I know I have my faults. I know I'm a rotten housekeeper and a lousy human being on several metrics (though not all). I suck at getting my tires rotated on a proper schedule and can't stick to a diet even with Krazy Glue and duct tape. And I smell bad sometimes, too. I tell long stories filled with trivial minutiae that oftentimes defeat the point of the story altogether. I freely admit that I have tasted grapes at the supermarket without paying for them, particularly if they're those little tiny green ones that you're never really sure whether they're sour or not until you buy a pound of them and bring them home only to find out when you eat a handful of them them that your cheek muscles contracted so fast you got mouth whiplash. I don't always signal my turns.
Which is why it was probably a bad idea for me to attend the Community Watch meeting for my neighborhood last night.
I'm still exhausted from a week in bed with the flu, so do you mind if I just jot down a few quick bullet points?
- People who speak Spanish are not necessarily illegal immigrants, and Spanish is not the universal language of robbers, car thieves, and rapists.
- Yes, our neighborhood used to be all-white back in the 1950s; now it is not. These two statements, even juxtaposed by a semi-colon rather than segregated by a full-stop period, do not constitute valid cause-and-effect reasoning to explain a rash of home break-ins.
- My quasi-military, NRA-loving neighbor is not a crackerjack crime-deterring hero simply because he watches our daily habits and keeps track of what time we leave and what time we come home every day, how often we're gone during the weekends, and what time we turn off our lights at night. Telling us this in a public meeting will not make us be, seem, feel, or sleep safer.
- Sidewalks are put in and maintained by the city and are public property. Public citizens walking on said sidewalks should not be detained and quizzed by gun-toting, quasi-militia, self-proclaimed Community Watch "captains" or "block lieutenants" about whether they live in the neighborhood they're walking in.
- Still having an Obama yard sign in your front-yard garden this long after the election is not, contrary to popular belief, a secretly coded flag for robbers that the time has come to invade any particular neighborhood or house.
- Some people who trim trees are African American, Middle Eastern, or Hispanic/Latino. Possession of ladders does not make them more or less likely to be criminals.
- Hand to God, I had nothing whatsoever to do with the possums and deer in our neighborhood. It's slightly POSSIBLE I had something to do with the snakes by dint of having pine needles in my backyard, and I confess I'm probably the only one who had ground-nesting hornets and stigmata in my left hand that weekend when the city water was shut off because someone (NOT ME, NOT EVEN SOMEONE ON MY BLOCK!!) misconnected the input and outflow pipes in a wild DIY plumbing adventure gone terribly awry, but I ain't copping to any of that in a public meeting.
- No, it is not a terrific idea to have your quasi-military, gun-toting, self-proclaimed Community Watch "captain" leave notes at people's doors reminding them that "tall" grass (as measured by him) in your yard is a signal that you're not paying enough attention to the neighborhood's interests in maintaining a "safe and well-groomed" atmosphere. Particularly when you do have your grass mowed every other Saturday and pay an extra $5 for the leafblower in the driveway and along your curb even though leafblowers violate your religious beliefs.
- You know how I'm not one to disagree with authority or anything, but I do not think it's a brilliant idea for "block lieutenants" to have written copies of everyone's work schedule and be responsible for keeping track of whose house is being painted, having repairs done, or hosting guests with out-of-state license plates on their cars.
- Gun training at the Presbyterian church parking lot down the street should not be a requirement for participating in the Community Watch.
- An economic downturn sometimes results in increased personal-property crimes. It is not a sign of the apocalypse or imminent race riots.
- Some white people have family members who are not white. And vice versa. Asking us how we're related is not the responsibility of the Community Watch.
- Even though the quasi-military, gun-toting, self-proclaimed Community Watch "captain" comes up to you after a Community Watch meeting and says that he wanted you to be assured that three years ago, when his wife came up to your house the day after you had knee surgery and taped an anonymous note to your front door telling you to move out of the neighborhood because you don't have enough community pride to take your garbage can back up to the carport the night after garbage pickup and last year left another anonymous note at your door about how your Obama yard signs were "a disgrace to the neighborhood," there are no hard feelings, there are probably some hard feelings.