Limit your ferrets....no stacking.

Occasionally I'll come home to find a flyer on the door from the T-Park officials informing residents of upcoming events, available vacancies and reminding everyone of neighborhood policies.  Some of the reminders get pretty specific and are obviously a diaper everyone is forced to wear because of one or two residents crapping themselves. One of these on my door yesterday included 2 such reminders.  It read "Please observe the 6 ferret per household clause as outlined in the Park bylaws." and "Stacking of units is not permitted regardless of structural guarantees from the manufacturer".

I can't possibly imagine inviting even more rodents into this thing than what are already taking up residence WITHOUT my cooperation!  What kind of person can't limit themselves to 6 ferrets without threats from "the association" for crying out loud?!

The trailer-stacking I completely understand. I, myself, am tempted to buy another one and see about stacking in an attempt to migrate ever closer to a more house-ish feel.  I am having absolutely no luck with the local crane operators however.

Neighborly Favor Against Evil

I met another neighbor yesterday.  The mother of the bird-flipping Popsicle processor next door.  I had just got home from a week long trip and barely out of the car when she called me over to her yard to see something.  She had me look at her grass between our trailers.  After a bit she asked if I thought it looked happy or not.  I said I thought it seemed ok.
She said said "Well, it's not.  And it's because of that shed of yours.  Do you plan to do anything about it?".
Confused, I very sincerely answered "No."
She was visibly distraught and just shook her head.  She went on to explain to me that my shed was a den of evil and she asked my permission to exorcise it.  I granted her permission to do so.  Why not?
I really just wanted to get inside and do laundry from my trip so I turned and started to walk away.  This infuriated her and she snapped at me, "My worthless bastard husband used to turn his back on me!!  Don't you do that!  Are you a worthless bastard?!"
I stopped, sighed, turned and answered "Not anymore.  I have alot of laundry to do."
She continued, "I left HIS worthless ass wonderin' what for!  He lost hisself a double unicorn when me and Maudy lit out.  Now I turn MY back!  Just you look here at this!"  She turned around and pulled up her shirt.  There, tattooed over her right kidney, was a double headed crying unicorn trampling on a pile of fiery broken hearts.  It was sickeningly glorious to behold.
"This here represents mine and Lauvy's (yes, I swear it was a different name this time) freedom of that POS!!"
It seemed to me that it just represented about $150 that she could probably use right now but I didn't say so.  Instead I said "That's very nice.  I have one of my family crest on my arm."
She put her shirt back, spit at my feet and dismissed me to attend to my laundry.
I didn't see or hear any more of her last night.  At 6 this morning however, I was awakened by some dull thuds coming from the direction of my shed.  I tried to tell myself to just ignore it and go back to sleep unless I smelled smoke.  Curiosity got the best of me though and I went out on the porch to see what was going on.
It was with minimal surprise that I witnessed my neighbor and her daughter, clad in their Sunday best Snuggies, circling my shed, a dead squirrel held by the tail in each hand, sort of half-twirling every other step so that they smacked perfectly at waist level.  A bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 and a box of Popsicles laid nearby.
"Thank you" I said, and came back inside to make coffee.  They stopped after about 30 minutes.
I'm not sure if my shed is free of evil or not, but it is now banded by blood and fur at the two respective heights of the ritual participants.  I'm leaving it as proof that it can't possibly be MY shed making anymore grass unhappy.

Surrounded by friends.

Oh good....the ants are back.  Once again keeping my toothbrush company...patrolling my nightstand...making sure my coffee mug doesn't feel neglected.  I haven't seen them for quite some time now.  Makes me wonder what the f*** they've been planning!  A sprinkling of them sacrificed themselves in the name of  protein to this morning's smoothie.  That particular patrol wasn't notably flavorful, but their selflessness DID make me a little more appreciative as I slurped it down.

Welcome back little friends!  Tell you what...Leave my orifices alone this year and I'll take it easy on the Terro.  Deal?

Death From Above, Web-footed Terror Flocks

It's that time of year when the evening northwestern Missouri sky is often filled with geese landing in large fields.  If you're from this region then you know the sight I'm talking about.  It's an occurrence where the geese actually form their own traffic pattern with large groups joining in the flow to land safely.  It's really impressive. The T-Park is across the street from an evidently appealing field for geese and there are sometimes literally hundreds if not thousands of them circling in for landings.


Such an evening arrival was going on when I got home last night after work.  As I pulled up I saw a couple of my neighbors standing in the driveway next door watching it all.  I parked, got out and walked over to them.  They were pretty absorbed in the spectacle and I watched along with them for a minute or so. 

