Oh, My Neighbor...

It's Easter, and I understand a lot of people are celebrating and enjoying this special day, especially in America (I LOVE CANDY!!!!). However, I don't think any Sunday is meant to be presented as my neighbor wishes to make it.

I live in a neighborhood with a wide variety of ages, vast political viewpoints, interspersed income amounts, and a grand diversity of family units. My household is a three generation household (I live with my mom and grandmother while I'm in school), we are extremely liberal, possibly at the lower end of the middle class income; there's a Christian, a Buddhist, an Agnostic (maybe?), and a Wiccan (me). Down the street from me is a Hispanic family with four kids and possibly an uncle living with the parents (and they live in a smaller house than mine) and they're definitely making less than my family. Up the street that circles my portion of the street is a very wealthy household who use to own the land that most of the commercial industry is built on many many years ago. I've never seen them, but I think it's two people living in a large country-style house.

And right across the street from me are two retired, old Republicans... We'll call them John and Jane to keep some anonymity to their life.

Well...Today my mom and brother were building a bed for our vegetable garden that we started last year. John, with all his infinite wisdom of farming (I say this with as straight of a face as I can possibly muster given his distinct lack of knowledge about... well, possibly anything in his senile brain...), came over and started instructing and telling stories about his life and how they related to gardening. Their garden consists of perennials and a large tree which shelters the plants from the sun in the summer and keeps moisture close to the ground. So... minimal gardening to say the least. At one point, during the last drought we experienced, John decided to complain about how the farmers were taking away all the water the city needed so they could take baths when we couldn't... I wanted to hit him...

So... after a few hours of construction, my mom decided to come inside, muttering, "You can only take so much of John," while shaking her head. Jane apparently decided to stay inside today. I could only imagine how his deodorant-free, sweaty armpits permeated the air as he stood pointing and flailing as his tired, ragged voice tried to compensate for his failing, pear-shaped body and permanently gray hair quickly receding off his scalp. The nonsensical anecdotes his life donates to our world are beyond our comprehension. That's to say, we don't understand why he brings up the things he brings up; other than to have an opinion about anything.

Now that you have the basis for my appreciation for John's existence... I'll get to my tale.

I walked out to my car, laptop bag hanging heavily from my left shoulder as I began thinking about the trigonometry homework I was about to attempt. I heard this odd sort of buzzing, muffled and dim, but would grow in frequency and strength every so often at odd intervals. Thinking it was just a car about to drive by, coming up the street, or starting somewhere off in the distance, I didn't think much of it at first.

Then I looked up to see if there were any neighbors sitting outside... you know, to say 'Hi' and not be rude. We feign interest in a community sense to ensure protection and security with our neighbors...

Well, across the street was John in his now off-white tank-top covered in a faded blue and gray plaid, button-down shirt with his sleeves rolled up; faded blue jeans and moccasins. In his mouth was an electronic toothbrush, vibrating away right on the side of the street.

Aimlessly walking down his driveway, he nodded to me as I tried to not look surprised. I'm not entirely sure how successful I was... I waved with my free hand, the one not holding my bag to my side. He turned right and started shuffling down the sidewalk under his tree as a few cars drove by. Once I sat down in the driver's seat of my car, Phineas, I couldn't help but laugh...

Who brushes their teeth outside in a busy neighborhood just off a major highway in broad daylight? I hope I never get that senile; unless I live somewhere remote and it doesn't matter. Then I might throw out some of the other social norms as well and live free as a bird.