hi neighbor!

oh, those days.  those days that start out with a bang and end with a puny little whimper.  i got an email this morning that made me absolutely giddy (no really, i actually did a happy stomping dance around le apartment and made up a song about how great i am).  that was the bang.  and so many things went well after that, i thought i should play the lotto.

arriving home later, i prepared a plate of cheese, salamis, dried fruits and hot peppers.  ruggy and i sat down to happily imbibe and discuss the day's events when we heard a crash outside our kitchen window.  we know what that sound is.  our neighbors, if you can call them that, are too lazy to put their garbage in a bag and walk it downstairs to a dumpster.  no, they've thought of a better way, which is to THROW IT PIECEMEAL OUT OF THEIR THIRD STORY WINDOW INTO THE SHARED LIGHTWELL. 

it's really awesome.

so, upon hearing the telltale crash, ruggy hightails it to the kitchen, where he sees the opposing gaping window magically spewing projectile garbage.  lazy and cowardly neighbor spots ruggy and ducks away.  i yell something about weseeyoustopchuckingtrash, and dial 311, that shining example of public service instituted by mayor bloomberg, that wizard of ozlike phone line where you call for the answer to just about anything-- exactly who do i report this to, operator?  and the operator spends 15 minutes googling said answer.  which really, you could have done yourself, and probably better, because let's face it, you have a faster internet connection.

311 decides that the right thing to do is to connect me to 911.  no-brainer.  annoying flying trash ranks right up there with murder and attempted robbery in my book.  

911 wants the address of the offending building.  i don't know, i say, it's the back of our neighbors' building.  i'm instructed to go get the address and call back.  really? i should bother you again? is this really a 911 kind of call? the operator assumes a condescending tone:  yes, ma'am.  it's illegal dumping.

WELL then.  it's illegal dumping.  it now has a name, and a very official sounding one at that.  i walk around the corner and find the address, call back, and get an operator who would be absolutely worthless to anyone in a serious emergency.  honestly, you would die screaming while he was asking you for your street address.  my phone dropped the call, the one time i was truly thankful for AT&T's spotty service, and after half an hour on the phone with numbers ending in 11, i decided it was wine-thirty.  

but my knight in shining 911 did not leave me be.  nope, HE SENT THE POLICE OVER.  he knew, mind you, that the extent of the problem was basically littering, and i was fine, and i do believe he heard me saying you'rebreakingup but thankyouverymuchforyourhelp, but obviously he feared for my safety.

the police did not. 

Officer Six Foot Eight tromped in, eyed the garbage, and joked that i should grab the kegs if i could. apparently they're worth fifty bucks at the recycling center.  i laughed, deciding easy breezy was better than crazy lady calling the cops on some litter.  at the end of a long day, i like to kick back and keep the police from fighting crime so that they might fix my bourgeois problems.

oh but did you notice?  i bought some fabric today, in that glorious time of the giddy email and lotto daydreams. and isn't it FABULOUS?  what the hell am i gonna make with that?!?  the brownish one is double sided with only stripes on the back.  the thin stripes in the pink and red are sheer and gauzy like a dream.  and the jerseys above are delicious.  one is a spangly sparkly burnt gold in real life! 

you know, real life, where i own a hip little boutique on Main Street, and a house with a yard impervious to other people's garbage.