Asking for Trouble

I had a small 4th of July cookout at the beach. It was a picnic potluck, where everyone brought a dish to share. It was just a few friends and neighbors I had invited. I made pulled pork sandwiches and lots of little pies for dessert. Others brought some salads, hot dogs, burgers, potato chips, and drinks. It was an awesome spread.

Everyone had fun playing in the surf, tossing freesbies, and playing beachball kickball. I had fun helping the kids build various sand castles and forts and pyramids. Some adults were playing mahjong while others where playing gin rummy. We had pop and dance and party music playing, making for a festive atmosphere.

As I was coming back with a bucket of seawater to mix with more sand to build the next structure with my tiny engineers, I caught sight of my Trashy neighbor grabbing some of the food, then sneaking away. It was funny watching her try to sneak away unnoticed with an overflowing plate of food from the unguarded picnic table.

In call her Trashy for two reasons: First, she really is trashy, as in no class, rude, inconsiderate, and foul mouthed. Second, she is filthy! I've seen her litter and leave her trash all over our shared common area. Even worse, I've seen her take her half eaten take out tray from her car and then throw it under my car! She thought no one would notice because it was late at night. But I was drawn to the window by the sound of her car, so I saw what that lazy litterbug did. And it also explained why I kept finding garbage under my car!

As soon as she went inside her apartment, I exited mine, retrieved the still half eaten takeout tray from under my car, and dumped it on the roof of hers. The next morning, I heard her cursing the stray cats. They (or more likely, the possums and raccoons) tore through the take out tray to get at the food and left a huge mess all over the top, windshield, and hood of her car. Lots of bits of trash, scraps, footprints, and some poop. That made me smile. And from then on, there was no more garbage under my car.

It was odd seeing her run away with food from our beach picnic. One, she wasn't invited. But she had somehow found us at the beach and helped herself to the food without asking. Told you she was trashy! Rude and sneaky! Two, she took our food and was sharing it with her two friends, Smokestack and Shrill.

Her cohorts were also middle aged and crass and use profanity with every sentence. I call one Smokestack, because she smokes continuously, and she flicks her nasty cigarette butts all over the place, instead of disposing it properly. Shrill is the loud, nasal third of their crew. The drunker she is, the shriller she gets, the more foul her language. They are definitely NOT the kind of people I want around children or polite company.

I watched them walk away with their ill gotten goods, get in the car, and drive off. I was just glad they didn't stay, because then I'd have to kick them out. And I didn't want to be mean and rough on a nice beach picnic day. I forgot about them as soon as their car left the beach. Besides, we still had plenty of food leftover.

I resumed the fun building projects with my tiny engineers, constructing our sand city. The rest of the day was spent eating, playing, dancing, laughing, waiting for the sun to go down to see a beautiful sunset. Then I set off sparklers for the kids--placing a few on our sand buildings--and we all watched the fireworks go off in the distance. Then we all packed it in for the night after a great day of feasting and fun.

This evening, I got back from hanging out with some friends and talked to a neighbor before going inside. He told me that Trashy was in the hospital. I was curious.

He continued, "Apparently, her face swelled up last night, and she had to be driven to the Emergency Room. The doctors think it was a bad reaction to either an insect bite or something she ate. They're thinking insect bite, because the only food she's allergic to are octopus and pineapple. And she only had pork and apple pie yesterday."

Except she didn't, I thought to myself. That wasn't apple pie she had yesterday. That was pineapple pie! Some of my pineapple pies that she stole!

I just shook my head. I said goodnight to the neighbor and went inside. I chuckled as I sat at the kitchen table. "Well, that's what you get for taking something that doesn't belong to you. You invite trouble! When you do bad things, bad things will happen to you. That's just cosmic law," I thought, as I snacked on a pineapple pie. Yum. Delicious.