Finally I said "It's pretty impressive, isn't it?"  
Neither looked at me but one of them answered, "It sure is."  
A few seconds later, he asked no one in particular "Do you think there's a dead animal over there to make 'em circle like that?"  
I froze.  
The other answered, "Man I sure HOPE it's dead already. Otherwise there's a shitload of hurt rainin' down on it."  
Zoologist #1 grunted in agreement saying, "Got that right.  Probably just a dead cow or sumthin'."


I have already committed too many social errors in interactions with my neighbors to point out to these gentlemen that geese are not carnivorous, let alone nocturnal pack hunters of livestock.  I don't actually know why geese congregate in the fields at night, but I'm almost certain it's not for dining on bovine.  

I might have let the slightest snort of a laugh escape after the first question, but was able to quickly pass it off as a throat clearing.  
I watched for a few more seconds then excused myself with the most sincere "It'll all be over by morning" that I could muster.  
I quietly slipped away to leave them sole witnesses to the only beef-featured goose feeding frenzy I've ever heard of.


I'm quickly approaching a point where idle chit-chat will be a total impossibility.

Open Curtains

Wow, the weather is gorgeous today.  I wish I could open the curtains.  You don't see curtains or doors open in a T-Park.  I have a few theories on this.  


It could be that since they are all exactly the same and lined up so symmetrically, there is no way to have your curtains open without looking straight out, across the yard, and into your same exact room with minor and sometimes disturbing differences.  I already tried opening the bedroom curtains, and found myself looking 15 feet away into a copy of my own bedroom only with my contemporary painting themed decor replaced with rebel flags and Hank Williams Jr posters.  Every time I've tried letting some light in the living room by opening some curtains on the OTHER side of the trailer, I'm repeatedly flipped off by THAT neighbor's 5 year old who stations herself in their window eating a never ending supply of blow pops and cheese puffs in between her random full window view spankings.  


Of course, there's a strong possibility that to open curtains is to invite the curious eyes of the law into one's trailer.  I have no doubt that there is much illegal activity going on around the neighborhood and that I'm surrounded by current and/or former criminals.  There is a map of the T-Park at the community center that breaks it up into highlighted zones distinguished by the presence of liberating interference to ankle monitors.  There are also quite a few posted "Neighborhood Watch" signs, with a prominent phone number.  The fine print instructs concerned citizens to dial the number if we "see or suspect police or informant activity in the neighborhood" and by dialing it "the necessary inhabitants" would be notified via some sort of phone relay.


Finally, I suspect many people keep themselves closed in for the main reason that I do.  When you're INSIDE of a trailer, you can almost convince yourself that you're in a normal house.  I know that some people go so far as to put false doorways on exterior walls so that it looks like they could go into non-existent rooms or install false 1/4 stairwells that can give the occupant a sense that there is another floor.  Sometimes, when I'm inside, I forget that I'm basically inhabiting a well-appointed storage bin, and it's only once I open a door or curtain to see the box next to mine that I'm reminded that I live in a trailer.  A properly fitted single layer of cloth, pulled strategically across the window can block not only sunlight and the prying eyes of Johnny Law, but also the dismal reality that might otherwise be impossible to ignore.


Screw it!  I'm throwing ALL of the curtains and windows open.  I'll just flip my own birds, enjoy the beatings and put my MP3 of MLK's "I Have A Dream" speech on repeat loop blaring through the speakers in my bedroom.  It's a beautiful day today, even in the T-Park!  I'm taking it all in! 

Celebration Preps

It looks like things are well under way around the T-Park.  I've seen microwaves being loaded into cars, mowers being topped off and shined up and a lot of social drinking out in the yards.  It's looking pretty festive.  It's a beautiful day out too!  This should be fun.  Sadly, I DID see an update on the bulletin board at the mailbox hut that Betty Sue Whitley won't be in attendance tonight as planned.  She evidently ended up in jail early this morning after driving her car into her next door neighbors yard, completely wiping out their scale replica windmill collection.  A significant number of plastic bird baths and maybe even a urinating Yorkie also fell victim to her ill-timed careening.  She was reportedly intoxicated as well as despondent returning from an evidently less than well-received appearance in a truck stop gift shop up the highway.  She should be out sometime on Tuesday.  The other events planned for tonight will hopefully go off without a hitch though.  I can't wait!

Survived It, Good Night!

I’m going to bed.  I’m coming down from a flat champagne and terror-induced adrenaline high, my right hand is still frozen in a claw-like cramp from a 3 hour death grip on the bottle, and I am starving since I never could relax enough to eat my now rancid talapia.  But I still see ceiling above me when I look up, floor when I look down and only a few passed out neighbors, happy children and some dizzy cats when I look out the window. Happy New Year everyone.

Cat Chase 2012!

