Personal Note: It's the Black Beast of AAAAAUGH!

[nebroadwe]

Ah, spring. Time to rise with the sun and saunter into the garden, where the robins are chirping and the mourning doves cooing ...

... in order to pick up the zillion cigarette butts one of the neighbors has thrown into the ivy over the winter. Ugh. Disgusting. But it seems that no matter who lives at that number, they like to heave stuff off the balcony -- everything from cigarettes to chairs. I didn't quite have the oomph to go after the big stuff this morning. I'm thinking of investing in a no-littering sign once I've got it all cleaned up. One small effort toward staving off a local tragedy of the commons.

Mind you, while I was all bent over extracting the confounded butts from the ivy, I was entertaining a revenge fantasy in which the guilty neighbor walks up the path one evening and feels a tug at his left ankle that nearly trips him. He looks down, cursing, and tries to unwind the ivy runner that has grown across the sidewalk. But another one snakes up and snags his right ankle; then four more entangle his wrists. He's pulled over and dragged, yelling, into the heart of the ivy bed. Slurp, slurp, compost. Ha.

Then it occurred to me that, if this were the kind of horror movie wherein such things happen, he wouldn't buy the farm until the last act -- it would be I, poor, innocent, hapless, just-trying-to-help, who'd disappear first to establish the Green Menace as a threat; its motivations would be revealed only subsequently. Oops.

I'm upstairs eating breakfast now. With the door facing gardenward firmly closed.

Comments

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

That's the problem with horror movies - you know YOU'D be the one to get it first.

[artemisrae.livejournal.com]

At the the risk of sounding crass, there is always that whole Virgin Clause. That saved me and my best friend in high school when we got stranded at a drive-in movie theater on a weeknight when her engine died. The owner of the theater actually drove over, asked what was going on, and when we explained how the engine had died and we were waiting for her parents to come jump us, told us to go ahead and let ourselves out. And then he LEFT US. In his drive-in theater! IN A HEAVILY WOODED AREA! With no cell-phone reception! We had to walk to the road to use our cell phones! We were both scared out of our wits until we remembered we were virgins and therefore probably safe until Horror Movie Rules.

Moving on to cigarette butts, and things that really piss me off - the hospital I work out has a separate entrance that leads into radiology and the cancer treatment center. It's the entrance they tell ALL the cancer patients to go into. Guess which one all the employees go smoke at because they're too lazy to go to the designated area? Disgusting. They're starting to crack down on it - because other employees are complaining - but the ground is littered even now. Disgusting.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

ugh, myidiot neighbors actually walk across the courtyard to toss their shit in my garden.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

artemisrae does make a good point below about The Rules. Still, I felt uneasy ... and I know I can't run fast enough or long enough to outlast the oncoming eldritch whatever. Toast, me. I'm resigned to it.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

At the the risk of sounding crass, there is always that whole Virgin Clause.

Doesn't one age out of that, though? I think I'm more likely to be recognized as the Annoying Old Bat With The Gardening Gloves, who gets it in the neck for being an Interfering Besom. Young, pretty virgins survive to have sex eventually, in a socially acceptable manner; persevering in that state is as unacceptable as failing to. That's some catch, that Catch-22 ...

I did survive a night in a Really Creepy Hotel some years back on the grounds that the trip had been so weird I had to survive to tell the tale. This did not reassure my non-storytelling companion.

Moving on to cigarette butts, and things that really piss me off - the hospital I work out has a separate entrance that leads into radiology and the cancer treatment center. It's the entrance they tell ALL the cancer patients to go into. Guess which one all the employees go smoke at because they're too lazy to go to the designated area?

Argh. I hate it when people do things like that. Littering in general both pisses me off and confounds me. How hard is it to put your trash in a trash can? HOW HARD, PEOPLE?!

