CRACKERS IN THE HOOD

Yes, it's the fourth of July, and while it's a perfectly fine holiday and should be a day for everyone to put petty bickering aside and remember all the things that are great about being American, I'm not feeling so generous right about now. My neighbors, the hillbillies currently plummeting the property value on our street, are on thin ice with me.

For the last 8 days, from about 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. to approx. 3:00 to 4:00 a.m., those beer swilling dentophobes have been setting off the trunk load of firecrackers that they bought illegally in a neighboring state, setting off one single blast after another. It sounds like a 22 pistol being shot into the air every forty-five seconds or so. They're obviously not interested in a serious display of flash and boom, but more interested in dragging out their neighbor's misery for as long as possible. Each single lonely blast is almost sad, and speaks to the low economy hillbillies face all the time, much less during a national recession.

The poor dogs in our neighborhood have given voice to their upset in a cacophony of barks and howls. I'm with them, but my uniquely profane protests can be heard coming from our various windows as, "I'm calling the cops Jughead!" and "We're trying to sleep over here you fucking morons! Don't you ingrates have any clocks?!" And my personal favorite "Stop with the noise you god-damned hillbilly goat-fuckers or I'm gonna fuck some son's of bitches up with some cherry-bomb enemas!" My husband loves that one. It pleases me to no end to have a voice loud enough to boom through my windows and around the block whenever the situation calls for such projection. My angry disembodied shrieking is usually answered by creepy cackling hillbilly laughter. As in previous years, my threats have not changed the bangs that echo non-stop up and down our street. I hate the hillbillies down the block, and I'm comfortable with that hate, as though it were something inborn. I don't think I'm just speaking for myself when I say that most people are born with the innate ability to hate specific types of people in our population. Types like murderers, rich bankers and hillbillies. We typically hate them all with equal malice.

Now I know what some of you are going to say, everyone says it. But believe me we've tried. If I thought the cops would come, I'd call. But we know from having these pinheads on our block for six years now that on July 4th, and the week leading up to it, the local Fuzz won't even bother stopping by unless something is on fire or a body part has been blown off. And even then it seems they're only here to be part of the crowd of looky-loos and are not at all interested in writing any tickets or carting the offending hillbillies off to the pokey. I dream of a world where much like it was in the Old West I could be quickly deputized in these situations. I'd put on the temporary badge I'd just crafted from a soup can lid and take those damned hillbillies at gunpoint. I'd read them my own colorful Miranda: "You have the right to remain stupid, drunk, and to sleep with your sister..." then tie them to pine trees and let the neighborhood dogs and wildlife have their way with those pesky bastards for a couple of days.

A girl can dream can't she? I believe a rich fantasy life is essential to being fulfilled and happy. I also believe that tires, plastic flowers, windowless travel trailers, cars on blocks, dirty naked children, empty kegs and rabbit hutches do NOT belong in the front yards of my neighbor's homes.

Well, that's about all I have to contribute on the subject of July 4th. Now go have fun with those firecrackers ya Yankee Doodle Dumbasses. Just do it in someone else's neighborhood and don't come crying to me when you blow off your Uvula.

Ruby Has Spoken.