Monday, December 6, 2010

When Bad People Happen to Good People

A very dear friend of mine always has crazy-neighbor stories to share. Most of the people on her street are genuinely certifiable and I delight in hearing the latest loony installment. Then I got a crazy neighbor of my very own and the shine wore off: It's just too close to home.

The first couple of incidents occurred at preschool, where this woman's kid and mine were students. In front of the teachers and a classroom full of four-year-olds, she gave me a huge bear hug (that lifted me clean off the floor), followed by a threefold locker-room pat on the bum. What the???? A week later, waiting to pick up our children from school, she admired my Keratin-straightened hair and asked if I'd had my "other" hair straightened too. EWWWWWW! So inappropriate.

Over the next several months we reluctantly learned exactly what she did to earn a fabulous new pair of boots from her husband and how she tells her husband she would never cheat on him because she doesn't even want to have sex with him; she is "all dried up". The children at the bus stop look on with saucer-eyes.

The cherry (so far, at least) was this morning. She strutted down the road, butted right into a conversation about a play date, and announced that she was getting old. My heart filled with DREAD. We laughed politely and continued with our conversation. But she wasn't done.

"I'm getting old, y'know why?"
"No ..."
"I just did a wee-wee in my pants." (verbatim, I swear)

Thank God, the school bus picked that moment to arrive. We busied ourselves with saying goodbye to the kids, then hastily beat a retreat, shouting excuses on the fly.
"Not much of filter on that one!' my other neighbor whispered.
No filter at all.

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