Tormenting My Neighborhood ... Again

This is the email I just sent out to my neighborhood. I like sending emails out to my neighborhood. They don’t know what to think of me.

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WORDPRESS HELP WANTED

I am looking for someone to come to my house, sit by my side, and coach me through setting up a Wordpress.com blog. I’ve got a Wordpress.com account and a hosting account at Midphase but what I don’t have is the patience or time to figure out WHY IT’S NOT WORKING. Specifically I require assistance in picking out an appropriate template, loading that template, migrating over content from a blogger account, and seeing the whole thing go - ta da! - LIVE.

I will pay you for your time, let you sit in the “good” chair and even, perhaps, make you a casserole. ‘Cause that’s the neighborly thing to do and I really, really don’t want to put this out there on Craigslist and have the Unabomber show up at my front door with his “Wordpress for Dummies” book tucked in to his camouflage jacket. I already have that book.

There are three qualifications for this plum assignment:

1. If you’re under the age of 18 and I hire you, you must agree not to make me feel old or stupid.

2. You must really know your way around Wordpress.com ‘cause I will smell it if you cram the night before and try to fake your way through it. If you do that I might still make you a casserole, but you should eat it with great caution.

3. You must be familiar with FTP and hosting, preferably Midphase or something comparable. Apparently they stopped picking up the phone the day they ran my credit card through as they’re way too busy playing with their Star Wars action figures to talk to me.

If you’re reading this and thinking OH, MY LIFE IS NOW COMPLETE call me or email me at:

Lori Jackson
(blah) blah-blahblahblahblah
LoriJackson@blahblah.com

And remember, an opportunity like this only comes around once in a lifetime.

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I sent this one out right after I moved in to the neighborhood in 2007.

Today I filed a report with the Sheriff’s office regarding a suspicious vehicle in the neighborhood and wanted to alert the community.

A while back I noticed a silver/gray Honda (possibly Civic or Accord) driving slowly up and down the Parkway and around the pool area in the afternoon (around bus drop-off time). I stayed outside and watched him sit in front of the Upchurch’s house, slowly cruise the Parkway, disappear in to a cul-de-sac for a while and then park in the pool area. The driver looked to be a middle-aged white man. It looks like he stayed in the neighborhood at least 45 minutes that afternoon.

I mentioned this to my 6th grade daughter and she immediately knew which vehicle I was referring to as she had also seen him around the neighborhood on different occasions.

I hadn’t seen him in a while but last night another neighbor mentioned that she had encountered the same vehicle early one morning (6:15am) in January and she wrote down the vehicle’s tag number.

I gave all this information to the Sheriff’s office this morning and they will increase the patrols while the gates are open and keep an eye out, specifically, for this vehicle.

If this gray/blue Honda Civic happens to belong to your harmless Uncle Elmer and I’ve now called down the wrath of the Sheriff’s office on him while he’s out admiring the weeds in my yard, my apologies.

This email resulted in a flurry of prank phone calls to my house from “Uncle Elmer”, who, apparently, was phoning from jail after having been picked up by the sheriff and was a little concerned about his impending nuptials to a fellow inmate named Bubba.

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And this one I sent last summer, after a 1,000 pound “decorative” concrete deer (aka “Buck”) disappeared from our curb and wound up in a neighbor’s yard wearing Mardi Gras beads and a bonnet. That neighbor wasn’t amused and demanded, via email, to know who was responsible. I, of course, responded because I, like, couldn't pass it up.


As far as “Buck” goes … THANK YOU TO WHOEVER MOVED HIM TO LEE’S YARD. I owe you a pack of Doan’s Back Pills.

You see, he was left behind by the previous owners – in the backyard next to the abandoned bathtub and the lovely display of broken pots. When we first moved in Aunt Bea would occasionally snuggle with him. But she quickly tired of him – too quiet, no sense of humor, broken antlers, rebar sticking out, faded coat. One day I couldn’t take his pitiful stare another minute so I tried to kick him out. But that boy has a bit of a weight problem and all I could manage was to drag him in to a pile of fire ants behind the palm tree.

Out of sight, out of mind. At least for a while.

As some of you may know, I was recently stripped of my “Mother of the Year” award for not only allowing, but encouraging, Wyatt to pee in the backyard. You do the math: wet kids + tile floor = indoor “Slip ‘n Slide” and trips to the emergency room. I am not ashamed. Well, I wasn’t until one day, as I was sipping a margarita and reading the Wall Street Journal by the pool, Wyatt poked his head around the palm tree and let me know he’s been peeing on Buck every day.

And that was the day I knew that deer was not only ugly, but he was a bad influence on my kid. Plus now he smelled really bad, thanks to the lack of any cleansing rains. So I loaded him up in a wagon and drug him to the curb where he sat, day after day, waiting expectantly for his new owners from Waste Management to take him to his new home. “A big sprawling farm”, I told him. “You’ll love it.”

Saturday morning came and Waste Management, well, they copped a big ole attitude. Evidently a thousand pound concrete deer with broken antlers, rebar sticking out and a faded coat was going to cramp their style. Sheesh.

So there he sat, shunned and neglected, until some angel of mercy swooped in and airlifted him to Lee’s house on gossamer wings where he now sits behind the bushes – the sassiest urine-soaked, faded out thousand pound deer with broken antlers and rebar sticking out you’ve ever seen.

The Moral of the Story? Whoever moved Buck to Lee’s yard … GO WASH YOUR HANDS.

~Lori