A Quarter Life Crisis

In true helpful daughter fashion after a grueling day in the office creating org charts (this is a whole other story) I swung by my mother's house to take her to Tar-jay. As I pulled up yelling the usual Wander (her name is Wanda but we have this running joke to call her Wander like my Grandmother) why don't you answer you're phone, she was already in rare form. The culprits: her neighbors to the left (and now that I think if it, they could be considered her neighbors to the right it just depends on how you're standing on the porch). But I digress.

"See this is what I'm talking about.." Basically whenever someone in my family starts a sentence this way I know there's gonna be something really serious or really funny coming. In this case it was a combo of the two, my mom found to be very serious and I found it to be very funny. I hopped out of Juan Carlo(my car) to see the rig-a-ma-role. From the porch I looked down as my mother angrily turned off the faucet in the front lawn. Between the mumbles I was able to make out that this was in fact the third time in the matter of a few wks she'd come home and discovered water slowly covering the front patio-ish area. Granted it wasn't forcefully spitting out of the hose (in all honesty I probably would have missed it if she hadn't pointed it out) however, to her point God only knows how long the water's been running.

Since I am naturally a smart ass, I calmly said to her that if she didn't want the neighbors using her water hose any longer maybe she should take it from out of the front yard all together. This was said in the truest sense of a joke, however, Wander thought this a great idea and proceeded to unscrew the hose from it's home all the while mumbling something like, that's right you won't steal my water no more. Barely containing my laughter, as my mom attempted to tuck the green tubing underneath her arm I barrelled into the house with my laptop bag, her laptop bag and her pocketbook.

Inside the rantings continued. My sister who was sitting on the couch watching TV perked up to listen. I attempted to explain to her that obviously the neighbors had used the hose again before my mother went into banshee woman fury yelling, "The last time she used my damn porch she left her dirty ass grill out there for wks which left grease all over the place. Do you think she even bothered to clean it up.....huh....hell no she didn't but you know what she did do, she moved her grill to her grass. Like that makes a difference. Grease is still on my porch and now it won't come out. Did I complain? No I didn't say anything, you know trying to be neighborly. And you know what....I know it was her. I know it was her. And you know why I know it was her....huh...because Marcus(across the street neighbor) told me it was her. That's right the other day Marcus said that he was trying to figure out why Billy (culprit neighbor's son) was in my damn yard. Now I know. But you know what, I knew it was them anyway. Ain't no body have to tell me it was them, cause I knew. See I would be wrong if I just...you know what..." Then she stormed up the steps to talk to my rehabbing father (out on workers comp so ironic I know and yes another story that I will have to tell). I guess our silence made her even madder, go figure. I was too busy quelling the laugh in my gut to speak.

From downstairs I could hear the inflection of her voice but not the words. My sister and I looked at each other and began laughing with the you know you're mom is crazy look on our faces. It only took a few minutes before she came charging down the steps. This time she picked up the phone and began dialing my grandmother. Honestly I don't think she said hello and the conversation went much like the rant from earlier. Of course this time my sister and I were free to chuckle as she told it because she wasn't officially talking to us. Once finished thoroughly blowing up my grandmother's eardrums she hung up the phone with a thud.

"Oh you know what..." she said as she charged out the front door. Again my sister and I gave each other the look and began laughing hysterically. Popping off the couch, my sister ran to the window to get a better view. I could vividly see her pounding on the neighbors door and violently pushing the bell in my head, which my sister confirmed through snickers. About 2-3 minutes later, after tiring of the knocking and the ringing of it all, my mom burst back into the house still in rare form.

"Yeah see they gonna play that game, like I don't know they home. OK, I got something for that," she said as she ripped a piece of computer paper from the printer and began furiously writing a note. By now it was too hard to stop the laughter and I asked if I could see it before she planted it on the neighbor's doorstep. She flung the letter at me and I read as she nicely wrote something like please stop using my water. I came home three times and the faucet was still running. Thanks Wanda. Cracking a smile at this point, I asked if she felt it was necessary. The look on her face proved it obviously was and why would I even question her.

After my quick read she barrelled back out the door and placed the letter in the mail slot for the neighbors. Oddly when she returned she had a sense of calm on her face. I guess the letter leaving made her exhale or something. She proceeded to ask me, " So do you think I was wrong?"

Insert laughter here