"In case you haven't noticed - which you haven't, 'cause from what I can tell, you don't notice anything ever - we are not very functional when
we're high." I had no idea that I had turned in to a Mr. Heckles-esque neighbor. Well, sort of. See, we live in this fairly small apartment complex northeast of Fort Benning. It's brand new, and after a couple of months, only ten of 36 units are occupied. One of the units is occupied by a couple of guys who are some of the most magnificently stupid people I've ever met. So, let's start with the fact that we're in a town with a ton of soldiers, what with being just northeast of Fort Benning. From my limited experience, this means that half the male population sports the very unfortunate
high and tight and a lot of stores advertise a military discount. It also means that a significant percentage of people here are fairly motivated to not do or be around illegal things.
Let's go back to the Dumb Neighbors. On Friday, I arrived home just after one in the afternoon. I'd been working out with friends, so perhaps I was already a bit feisty. Driving in, I noticed two of the Dumb Neighbors standing in front of the building, both smoking, and one very obviously emptying his bladder while exposing himself. Again, this is the middle of the day, in broad daylight - a fact that seemed to have escaped the Dumb Neighbors' notice. I walked over to the Dumb Neighbors, to inform them of the inappropriate nature of their actions. Apparently, the Dumbest Neighbor was
smoking. Which meant he had to pee outside on the two-foot strip of grass between the front of the building and the parking lot. Expressing my displeasure with this decision left them dumb-founded.
The next morning when I was leaving the house, the Slightly-Less-Dumb Neighbor (not one of the original two) introduced himself to me and apologized, although he also seemed to think that "I was smoking!" was an acceptable reason to pee out of doors when an enclosed toilet was available less than 15 feet from the urination site. A couple of hours later, the pungent stench of a dead skunk started wafting through our windows. I poked my head out the back door and reminded the original two Dumb Neighbors (along with two others) that it's generally a good idea to keep illegal activities inside where other people are less likely to guess what you're doing, especially when said illegal activity can be identified so easily at a distance. (That's, um, pretty paraphrased.) The Dumb Neighbors came over an hour or two later to apologize, although really - unless you're going to say that you'll never ever EVER do anything like that again (which they didn't, because we all know they WILL do it again) there's not much point to apologizing.
In the evening, my favorite neighbor stopped by. He is a Ranger Instructor (if you don't know what that means, you can start with
this YouTube video). I love the fact that he lives next door to us; he has a ginormous dog and a serious arsenal and he can be really mean, which means that with Dave spending more than half of every week out in the field I am still
very safe. Anyway, so the RI stops by to talk about the Dumb Neighbors and how lucky they were to be dealing with me rather than one of the soldier neighbors. Oh, and it turns out the two others smoking the dead skunk moved into the next building down, and the RI is fairly convinced they're drug dealers, which means now is the time to start placing bets on how long it will be until the cops are here.
Let this be a lesson to you, Small Bear - don't do dumb things, because first you'll be yelled at, and then you'll get arrested. (Also, I highly recommend living next to a Ranger Instructor - great stories, good grilling skills, excellent security.)
I could play the oboe.
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