It's a crazy day in the neighborhood...

A crazy day in the neighborhood...
Won't you be my,
Please, won't you be my,
Won't you be my (probably) crack-addled homeless neighbor who's shilling for drug and/or booze money....?

First, I'd like to point out that Michael and I really like our neighborhood despite the occasional petty theft and weird homeless people scamming for money. But Tuesday night really takes the cake re: neighborhood issues.

Around 9 pm the doorbell rings and I assume it's my next door neighbor. Instead I find this skanky-looking lady standing on my porch with one of those weird grape vine angels. This picture doesn't quite do it justice but this lady was holding one that was 5 feet tall and strung with little white lights (puke). Anyway, she launches into some really long story about how she got this from her sister to sell so she can make ends meet while she tries to get on disability, blah blah blah. She tells me it's only $20 and it's real pretty.

My response? I tell her that I just quit my job and we don't have the money to buy it from her as lovely as it may be. I can't believe I offer these people explanations when I tell them no. How stupid is that?

Anyway, she wanders down the steps and back to the sidewalk and asks if there's anyone else she could ask aaaaannnd I told her I didn't know anyone for her to ask. Then I go outside to go water my crispy-looking bushes (we need some rain here big time. It looks like it does in the middle of August) and I see her drag this stupid angel over to my neighbor's house on the right. Poor Nick, I felt so bad that she went over to his house.

So, before she can come back and ask me again to buy the stupid angel, I go back in the house and figure I'll just water the bushes another time. Unbeknownst to me, Michael goes outside to water the bushes and also encounters the lady with the angel and she tells him a different story as to why she's selling it (can you say crack addict?) which, btw, is different than the story she gave my next door neighbor about needing to buy diapers. Anyway, Michael tells her no and she wanders off down the street. Then he sees her in the yard of the house 4 houses down and she's holding birdfeeders in her hand. She didn't have birdfeeders in the beginning of this ridiculous scenario because she STOLE THEM from the lady whose yard she was in. So, Michael confronts her and asks if those are her birdfeeders and she tells him that they belong to her. So, he tells her that he knows they belong to our neighbor and to put them back and then comes back to our house and calls the cops.

Michael: I think someone is stealing something from my neighbor's yard.
Police dispatcher: What is the woman taking?
Michael: Birdfeeders.
Police dispatcher: Can you describe the woman?
Michael: She's about 5' tall, brown hair and carrying a 5' grape vine angel

You know, my friend Carrie used to be a dispatcher and she said they got calls like this all the time. Anyway, the cops show up, 2 cruisers in fact, and they put the woman in the back of one cruiser and the big stupid angel thing in the trunk of the other cruiser only it's so tall and wide that they can't shut the trunk and half the angel is hanging out the back of the cruiser.

Shortly after the crazy lady is taken away by the cops we take the dog out for her last peepee for the night and we see the police cruiser driving thru the neighborhood with that angel hanging out the back. He sees us and pulls over to ask us if we know anything about it. Michael tells him that he's the one who called to report her and the cop tells us that she stole it from someone and he was trying to find the owner. We told him that neither one of us have ever seen that thing before but someone else in the neighborhood told him it belongs to someone on our block....seriously, if I had seen that on anyone's porch I would have been making fun of it every time I passed by.

Anyway, the next morning we take the dog out for her walk and we see one of our neighbor's birdfeeders didn't make it back and was lying in the grass next to someone else's house. I've been hoping to run into the lady that owns them to tell her that she might want to put them in her backyard but I haven't seen her yet.

But, wait! There's more. The thing about this neighborhood is that if your stuff isn't nailed down someone WILL steal it. We've had flower pots stolen a few times, theft of power tools from our garage (during broad daylight when Michael was home) and our rain barrel has been emptied not once but twice. And about 6 weeks ago someone stole the bungee cord we use on our trashcan to keep the raccoons out of it. So, Tuesday night is trash night and it was also a recycling week so we put out our recycling bin. Around lunch time on Wednesday afternoon I came home from school and my trashcan and recycling bin were out front but I decided to I'd get them later. Well, I go outside to walk the dog later in the afternoon and my fucking recycling bin is gone. WHO THE HELL STEALS A RECYCLING BIN?

I'm pissed so I call the cops and report that it's been stolen (seems petty but it's my only recourse). And later I find out that one of our neighbors saw some homeless guy who not only stole our recycling bin but had stolen other things like aluminum siding. Yes, folks, I said aluminum siding and it presumably was stolen off of someone's house. (Not the first time that's happened in this neighborhood). So, she called the cops and they arrested the guy and took all of the stolen goods....somewhere.

My bin is gone for good but the county department in charge of the recycling program here in Dayton is having a new one delivered on Thursday. We don't know if anyone claimed their stolen angel yet but I'll be sure to keep the internets posted.