July 6, 2004

• Between the time it took to wash my car yesterday afternoon and this morning, when I entered it to drive to work, the kids in "the project" added two more rather large scratches to the sides. Now almost all areas, four fenderwells, front, back, and both doors, not to mention gas cap door, have deep scratches imbedded in the paint. These are the kinds of scratches that look like they have been deliberately caused with razor blades or keys, but I sincerely doubt it. I know it's because of the very young kid with his bicycle. The neighbors are loud, have an "extended" family that sometimes sets up house in their garage, and there are at least four kids that I count at any given time. The young one races around on that bike of his like there is no tomorrow. I'm heartsick again. I don't even care to wash my car anymore. (This is my Eclipse Spyder, my dang dream car, and I can't stand to look at it anymore, it makes me so sick) I'm so upset that the mother of this kid (and his screaming siblings) doesn't "fess up" that he is scratching my car so much. I tried to "paint" over the first scratch a couple of years ago, and that just made it worse. Now there are cross scratches all over the car. I guess I should be glad the fabric top hasn't been cut. That's why I possibly know that these scratches aren't "purposeful". Kids are naturally "boisterous" and they are hitting the sides of my car with their "vehicles." Heck, I'm a nice guy. I rarely even tell them to quiet their stereo anymore because Joel uses the living room and I use the media room, which is in the back of the house. So I don't think anyone is purposefully "destroying property" because they are mad at me. Joel was complaining yesterday about the other neighbor who uses the wee hours of the morning to cut down his trees. Now, his saw antics are right outside my media room window (and Joel's bedroom window) but he didn't bother me as much as, say, the kids on the other side do when they are screaming while at play. I don't consider myself a "crotchety old man". Heck, I listen to Jay-Z, Nelly, Missy Eliot, and Eminem, for heaven's sakes. (Although not too loud, and I always turn down hip hop music at intersections, so as not to disturb fellow drivers, since I drive a convertible, and some of the language, on the CD's at least, can get sort of wicked.) So I don't discount the kid's right to play. I don't discount the fact that they enjoy their skateboards, scooters, and bikes. But they can't seem to stop scratching my car. I can't afford to get it repainted. (And if I did, then a scratch would send me into a deep, deep depression.) I can't afford to move. (Both Joel and I have been looking, and costwise, the $1350.00 a month we split for this three bedroom house is a bargain.) We don't live in that "bad" an area. And the neighbors in our hood are solid folk, even if their kids are little devils. It just makes me sad this morning, that I have yet another scratch on what was not too long ago a car I would polish every weekend. Now I can't stand to look at it. I was always the kind of guy who couldn't stand a scratch, dent, or otherwise "broken" part of any of my vehicles, and I can't seem to "do anything" about this. I actually think parking on the street will solve the "current problem" but the scratches already on the car stand out like sore thumbs. Joel already parks on the street, so the neighbors would probably start parking in my "spot". I don't want to "confront" them about these scratches. The woman is trying to raise these little devils to the best of her abiltiy. I don't want to seem like an "ogre". Besides, confrontations can lead to more distress than I wish to visit on myself. Neighborhood reprisals never end, until someone moves (or is shot), and I don't want either to happen right now. It's just so dang futile. One of the little (I shouldn't say "little" the kid is in 7th grade now) guys from down the block who "hangs out" with the neighbor kids told me the other day "I really like your car." He seemed to say it with a wicked sense of satisfaction. Has he been scratching my car? I can't look at anyone in the neighborhood without thinking "they did it". How awful. Since I share a house with Joel, who's another guy, I have had to erase "Queer" from my garage door, and driveway on a couple of occasions, and know somewhat presciently that it was this aforementioned "kid" who was responsible. He was too quick to point fingers at the first scratch that appeared on my car, too, as I recall. When little Arnold, his best friend, moved away from the "middle house" in the project, he disappeared for a while, but now he is friends with the neighbor kid. I'm 51 now. ONLY FOUR MORE YEARS till I turn 55. and can buy a double wide in one of those "senior parks". I swear, I have never wanted to grow older more quickly!!!

  Well, now I have vented. I don't feel any better, and I'll get sick to my stomach when I see my car again when I go out to lunch, but thanks to this blog program, I can vent from my desk at work, and now I shall take a deep breath, and begin to solve the days problems and put out the daily fires, and hopefully sometime in the future I shall be able to put these "kids" and their scratchy exploits away in the back of my mind's drawer. I don't "hate" kids, but I wish they'd stay away from my car! 

  • 9:27 am
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