the final fuck you

it's official! i'm out of pennsyltucky, one of the shittiest states in the country. it's all over. i'm out and my shit is out. and damn it feels good (not to mention clean).

but i didn't leave quietly. flash back 3 years and i was living in south carolina. downstairs was an apartment full of illegal mexican immigrants who were never sober and often smoked crack (that's not an exaggeration). i was somewhat friendly with the oldest mexican. he was probably in his 60s and was the only one who could speak any english. i used to loan him a couple movies at a time for them to watch. well one day, one of those goddamn mexicans took off, taking a bunch of my movies with him. i never said or did anything to those guys, and i've regretted it ever since. that wasn't about to happen again.

back to this weekend. in my short absence, a third lesbian moved in with mary and butch (let's call her butch 2 because while she is not morbidly obese like butch 1, she is definitely butch). and in the last, previously vacant apartment, now lives a man far sketchier than jd or jeff ever were. while we were moving my shit into the truck, mary was cutting the old neighbor lady's hair at the picnic table, and butch 2 was wiping down mary's face with a towel. it was vomit inducing.

i made a decision a few weeks ago--i was not about to let this turn into a sequel of the situation with the mexicans. so i did what any law school graduate would think to do; i wrote a strongly worded letter, and placed it in mary's mailbox right before i got into the truck, flipped off the town, and left it forever. here's the letter to mary, word for word:

Mary:

We have been neighbors for the past year, and I must admit that I am very pleased to see this arrangement come to an end.

You are a hypocrite. From as far back as October you have tried to tell me where I could and could not walk Santos. In the meantime, your cats roam freely throughout the neighborhood, causing cat fights at night, going to the bathroom all over our yard (and sidewalk), and attracting other cats and dogs who did the same. At least I picked up Santos’ poop, which is more than I can say you did for any of your cats.

I routinely (and nicely) asked you to keep the cats inside because they either hissed at Santos or distracted him when I would take him out to get him to go to the bathroom. You simply ignored all of my polite requests.

You are inconsiderate. Besides blatantly ignoring me, there have been times you put your cat on a leash and tied it to the pole of the stairs. This made passing directly by the cat unavoidable. You blocked one way around the stairs with boxes, bikes, tables, stolen shopping carts, and other piles of garbage. Then you hung windchimes in the only other passageway to my stairs. As if that weren’t enough, you placed three plants on the steps up to my apartment.

Another aspect of consideration is keeping private things private. Neither you nor your girlfriend should ever walk around the common area topless or naked. You should close the doors and shades if you walk around your apartment naked. On multiple occasions, our neighbors, John, and I have inadvertently seen things that were absolutely offensive. You were not at all respectful to your neighbors, yet you demanded the utmost respect from us. It is no coincidence that you did not get it.

You are lazy. Get a job. No one believes that you can’t work when you spend so much time outside gardening and being a yard Nazi. Furthermore, just because you have nothing to do, you should not assume the rest of us can stop our day for idle chatter every time we pass. But if you must, do not ask stupid questions. If I am bringing my golf clubs from the car to the house do not ask me if I’m going golfing.

Soon you will have new neighbors. I strongly suggest that you significantly adjust your attitude and behavior because not everyone is as permissive as I have been over the last year. You have been the worst neighbor I have ever had by far, and as bad as you thought this year might have been, I can assure you it will only get worse if you continue to be as stubborn, irresponsible, obnoxious, demanding, inconsiderate, and intrusive as you are now.

I never thought I would be this happy to move away from a place, but this only makes it that much sweeter. For everyone’s sake, I hope you have learned from this experience. Goodbye forever, Mary. I will certainly not miss you.

[dicta]

you can find (much) more on mary here.

today is a wonderful, wonderful day.