Report of the Middle of The Street Committee

There is still a buzz in the air surrounding the activity at the House of the Cruel Mistress and Sub Trevor.  Our block's Middle of the Street Committee - which meets whenever we see each outside  and we stand in the middle of our rarely traveled street to discuss and hopefully solve the problems of the world (and maybe our own neighborhood) had an impromptu gathering in which tongues wagged and a gaggle of gossip and speculation was shared amongst the loyal and settled residents of our street.

High on every one's list was the activity going on over at the Cruel Misstress' house as one shill contractor after another came and went.  A dumpster arrived, only to be carted away empty a couple days later because it didn't have a permit to be on the street according to "Just Call Me Judy" a neighborhood activist and all around pill who always introduces herself with the line "Just call me Judy!" 

"You can't put that on the street without a permit!" Just Call Me Judy stated to the cruel mistress of the house.  And when the Cruel Mistress failed to comply, Just Call Me Judy made good on her threat and called the city and guess who got cited.

Two weeks ago, Just Call Me Judy first told us what she had done.  "That'll teach her," she said wrapping up her pyhrric victory tale.  All it did was piss off the Cruel Mistress.

Two weeks ago she was happy as a clam.  But this day, she was less happy.  The Cruel Mistress ran an end run around Judy, and Judy was fuming.

"Look who thought she was just the top of the shit heap," whispered Pot Smoking Bob.

Topic 2 Involved the Creul Mistress' attack plan "B".  Unable to get the dumpster in (and too lazy to get the permit from the city for $25) she started emptying the junk in house to the front yard with a sign that read "FREE".  She did this in the middle of the night when no one could see her doing it.

In our neighborhood there is a long standing tradition of placing such unwanted items next to the dumpsters in the alleys.  Dumpster Divers (those who make their living at finer flea markets) drive up and down our alleys looking for other people's cast offs, which they clean up stock their perpetual yard sales with -OR- if they are cunning enough and middle-class, they pick this stuff up, clean it up and then donate it to the Salvation Army and take a tax write off.  It's recycling at its best.  Just don't expect someone to take your old water tank.   Broken Toilets are desirable, your old water heater isn't.  Evidently, there is a limit to greed in this world.

However this "Free" thing in her front yard got into our collective craws. 

What happens in the alley happens in the alley, but when you start putting things into the front yard, that starts inviting trouble and things start turning up missing on the front porches of our houses.  We also noted that the number of car windows smashed in our neighborhood has risen since the Cruel Mistress has started her free-to-good-home yard sales.

"Does she honestly think that we would covet this junk?  Who want's her stuff," asked Helicopter Sandy.  Helicopter Sandy is a police officer in our neighborhood and flies one of those "eye in the sky units".

Pot Smoking Phil nodded, and then he tried to pass his joint to me.  No, not my thing.  God knows what is in Phil's oral cavity.  Makes my blood run cold just thing about it.

"It's just crappy furniture, old plastic bowls, hangers - who the hell  has that many hangers?" asked Sandy.  In fact, Cruel Mistress had thrown out for the "Free" crowd about 50 plastic grocery bags filled with plastic clothes hangers.

I pointed out that I save cardboard and chipboard.  "You never know when you are going to have to ship something.  May be it's the same with her and 'she never knows' when she is going to have to hang something up."

The Bob Wolf(e)s agreed.  "With him..." said Bob Wolfe as they pointed to each other.  "...it's plastic bags," said Bob Wolf.

One Tooth Bit - a large lesbian with terrible oral care habits said "It's not even good stuff.  When she gonna throw out some handcuffs?"  You never want to stand too close to One Tooth Bit. When she speaks, she sprays.  

"Bit" who was once Betsy in her youth is disgusting.  If anyone else had said that it would have received a roll of the eye's, but that it was Bit who said that and made an illusion to S/M sex just made the rest of queasy.

"GROSS!" said the Bob Wolf(e)s in unison.

There was general chatter from the group, and then Boob Job Carla (who used to be Realtor Denise until her husband bought her "the bestest gift a girl can get" a breast augmentation) spoke out over all:

"The bottom line is that this could lead to increased crime, and that can hurt property values."  (And her commissions.)

"You think that's a problem," added in I Don't Have a Sphincter Audra, "I don't have a sphincter." (She brings this up in any situation and that she will interject it is a foregone conclusion)  "Now that'll cause you real problems."

And with that lovely image fresh in our gray matter, The Middle of the Street Committee ajorned

That evening when the husband was out walking Rocky the Wonder Dog and Buzz Saw Kevin (who though small is mighty with his teeth and can rip just about anything to shreds in 10 seconds flat) and who should come out of her house, her arms loaded down with more crap, but the Cruel Mistress.

The husband who is not prone to confronting people, even when they step on his toes ("maybe they misjudged their steps.") did exactly that when he came face to face with the neighbor whose name I dare not put in print.  When he returned from the walk he seemed angry (very unusal for him) and annoyed.   He told me that he just couldn't keep from saying something. 

"You said something to her? So what did you say?" I asked.

"I told to stop putting her crappy crap out in the front yard, and that no one wanted her crappy crap," he said, a bit disappointed in himself.

"Did you really call it crappy crap?  Twice? Maybe you really said that she needed to take her 'fucking crap" and shove it in the dumpster," I said.

"No, I said crappy crap." 

Oh, what a cathartic release that must have been.

You know those WASPish New England types.  They just keep pushing it down - deep down - those negative feelings, those feelings that the rest of midwesterners see our therapists about.  And one day all those feelings that have been pushed down, compacted and locked away in that place deep down come roaring forth with a good old fashioned "crappy crap" and the rage is vented. 

Whatever my husband said it seems to have worked; there hasn't been any crap - crappy crap or fucking crap inclusive - left out in the past five days.  It seems she got the message.

The next thing I need to do is find someone to call her phone number and find out how much she wants for that Palace of Pain of hers...