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) 📕

The way Fletch sees it, the cats went on Rumspringa—they went out and lived their lives away from us to determine whether or not they wanted to commit to being a permanent part of our family. And now that they’ve seen what’s out there, they decided that driving cars and smoking cigarettes and listening to Judas Priest [They seem like they’d be Judas Priest fans.] just doesn’t have the same appeal of being here.

They chose us.

Okay, fine, we had to result to some trickery for them to choose us, but we couldn’t have rounded them up if they didn’t make the effort to come home.

As I survey my little kingdom, I’m happier than I’ve ever been.

Now that they’re back, I can return to the important business of picking a generator.

Because I am never opening a window again.

Reluctant Adult Lesson Learned:

No one knows everything. Never be afraid to ask for help, even if that entails a quick leak in the bushes.

C·H·A·P·T·E·R T·W·E·N·T·Y-F·I·V·E

When Bad Things Happen to Bad People

It takes a strong person to admit she’s weak.

Yeah.

That sounds like a load of crap to me, too.

But after everything that went down with the couple next door back in the city, it was never my intention to return to my usual habits. I learned my lesson about minding other people’s business. I was strong enough to give up the spying game. Or so I thought.

Once we moved into our house, I was pleasantly surprised by the level of solitude up here. Even though I’m on a through street, and despite being walking distance to railroad tracks, there’s a half acre of trees between me and the rest of the world.

It’s bliss. Sweet, silent bliss.

(Full disclosure: the trees actually do piss me off but passively, not aggressively.)

(Also, who circles a goddamn pool with trees? Like three feet from the water? Like there’s no such thing as “gravity” or “change of seasons” and I’ve already had to replace a motor and a pump because the leaves put such a strain on the filtration system.)

(Point is those sons of bitches are going DOWN very soon.)

Anyway, when we were house hunting, we toured a place on Everett, one of the town’s busier roads. The listing agent told us, “You’ll hear some noise from the street and I want to make sure you’re aware of that.”

“What kind of noise?” Fletch asked. “Gunshots? Ambulances?”

“Err, no…” the agent replied.

I jumped in. “Salsa music?”

“Thumping baseline?”

“Missing mufflers?”

“Gang fights?”

“Fireworks?”

“You should come to our place during the two weeks surrounding the Fourth of July—it’s like Jalalabad out there!” Fletch added. “Last year I heard a scud missile.”

The sweet suburban Realtor blanched. “I was referring to traffic noise.”

We both looked at each other and laughed. “Oh, please. We used to live across the street from the Kennedy Expressway.” I gestured out the window where two vehicles had passed in the last five minutes. “Traffic? That’s a couple of cars. Traffic is eating and sleeping and watching TV and breathing in a steady diet of exhaust fumes thirty feet away from an entire convoy of truckers all hopped up on methamphetamines, using their engine brakes to make that deafening WOOOOOOOT sound in order to save five cents on gas while surrounded by eight hundred motorcycles on their way to Bike Week in Sturgis, who have thus trapped one thousand impatient Lincoln Parkers driving their base-model Beemers to work and who honestly believe that honking will get them to the Sears Tower [Not the Willis Tower. Not now, not ever.] thirty seconds sooner. Traffic. Ha! You people up here are adorable.”

Although we didn’t buy that house, we did give the Realtor a whole new perspective on how to sell to city buyers.

I was amazed at how productive I could be when I didn’t have to get up from my seat and glower at disturbances every five minutes. Plus, because we have a decent yard, [Annoying pool trees notwithstanding.] the dogs get a ton of exercise and they’re no longer compelled to sit across from me and stare until I entertain them. Once in a while they bark, but only when they spot a deer and that’s just a badass reason to take a break anyway.

Back in the city, my office overlooked a traffic light on a busy street and a bus stop. There was an illegal day care across from me, where children would be herded into a small cement-and-metal enclosure for the sole purpose of shouting eight to ten times a day. I was a few doors down from a public park, so between yard time, drop-offs and pickups, and park traffic, there was never a point in the day when the street wasn’t filled with kids.

And they were shriekers. Every last one of them.

Coincidentally our gate doorbell was at the exact height reachable by your average preschooler, so people rang all day long.

At first when the door chimed, I’d run to the intercom system and ninety-nine times out of a hundred, no one would be there. Eventually I smartened up and went directly to the window where I’d watch the kids and their families ding-and-dash.

Yet I’d be the jerk for chasing them down with my good whacking shovel.

So not right.

One time after hearing my bell go off a dozen times in a row, I stomped down the stairs in a swirl of righteous indignation and polar bear pajama pants. Before I could step outside to confront the stupid lady holding her toddler up next to the gate, I had to wrestle the two dogs completely losing their shit over the constant bing-bonging.

“What are you doing?” I shouted over the thirteenth chorus of “Hear the Bells Chime” and the resulting dog melee.

The woman merely shrugged at me while her child continued to stab at the doorbell with a sticky finger. “She push button.” From behind the door, dogs were headed into full-on-Pavlovian-bitch-panic mode.

“Uh-huh, I noticed. But that’s my doorbell you’re ringing.”

She shrugged again while the yelping reached