch of ne'er do wells? I know some of you can relate and how lame you think it is, too.
So, a few weeks ago these lovely neighbors of mine decide to have a party. 12:15. At night. I drag my ass out of bed around 1, open the door and ask the hoard of partiers on their front porch to please turn down the music. A glassy-eyed girl replies, "uh. Sure. yeah. ok."
Didn't fill me with a lot of confidence that my message would ever reach anyone near a volume dial.
1:30. Repeat performance. Ignored.
2. Fuming. 2:30. 3. 3:30. I try everything. Ear plugs. Headphones. Changing bedrooms. Ringing my friend (luckily she didn't answer or she would have beat my ass). Some probably wonder why I didn't call the fuzz, but talk about opening a can of torture worms. They'd probably start having round the clock dance party USA.
Anyway. From that point on this paranoia grew inside me that with every approaching weekend I was going to be subjected to midnight vibrations - and not of the good kind.
A couple weeks pass, then I hear a commotion, and it's a 'party commotion' - the kind where people run around, clean up, strategically place speakers, pop weenies in the oven. I call my friend that I had rung up during the previous blowout because it was only 9 or so and she said to come over and sleep at her place. Awesome. They could live it up all night and it wouldn't make a shit of a difference to me because I wouldn't be there. HA HA.
I park in front of my friend's house, go in, we drink wine and catch up, hit the sack around midnight. Sleep like the dead. Sneak out around 7:30 since I'm a demented early riser. See a couple hoodlums walking towards me on the sidewalk so I walk into the street to get to the driver's side of my car. Get in, drive home, park, go in and go back to bed. Ahh. Home. Good. Merlie. Cuddly.
Noon. Gotta' go to the fish store to pick up some stuff (yeah, some of my fish are actually still alive). Head over to the passenger door for whatever reason and stop dead in my tracks. A big ol' LC is painted in black and it's not even nice writing for Chrissake. Then I notice the scratches. Looks like a rabid cat was unleashed on some catnip pasted to my door. The key marks don't go in a straight line, either. They go up and down and down to the metal and over and zig-zag and just all kinds of f*cked up. I was probably in a state of shock because I calmly walked around the car, got in and drove to the fish store.
Now, one might think that this is the shittiest thing ever, but once I found out that LC stands for Las Cruces - a smallish DC gang - I figured I could have some fun with it. I secretly hoped they weren't rivals with MS-13 or something because it could have turned into a paint war on my whip. Anyway. I called my insurance company, scheduled the appointment for the estimate, did all that time consuming garbage.
Then I had about a week or so before I had to take it to Toyota so I pumped up the bass on my stereo as loud as it would go and drove through some of the crappiest neighborhoods in DC. Of course I didn't have to go too far away from my house... It was hilarious. I was turning heads left and right and when they saw some shrimpie white girl at the wheel, the look of surprise made all the vandalism worth it. No one in their right mind would have messed with me anyway, since I was now an honorary member of the LC.
I now have my hoopty back and it looks all new and shiny and yellow again. At least they didn't bust out my windows. And I even hung out with my neighbors this past Sunday. They introduced me to a hookah pipe. It was like smoking raisins, but pretty tasty. They also said they'd give me a couple days' notice before their next shindig, and when they do I'm gonna drive straight back to my same friend's house to stay the night. See what other kind of gang critters initiate me and my FJ.
Let's start with my hoopty, as Anne (remember, my sister) calls it now. I may have mentioned before that I drive a yellow FJ Cruiser because of my undying love for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Well, it was yellow up until a couple weeks ago, before it got spray painted and keyed by some total asshole loser. Here are a couple pics so you can feel my pain.
And here's how it happened. About 5 years ago I bought a rowhouse in DC. Yes, it's sandwiched between two houses. And yes, the walls are kind of old and thin. Oh, yeah, you can hear stuff pretty well too ... people stomping up and down the stairs, doors slamming, beds creaking, bass pumping. Let's just say things didn't improve much for me when my single neighbor moved to Potomac and rented her house out to a group of college kids. Seriously, it's a residential neighborhood and you're renting to a bunch of ne'er do wells? I know some of you can relate and how lame you think it is, too.
So, a few weeks ago these lovely neighbors of mine decide to have a party. 12:15. At night. I drag my ass out of bed around 1, open the door and ask the hoard of partiers on their front porch to please turn down the music. A glassy-eyed girl replies, "uh. Sure. yeah. ok."
Didn't fill me with a lot of confidence that my message would ever reach anyone near a volume dial.
1:30. Repeat performance. Ignored.
2. Fuming. 2:30. 3. 3:30. I try everything. Ear plugs. Headphones. Changing bedrooms. Ringing my friend (luckily she didn't answer or she would have beat my ass). Some probably wonder why I didn't call the fuzz, but talk about opening a can of torture worms. They'd probably start having round the clock dance party USA.
Anyway. From that point on this paranoia grew inside me that with every approaching weekend I was going to be subjected to midnight vibrations - and not of the good kind.
A couple weeks pass, then I hear a commotion, and it's a 'party commotion' - the kind where people run around, clean up, strategically place speakers, pop weenies in the oven. I call my friend that I had rung up during the previous blowout because it was only 9 or so and she said to come over and sleep at her place. Awesome. They could live it up all night and it wouldn't make a shit of a difference to me because I wouldn't be there. HA HA.
I park in front of my friend's house, go in, we drink wine and catch up, hit the sack around midnight. Sleep like the dead. Sneak out around 7:30 since I'm a demented early riser. See a couple hoodlums walking towards me on the sidewalk so I walk into the street to get to the driver's side of my car. Get in, drive home, park, go in and go back to bed. Ahh. Home. Good. Merlie. Cuddly.
Noon. Gotta' go to the fish store to pick up some stuff (yeah, some of my fish are actually still alive). Head over to the passenger door for whatever reason and stop dead in my tracks. A big ol' LC is painted in black and it's not even nice writing for Chrissake. Then I notice the scratches. Looks like a rabid cat was unleashed on some catnip pasted to my door. The key marks don't go in a straight line, either. They go up and down and down to the metal and over and zig-zag and just all kinds of f*cked up. I was probably in a state of shock because I calmly walked around the car, got in and drove to the fish store.
Now, one might think that this is the shittiest thing ever, but once I found out that LC stands for Las Cruces - a smallish DC gang - I figured I could have some fun with it. I secretly hoped they weren't rivals with MS-13 or something because it could have turned into a paint war on my whip. Anyway. I called my insurance company, scheduled the appointment for the estimate, did all that time consuming garbage.
Then I had about a week or so before I had to take it to Toyota so I pumped up the bass on my stereo as loud as it would go and drove through some of the crappiest neighborhoods in DC. Of course I didn't have to go too far away from my house... It was hilarious. I was turning heads left and right and when they saw some shrimpie white girl at the wheel, the look of surprise made all the vandalism worth it. No one in their right mind would have messed with me anyway, since I was now an honorary member of the LC.
I now have my hoopty back and it looks all new and shiny and yellow again. At least they didn't bust out my windows. And I even hung out with my neighbors this past Sunday. They introduced me to a hookah pipe. It was like smoking raisins, but pretty tasty. They also said they'd give me a couple days' notice before their next shindig, and when they do I'm gonna drive straight back to my same friend's house to stay the night. See what other kind of gang critters initiate me and my FJ.
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