Jeneration X: One Reluctant Adult's Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development; Or, Why It's Never by Lancaster, Jen (e books free to read .txt) 📕

videos they used to show in Drivers’ Ed? An unsecured baby flies through a windshield like a watermelon launched by God’s slingshot! Slam on the brakes once and, ka-blammo! I’m talking front-row seats at a Gallagher show, wiping juice from your cheeks and picking seeds out of your ears.”

He eyes me curiously. “Don’t you have a book to write?”

“That’s the beauty of it,” I explain. “See, I’m, like… an amateur detective. As a writer, it’s my job to be a quiet observer of the human condition.”

“Really?” he says, poking his head out from behind a bifold door. “Because I thought your job was to work out with your trainer today and then write up your notes on the Weight Watchers meeting. How’d that go?”

Sheepishly, I admit, “I gave myself carpal tunnel scrolling through GoFugYourself.com so I had to postpone,” punctuating my malady by flexing my sore wrist. “Hey! Stop that! I can see you smirking! Listen, paying attention to what’s happening around us is just as important as exercising for Such a Pretty Fat.”

From deep in the closet I hear, “You justify that… how?”

“It’s my duty to piece together the lives that I observe, like a jigsaw puzzle. It’s up to me to fill in the blanks. Example? Remember the people on Superior who had the cameras trained on the doors, bars on all their windows, even the second and third floor, and two perpetually pissed-off Rottweilers roaming the front yard? Why do you suppose they did that?”

“They lived in a shit neighborhood and were tired of getting robbed.”

“No! They’re ex-spooks. Former CIA, totally. I mean, come on. They’d never make eye contact and the wife sounded like a big-haired Bond villainess. Clearly the guy was an operative who fell in love with his Soviet confidential informant. He left the Agency and now they live here in witness protection. That’s why they always cross the street when we’re out walking the dogs. They know I know.”

“Quite a story. You been watching Burn Notice again?”

“No.” Yes.

“Then, Special Agent Kravitz, how do you explain that I used to work with the guy back when I was at AT&T in the nineties?”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh. His name is Seth and he’s a security consultant. His wife is Zofia and she’s from Poland. She worked for AT&T, too. He was her project manager; that’s where they met.”

That takes the wind out of my sails but I quickly rally. “I’m sure they told you that’s where they met. Besides, people in witness protection can have jobs. Wait, they should have jobs. Yes. This makes perfect sense. If they didn’t work, what would they do all day? Stare out the window at their neighbors?”

“Are you familiar with the concept of irony?”

“Not always. Point is, my theory holds.”

He says nothing but his raised eyebrow says so much. I press on. “I can see you’re not yet sold. So riddle me this, Fatman, if they weren’t ex–field agents, why would they always cross the street to get away from me?”

“Because you don’t have full control of the dogs and Maisy can’t keep her tongue off their baby.”

Oh. He’s got me there. “Well… she is affectionate. Whatever, bad example. How about this? How come the old guy on the top floor of our place on Orchard never once had a visitor the whole three years we lived beneath him?”

“Because we were busy at our day jobs. Or maybe his friends were also elderly and couldn’t handle all those stairs.”

“Bzzt! Wrong. He was anthropologic, which means fear of people and social situations.”

“I think you mean anthropophobic. And I used to run into him with some blue-haired lady at Starbucks all the time, so no, he was neither anthropologic nor anthropophobic. Still not convincing me that spying is a legitimate use of your time.” He pulls on a polo and zips up his cargo shorts. “Are we done here? Can we go downstairs now?”

“No!” I refuse to accept defeat. “If you’re so smart, why don’t you tell me why the girl across the courtyard in Lincoln Park moved out at three a.m.?”

“You mean the moron who left her laundry in the washing machine for a month because she couldn’t find a quarter? Her?”

I place my hands on my hips, filling up the doorway so he can’t pass. “Yes. Why do YOU think she moved in the middle of the night? I suspect she had an abusive boyfriend and had to move to a women’s shelter.”

“I suspect she was a dingbat with poor time management skills. Can I go to the bathroom now?”

“Yes. As soon as you admit that I’m a good detective.”

He kisses me on the forehead before wedging past me. “Fine. You are a veritable Sherlock Holmes… in footie pajamas.”

I feel vindicated. “Thank you.”

“Hey… did you shower yet today?”

Obviously not.

Constant Vigilance™ doesn’t take bathroom breaks.

In terms of Constant Vigilance™, best thing that ever happened to me was moving into our last house in the Logan Square neighborhood of the city. After we’d been there a couple of days, I noticed all kinds of detritus in the breezeway between my garage and back fence. At first I was pissed off, thinking, “So I’ve moved into yet another throw-our-McDonald’s-bags-into-your-yard kind of place, have I? We’ll just see about THAT.”

While I stomped around picking everything up, I eventually realized that due to a heavy wind, this was just overspill from the construction site next door. What blew in were documents the neighbors had left behind.

As I examined them, I solved the mystery of why no one wanted to rent my pretty house with the huge transom windows. Turns out the vacated-as-of-November-1 place next door wasn’t a cute, vintage apartment building. Rather it was a fifty-unit SRO [Single room occupancy, guaranteed to drop property values for a three-block radius.]… essentially a transient hotel. No wonder the apartment broker remarked on how happy she was that the place next door was going condo.

Because I’m all about urban archeology, I scooped up the wet pile of garbage, drying out