I'm in a bad mood today.
Perhaps it is because yesterday I damn near ripped off my right pinky toe. It is black and painful this morning and I currently have it duct taped to the toe beside it. The pain is making me miserable but I know there isn't anything a doctor can do for it other than what I've already done (buddy tape it).
But maybe I'm also grouchy because I got a phone call from one of our neighbours this morning...they are preparing to sell their house to move down to Georgia, and they have been trying to get rid of as much of their accumulated junk/possessions as they can, especially since their three kids have been moving on to college. Last X-mas they sold an antique-looking flip top desk to my husband and me. I say "antique-looking" because it almost certainly dates to post 1950's; we have it set up in our front hall and use it as a phone and writing table and one day while I was on the phone I was absent-mindedly fingering the carvings on the front and I noticed to my surprise that the ornate central "carving" was actually bakelite. The rest of the desk and carvings are solid wood...only the ornate central decoration is bakelite.
Anyway, bakelite or no bakelite, we really like the desk. It fits in splendidly in our Victorian front hall.
But then I got the phone call from our neighbour saying that her eldest daughter was unhappy that her mother had sold the desk, and wanted her mother to get it back. They want it back tonight.
And so, in the interests of getting along with our neighbours, we will be returning it to them tonight. But Mr.Absinthe is very unhappy, and I can't say I'm too impressed myself. I've noticed before this incident that the children of the people who live in this neighbourhood are spoiled rotten; they are all kids of wealthy families, all of whom have household incomes at least three times what we have. The kids, almost to a one, are just plain rude, lazy, and obnoxious.
This same daughter was in high school a couple of years ago and around June of that year there were several late night incidents where the daughter was dropped off at 2 am in the morning by a car-load of raucous friends who all too obviously were roaring drunk. We ended up calling the police one night because the teenage driver was so drunk he took the car up over the curb and ripped up the grass when he pulled over to let the daughter out. We thought, given that we had called the police with the license plate number, that we should somehow broach the subject with my neighbour (under the natural assumption that she wasn't home when her under-age daughter was being driven home drunk by drunken under-age friends). I mean, I would want to know if my kid was doing that. Because if one of my kids ever did something like that they would experience a pretty good facsimile of the Wrath of God.
We broached the subject with her as obliquely and politely as we could. It turns out that not only was she home when her daughter was dropped off, she was well aware they had been drinking and partying, and condoned it as "graduation parties". Yikes. It was a wonder those kids didn't end up killing themselves or some innocent motorists in an accident.
The kids are so lazy in this neighbourhood that none of them work in the summer when they are teenagers. And not even when they are in college. When I asked when we first moved in if any of the three kids of our neighbour did babysitting, she shot me a look like I had just asked one of her kids to whore for my husband, and said "our kids don't work". And indeed they don't; I've stopped by their yard to chat in passing at 2 pm in the afternoon, and have been told we need to keep our voices down to a hoarse whisper because the two oldest girls are "still in bed".
I kept talking in a regular voice.
Anyway, there has been much decrying of the decline of the youth of the nation. I would say that if indeed there has been decline, youth of the middle to upper middle class have degraded the most...nearly all the blue collar kids I know are polite and respectful, and they work in the summer time when they are teenagers (and many have side jobs during the school year too). For the upper middle class it almost seems like it is a status symbol to raise the laziest, rudest, most worthless kids you can. And then flaunt it.
At times like these I often think it is a mistake that we moved to a tony neighbourhood. Our values are just too different from the values of our neighbours. We fit in much better in the working class neighbourhood we lived in when we lived in Chicago.
Or maybe I'm just over-reacting because I am in a pissy mood due to my toe...
Update, Evening July 16th
This evening Mr.Absinthe and I toted the desk over to the neighbour's front porch. Then I went back home because Mr.Absinthe is usually more diplomatic than I am under stress. Usually, that is. He is actually more angry about the whole situation than I am (and I am pretty cheesed off) and he ended up ultimately losing it this evening when the neighbours tried to give him half the money we originally paid for the desk. He got mad, which he rarely does, but is an awesome sight to behold when it happens. The neighbors eventually forked over the original price we paid, plus $5 "for our trouble". $5? Just the original price would have been less rude I think. A blood vessel popped in Mr.Absinthe's forehead right around then.
This whole incident now wins the prize for the most crassness we've ever seen exhibited by fellow human beings. Is "crassiest" a word?
We don't often drink, but I think the stressors of the day call for margaritas for Mr.Absinthe and myself...
