Marked

So, today, there's a knock at the door around 4PM. I open it and see one of the neighbors standing there. Odd because it is one of the college boys from next door. Normally, they do not come over as they tend to stay in their area. Again, they are college boys so I tend to HEAR them more than see them. Every other weekend or so, they host parties that meander into the late, late hours of the night. Another reason why the hunt for a new home will begin very soon. I will admit, however, for the most part, it's no big deal except for the beer bottles and trash left in their yard---oh, and this one annoying friend who possesses the most irritating high-pitched laugh. It's a cackle, a freakin' cackle, that echoes through the night. Annoying. Never mind, it is a big deal. That laugh alone is worth relocating. That damn laugh is the worst. Seriously, why do drunk people laugh at every little thing? This guy is like Ed McMahon on speed with this laugh. Holy crap. Sorry. Continuing my blogging....

The neighbor warned to check my back fence in the alley. According to one of the elderly neighbors down the street who supposedly heard the story on the news, local gang members are cruising neighborhoods searching for homes to break in. Once locating potential victims, gang members tag the house's back fence with a blue dot. Joe College (let's call him that because it's easier to type than the whole 'college neighbor' or whatever) found a blue dot on his back fence, which he promptly removed somehow. After doing so, he noticed blue dots up and down the alley on most of the fences.

Blue dot...? The new gang urban legend??

I must admit, while Joe College spoke, I could not help my mind from wandering. His lips were moving but imagined words regarding the old urban legend warning not to flash oncoming traffic. Very appropriate during a holiday weekend. We all know the gang initiation tale: Anyone who flashes his lights is a target. But, he wasn't pointing to our cars in the driveway or making driving movements with his hands, so I snapped back to reality.... Believe it or not, I actually heard every word he said. Hopefully he did not realize I had dozed off into my world of imagination during his spill. Honestly, that is something I often wonder while talking to people. I cannot help it; my mind is a beehive. It is constantly going off into different tangents and scenarios. It's how I roll. Keeps the world a little more entertaining for me. So, where was I? Oh, blue dot story....

About thirty minutes following the conversation, I checked our back fence, and, yes, I too had the mark of the blue dot. I drove past several other fences and saw the same marking. Fences down my block and throughout our entire area (about 15 blocks). Almost every fence had a blue dot, which made me contemplate the extreme workload ahead for these gang members. I mean, geez... Talk about a full-time gig. Seriously, would it be worth a gang membership to do all that work? Regular employment anywhere---fast food, a convenience store, Payless, and even Wal-Mart---would be more appealing. Stealing from all these houses would be a huge ordeal. Another reason I probably won't join a gang. Later, I checked the local news stories, Goggle, and even asked some thug kids at the mall, and found no such stories about gangs and blue dots and casing neighborhoods and initiations. If anyone reading this blog has heard such a thing from a reliable source, leave a comment. Our main source, as I mentioned, is one of the elderly neighbors down the street. I wonder if he even heard the story on the news. Wasn't The Warriors on TV a few nights ago?

Two lessons from this blog:

• Being in a gang means lots of work---from buying specific color blue spray paint at the paint store, which in itself is somewhat inconvenient because you must show your ID and if you're like me you don't always have your ID because you sometimes leave it in the car, so you must go back out to the car to retrieve it and sometimes after making that long trek through the parking lot, especially on a hot day, you wonder to yourself if it's really worth going all the way back into the store, fighting through the lines, making a fool yourself because everyone is looking at you thinking "Oh look, that's the dumbass who left his ID in the car and we're standing here waiting in this damn motionless line until he gets back with his ID to finish the transaction", to the hassle of, well, having to steal and carry all that loot from all those blue dot marked houses. Gang memberships, as far as I know, do not have insurance benefits. Moving heavy furniture and stuff is a good way to hurt one's back. No benefits, then what? Ask yourself that.

• Old people always get their stories all twisted.

If anything, you've learned a couple things today.

Happy 4th of July :)