The Free Range Stupid Crashed Through My Gate

This was supposed to be a post about why I haven’t been online for over a week and the bombshell my FIL dropped on us — he’s moving to the Philippines for some woman named Misty that he met online. But I haven’t had a chance to finish it yet because yesterday morning The Free Range Stupid crashed through my gate. Sorry, Liz. I’ll have the tale of the made-for-FaceBook-Lifetime movie up by Tuesday. Hopefully.

I knew that Cinco de Mayo — the made up holiday designed to get drunk gringos to buy Mexican piss water beer — in this ghetto neighborhood of mine was going to be bad, but I thought it would be from the loud music and drunk assholes. I never thought that some idiot would crash through my front gate with her POS pick-up truck while leaving the garage sale across the street!

Do you all understand now why I pretty much hate people? Do you get why I prefer staying at home instead of going out among The Free Range Stupid? Two summers ago this happened to me and I said then that no one believes me when I say that weird, random shit always happens to me.

But it does. On a regular basis.

Back to my story…

I was in my bedroom watching TV when my husband yelled “someone just hit the gate!” I didn’t hear him at first, so when he yelled again, I came running out the front door to find my previously locked, sliding gate bent and pushed up against the bumper of our car — note the lock still hanging intact in the picture. The woman was telling my husband that her brakes locked and smoked and she couldn’t stop. And this helps us how, lady? I told the woman it did not matter because I still had to call the sheriff to come out and take a report.

This infuriated her. Likely because she has no papers. However, my husband says that is a racist statement and I shouldn’t repeat it. I told him to look at the neighborhood we live in again then reconsider that particular attitude. I swear, if we were to drive through the streets yelling “La Migra! La Migra!” out the window, there would be people running out the back of every house except ours and the only other white family here.

The woman claims that she just bought her truck a few days ago, didn’t understand why she couldn’t complete her U-turn, why the brakes failed and wasn’t quite sure if she had insurance on it yet. No, I’m not kidding. She kept asking to not have a police report taken. I kept telling her I had no choice because our landlord requires it when there is major property damage. She also begged the deputies not to take a report, stating that her husband was a licensed contractor and could fix the damage for us. I said no, not happening.

Did I mention that the impact of her truck on the gate also broke the bumper of my car? It did. That seemed to piss her off even more. The deputies took the report, gave me her information and left. A few minutes later, my neighbor, M., the one I kind of like, started yelling at me about the accident while I was on the phone with my friend Susan.

Apparently, this woman was the daughter of M.’s friend and, according to the mother, I was rude to her daughter! All I have to say is that’s rich, considering she’s the one that crashed through my gate, damaged my car and bitched because I called the cops! My neighbor insisted that I give her my landlord’s phone number so The Idiot could call him and if I didn’t, she knew someone else who could give it to her. When I refused, she got even madder. She also told me I had no right to call the sheriffs. I’m still trying to get my jaw off the floor from that little nugget. I told her it was none of her business. M. said it was her business because it involved her friend.

Funny, I thought I was M.’s friend, too. Guess I was wrong, eh? I’m not the right color or ethnic background, obviously.

But wait, there’s more!

I called my mechanic to see if either he could come take a look at my bumper or knew a body shop he trusted and could recommend. He sent someone over and as I was in my driveway speaking to him about the damage, M. came out of her house and proceeded to tell the body guy in Spanish, which she knows I don’t fully understand, what to do to my car, who would pay for it and what happened! The term unmitigated gall immediately comes to mind.

Clearly, my neighbor had hawk-eyed my house so she could stick her nose where it absolutely does not belong. I found out later that M. gave the body guy money to pay for the repairs to my fucking car!!! I am so livid, I don’t know what to do. My husband says I should just let it go. This is his mantra. My mantra, however, is if you piss me off, I will let you know in no uncertain terms. I am not one that walks away when other people jump into my personal business.

By the way, M. is a person who never calls the cops for any reason. But because I do, I am considered the “white snitch” in this neighborhood. People like her are exactly why this area is so bad; if anyone cared about this place, they would do whatever was necessary to weed out the bad elements so that we can all live in peace. This is the mindset of Mexicans who do not consider themselves Americans first. This is the way they do things in Mexico.

The problem is, we’re not in Mexico.

Call me racist, I don’t much care. I’m married to a Hispanic Jew, so anyone who believes that has serious issues. I have this thing about life in general: if I have to follow the rules, so does everyone else. It should be a simple thing, but it’s not, hence The Free Range Stupid running rampant through the world.

And they are attracted to me like a moth to a flame. Or flies on shit.

I could go into a whole diatribe about if you are living in this country, you better have papers and live by our rules, but I won’t. I will say that when immigrants come to the U.S., they need to assimilate to how we do things here because if I was living in your home country you would demand nothing less of me.

I’m already pissed off enough that this happened, worried my landlord will somehow charge us for the repairs and nervous because I no longer have the added safety of a locked gate to shield my family and home from the bad that roams my neighborhood. I don’t need another problem created by The fucking Idiot who caused the damage and is afraid of deportation because she has no papers starting issues between me and my neighbor. And making said neighbor decide that this is the one thing she will stick her nose into.

If any of you see The Publishers Clearing House dude, tell him to bring me my check already so I can move to a good neighborhood, K?

Thanks.

Tags: Bad Neighbors, featured, Life In The Ghetto, The Free Range Stupid

Category: The Free Range Stupid