Well folks, its past midnight, and the cats have been released.  I could hear the barrels being pounded promptly at midnight and all kinds of hollering and kids screaming.  Within a few minutes I also started to hear some muffled thumps outside around the trailer, almost like knocks at the door.  I checked a few times only to see an occasional shoeless pre-teen chasing some terrified streak of fur through the darkness of my yard.  After a few of these thumps slipped outside to a defensive position on back deck to wait and discover the culprits.  I was totally disheartened to find out that it was cats, occasionally hurling themselves head-first into my trailer skirting in vain attempts to find sanctuary beneath my home.  Luckily a skirt is nothing more than a ridged single layer of PVC or vinyl, so the poor things would simply bounce off; knock themselves silly for a second or two then once again take flight into the night.

The Junkyard Awakens

There was an impromptu mass-starting of all of the rotting cars in driveways a few minutes ago that seems to have taken the attention away from any trailer tipping.  For the ones that could find their way in to gear there was also a subsequent burnout contest.  Not since the Exxon Valdez has such an oil spill been witnessed, I swear to you.  The oil slicks actually help make for some impressively smoky burnouts.  Unfortunately, there are also quite a few puddles of urine and vomit which don’t mix as gracefully with the smell of burning rubber.  What’s more, when the vehicles deplete their years old gas, break down or can no longer be manipulated by their drunken operators, they are being abandoned randomly wherever they come to rest.  I fear that my chances of a vehicular retreat or rescue later are quickly dwindling as the streets get more and more littered with abandoned project cars and trucks.  I am in genuine fear for my little import sitting helplessly in the driveway.  I’ve so far been able to ward off any would be car pirates by telling them that it’s a hybrid that hasn’t been plugged in all day so it couldn’t run anyway.  After some perplexed looks and an occasional questioning of my sexuality, they are so far wandering off and resuming their searches for a more domestic build of candidate for their felonious urges.

Trailer Tipping?

I’ve returned safely to TKT.  On my way back I was pointed out to be “that fish eater that broke Helen” or "Tater Hater!" and I was actually hissed at by toddlers!   I was also barraged with threats of log chains and 4x4’s that could easily tip my trailer.  There were energetic recountings of some poor woman’s ceramic owl collection that was spilled into the streets “the LAST time there was a good tippin’ round here”.  “Better pack up them owls fish eater!”, I heard as I hastened my retreat back here.  While I have absolutely no doubt that it could and possibly will be tipped over tonight, I am still feeling a certain security being back on my turf.  I went ahead and popped the cork on a bottle of Mousseux that was intended to toast to the New Year, using it instead for the nerve-calming liquid courage that it contained.  I’ve poured it all into a pitcher so that I can have the bottle handy to use as a club should a last ditch effort to protect myself be necessary.  I poured it far too quickly in my haste to arm myself and it fizzed out completely to a flatness basically rendering it to the quality of a screw-top gas station Pinot Noir.  I’m gulping it down anyway and thankful to have it as I prepare myself to keep the floor of my home beneath me at whatever cost necessary.

Annual Cat Harassment

I was totally wrong about the live traps I saw recently.  They weren’t for catching critters to blow up after all.  They were put out in order to catch neighborhood cats.  There is a tradition here to collect as many cats as possible for the final 2 weeks of December, regardless of supposed ownership, then deposit them into a 55 gallon drums (not trash cans at all, as I had so naively deduced earlier).  The cats are collected there until midnight when they will be released so that the children that were able to stay up that late can chase and keep what they can catch until NEXT year.  Most barrels were about half full from the sounds of the howling and hissing as I walked by.  Now and then they get a shake or a beer bottle is broken against them, in order to “keep the cats in the spirit of things” according to a cigarette smoking 3^rd grader named Malakai who was kind enough to educate me on the particulars.  It’s bad, but I actually think it could be much worse.  I’m not going to judge anyone for this.  So a cat spends a little time in a barrel.  They’ll all have homes tonight.  These people are just having some harmless fun.  Just the same, I think I’m heading back towards The Kahler Trailer.  More updates from there.

Disturbing Observances

All of the stop signs in the neighborhood have been ripped down and are now being used in a very dangerous sort of Frisbee fighting.  I fully expect a fleet of ambulances to be here within the hour.  Every other porch is occupied by men that could easily hold the most stunning Charlie Daniels look-a-like contest ever seen if they wanted to.  None of them wave either.  They just glare at me as I make my way down the street, passing their fixed stare at me to one another like a baton in a “what the hell is Nancy-boy doin’ here” relay.  It’s creepy.  They pick me out of quite a few people now celebrating in the streets.  Speaking of, I’m amazed that so many David Duke For President t-shirts still exist.  It will be a miracle if they aren’t ruined by blood and vomit stains tonight though.