Cursed Tongue: Hello, Creepy Stranger!

Posted by CursedTongue on May 15, 2008

There was a strange guy standing on the curb across from the park this morning.  He had a stack of big white envelopes or folded papers.  Abruptly knocked from the serenity of my morning walk, I bristled at the nerve of this stranger and launched into alert city girl mode.

I shifted, and tightened my dog’s leash to make it appear as though I were worried she might attack.  I concentrated on standing taller and scrutinizing the possible solicitor/evangelist/conman, without making eye contact.  I was bracing to hear the “good news.”  But the short man with the red shirt apparently wasn’t so nervy.  He danced the doot-de-doo shuffle and wandered away.

A couple of blocks later I saw an older man with gray hair and a mustache standing on the curb across the street.  This guy seemed more comfortable.  Brazen, even.  Cockroach-like.  I thought for certain he would approach me with whatever sales pitch was tucked in his hand.  I turned towards him and said, “Hello.”  As in, “What the hello do you think you’re doing in my neighborhood?”  He looked at me but scuttled back under the rock from which he came without a word.

I resent feeling as if I should be carrying my phone in the morning.  With the mortgage crisis, and the neighborhood’s constant tribute to <i>Lord of the Flies</i> (i.e. plenty of unattended, barefoot minors), and an entire troop of boy scouts in ties on bikes spreading the good word, the neighborhood doesn’t need creepy guys hanging out on the curbs.

I might be a little oversensitive.  There are houses in my subdivision that have been sitting on the market for over 6 months.  More disturbing are the homes that stand empty.  The ones the bank has foreclosed on and thoughtfully converted into weed farms.  According to a study by Dan Immergluck of Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and Geoff Smith of Woodstock Institute in Chicago violent crime increase 2.33% for every one-percentage point hike in the rate of foreclosures in a neighborhood.

There are signs that the neighborhood is sliding down the hill into trailer trash valley.  Maybe it’s the recent outbreaks of graffiti.  Maybe it’s the neighbors who leave their garage doors open continually.  Maybe it’s the Mensa candidate that lets her small children ride their tricycles in the street while she naps.

Homeowners that have escaped the festival of foreclosures feel entrenched, stuck.  And the real estate investors may be crying in the dog food they are forced to live on, but they have no remorse for the communities they’ve damaged.

I’m sure the timid men were just attempting to complete an assignment for Assertiveness 101 at the nearby community college and finding it to be a challenge.  But I still feel the need to turn over the rocks in the neighborhood and spray anything that crawls with enough Raid to produce two generations extra digit babies.  Sure, those babies will have to either undergo painful surgery or relentless peer taunting, but they’ll thank me later when their persons and their Xboxes escape childhood otherwise unmolested.

- Sarah Letnes

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