This post starts with a bit of exposition for newcomers (if there are any) which also can serve as a recap for my core of faithful readers. In September 2005, over the Labor Day weekend, my skanky neighbors The Door-Slammin' Family From Outer Space vacated the house next door to me, leaving behind a huge pile of refuse and assorted crap strewn through the unkempt yard. You can read a brief history of The Door-Slammin' Family From Outer Space and their trashy habits here and here, and see pictures of the craptacular carnage they left behind here.

I started a blog contest where everyone could choose a date and the person guessing closest to the date the crap was actually cleared out of the yard would win a valuable prize. As of today, no one has won though I thought an end to the contest might be in sight a few weeks ago, when some new random people showed up and started clearing up the place. Sorta. They left my caution tape strung up and mostly seemed to be shifting the junk from one spot to another and not so much removing any, but they did cut down a bunch of overgrown bracken.

You might think this made me happy, but quite the opposite. Astute readers will have noticed that I wrote they cut down a bunch of the overgrown bracken. I did not write that they cut down the overgrown bracken, and then did anything with it, like, I dunno, haul it away.

Over the last couple of weeks, work occurred at sporadic intervals with totally puzzling purpose. For example, the pram filled with trash disappeared, but the tv, mattresses and microwave remain. Overflowing trash cans abound, they added a pile of wood, some rolls of old carpet and miscellaneous stuff. A broken office chair disappeared but an entire pile of crap has appeared in the carport, where it has been for the last two-and-a-half weeks, with no sign of any intention of removing same.

Then, the ultimate insult.

They hauled a toilet into their backyard.

Visible from my kitchen window.

They hauled it there, and it's been sitting there for A WEEK.

I do not live in a skanky neighborhood. I do not live down the street from the governor, but I do NOT live in a skanky neighborhood. The house down the street just sold for $475,000. I grant you, they have more acreage than me, but still - I live in a nice, middle-class neighborhood filled with ranch houses and SUVs! Not the open-air crack market! This is NOT "Silence of The Trailer Parks" for fuck's sake!

You realize, of course, that if it's still out there by the weekend I shall have no choice. I will have to get drunk and blow it up. With M-80s. Peer pressure and all - it's not my fault, I didn't intend to live in Redneckville, but it's just SITTING THERE. All white and porcelain-y. Y'all come. Bring Budweiser. All I've got is Cabernet and that's no good when you're planning A EXPLODIN'!!!