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

That's totally out of line. I'd be picking it up and dumping it back in theirs -- and then getting in trouble for littering, of course. I don't have the gene for successful vengeance.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

i swear they just walk along the sidewalks chucking shit everywhere

[artemisrae.livejournal.com]

Well that goes both ways - Annoying Old Bat (which I'm obviously not saying you are :D I'd never) may either be bumped off innocently for the crime of being nosy, or she could be controlling the whole thing. Of course, that may involve more time outside tending to the ivy, crooning old love songs and calling it "pet", but those throwing cigarette butts would be taken care of. You'd be performing a public service, you would, but I understand you have a job and social life and stuff.

Where was this Really Creepy Hotel? I love stuff like that! I don't think I've ever had any "real" creepy experiences, outside of that drive-in experience and a few goings on where I used to work.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

How hard is it to put your trash in a trash can? HOW HARD, PEOPLE?!

Downright impossible, if you ask the people who litter my neighborhood, the streets I drive on, the park I walk my dogs in....

threaddiving

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

...what, you haven't been paying attention when cornerofmadness and I are regaling each other with Real Ghost Stories?

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

As long as I have a trusty pocketknife, I'm gonna fight it out. :D

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

I'll cower behind you.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

I hope you mean that metaphorically. Ew.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Humans. Can't live with 'em ...

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

I think I could make time to croon to the ivy, if it would oblige by just eating the butt-throwing neighbors and not me.

The creepy hotel wasn't ghostly-creepy -- more noir with a strong side of flophouse. All it lacked was the neon sign outside going, "ZZZT! ZZZT!" all night long. We each had to pay a $5 deposit for towels, which were dispensed to us in hermetically sealed plastic bags. We were also enjoined to keep our door locked, because they were housing homeless guys on the floor right below ours. I suppose we could have slept in shifts at the train station instead, but I'm no good at that -- and, as I said, the rest of the trip had been so odd (including a drunken guy who first tried to pick us up and then threatened to throw himself in front of a train if one of us wouldn't have him) that I knew I'd survive to tell the tale. And I did.

Unless ... this is The Sixth Sense ...

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Believe me, that's happened before. :D

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

I know! And I only have so many hands to pick up stuff while I'm walking the dogs.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

give them time. I'm waiting for the big dog doo war

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

What can I say? I'm a follower, not a trend-setter. :-)

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

You'll win. Not only do you have right on your side -- you also have ELD & Co.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

this is true

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Hahahaha...I find myself in inexplicable situations sometimes. The less said about them, sometimes the better.

[artemisrae.livejournal.com]

(including a drunken guy who first tried to pick us up and then threatened to throw himself in front of a train if one of us wouldn't have him)

Yeah, this made me laugh for about ten straight minutes.

And creepy hotel sounds creepy! I have no such experiences. The people I babysit and housesit for swear their house is haunted, but I've had no such experiences. It was completely comical how when I went to pick up pay one time to watch the husband's face fall: "Did you have any experiences?" Me: "Pffft, no."

Re: threaddiving

[artemisrae.livejournal.com]

I um... am not the most observant human being on the face of the planet. *facepalm*

OOoOOOooOOoOOOoo!

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Hee hee hee to the icon and lack of observant, both.

Re: OOoOOOooOOoOOOoo!

[artemisrae.livejournal.com]

Well lack of observational skills is definitely a quality you want to cultivate in your health care personnel. "Look sir, if you're just gonna turn blue and flop like a fish without telling me what your symptoms are, I'm going to have to send you back upstairs."

Sadly, I didn't have a relevant Sheldon icon. HAVE DOUGLAS FROM THE IT CROWD INSTEAD.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

"Maybe I'm turning blue and flopping like a fish because I'm AQUAMAN."
:D

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

I forgot to mention that the friend and I discussed the drunken guy in German, not altogether politely, the entire time he was annoying us. Foreign languages FTW!

"Did you have any experiences?" Me: "Pffft, no."

Heh. That would be me, too. Weird noises at night always turn out to be a book falling over or the clock ticking or the toilet dripping or something. The fire siren can't be mistaken for anything else, either. :-)