Atomictumor

A few minutes ago, I called the police station to report a parking violation on my street. Not one, but two cars are parked in front of fire hydrants. We only have three of them, and it’d be a damn shame if the firetrucks responded to a fire and were unable to get to any water. But more than that, it pisses me off that people get away with things.

I’ve always been a tattle-tale. I remember telling on Eric Wilson in third grade because he had candy in his desk and was sneaking pieces when Mrs. Alstead wasn’t looking. I remember in second grade Mrs. Crouch picked a classroom monitor after lunch every day while she was out of the room. We had to write names on the board of anyone who talked or did anything else they weren’t supposed to. This was my first taste of retalliation, as a punk kid named Bryan wrote my name down the day after I tattled on him. Even though I didn’t do anything.

I don’t tattle out of spite, though. It’s mostly an overblown sense of justice, I think. If I don’t do anything bad, no one else should, either. And if you do, then you deserve to get busted.

But that brings up a contrary idea. Perhaps I tattle because I’m jealous that I don’t have the courage to do naughty things. I’m never the person who drives on the shoulder to get past blocked traffic. I never cut line. I never cheat on tests or cut corners on assignments. I never park in front of fire hydrants. I never miss more than the maximum number of excused absences, even though I know other people in class do it and get away with it. I never behave rudely in movie theaters.

Of course, some would say this is just common courtesy on my part. It’s not, though, I don’t think. Because sometimes I want to do those bad things. I’m just too chicken shit to do it.

So, last night I had a dream that GAC and I and the fam moved into a condo/apartment kinda thing, because we’re too broke to keep our house.  In the dream, we’re unpacking and bitching about how small the damn thing is (which would be something, given how small our house is now…) and just generally being unhappy about the whole thing, when Pigpen jumps in the empty bath.

For some reason, I’m concerned about him in the tub, so I start trying to get him out (not sure why there was difficulty pulling a 4 yr old out of an empty bathtub, but those are dream physics for you).  In the process of doing this, I realize that the tub isn’t secure.  And that its held up over about a 5 foot drop solely by cardboard boxes.  And that the tub itself is cardboard, just cleverly disguised as tub.

I move the thing, and look down to a hidden section of the apartment concealed behind the tub.  It has the same carpet and paint on the walls, and appears to be part of our place, rather than its own.  Hopping down there, I find a living room and 3 bedrooms (one with a bathroom with presumably genuine tub, tho I didn’t try it).  The living room has a massive HDTV, has to be 70 or so inches, hooked up on satellite.  One of the bedroom has a more modest 50 or so inch TV.  There is a screen door with a bitchin porch, leading out to a massive yard with playground facilities, and no signs of life (no apartments, road, power lines, nothin.  Not even a baseball diamond in the corn.)

So, we had a party.  The end.

Yeah, I was disappointed too.  I thought it’d be cooler.