Stapling a Human Face on a Monster

The neighbor kids are like this times 20 minus the sweater plus sleeveless t-shirts. Source.

My blessed spouse did something beautifully heinous on Sunday, wonderfully horrific nightmare that has shaken the foundation of my very existence, simply by meeting our dreaded upstairs neighbors. In particular this meeting was with the matriarch of the clan (I probably should have spelled “clan” with a “k”). It turns out the matriarch is an infirm Grandmother in her 50’s who has been looking after her wayward daughter’s 52 children (I’m still not too sure how many kids there are up there, but I’m pretty sure at least a baker’s dozen are 300 lb. tap dancing spiders). These kids, from what little I know, range in age from infant to teen, all in the spectrum of hyperactive to overly rambunctious.

It would be a lie if I said I hadn’t fantasized about their demise. For example: strategic dysentery, Icy Hot infused ice cubes, inducing childhood mustaches to encourage infantile suicide, jellybean arsenic, all of my farts funneled into their bedrooms, etc. But I would NEVER act on my hatred, especially not now. Not now that the devil has a sympathetic face.

An example: last weekend, the mother of the brood was charged with looking after mistaken-minion whilst grandma went to a wedding a couple of counties away. During that time, the “mother” arranged a redneck jamboree. Insanity ensued. Including: a man jumping through an open window onto the thin roof over our porch, and several of the participants ending up in prison, juvenile hall, or paying a fine, community service, etc., like it was a Gathering of the Juggalos. And that was just Saturday afternoon.

Any child who grows up with a parent wearing face paint has never ended well. You should see Marcel  Marceau's kid,  hooked on fermented chicken droppings and Jimmy Buffet karaoke. Image source.

 To add to their woes, the eight year old apparently has ADHD (Dear parents and sufferers of real ADHD, if you can tell me where to get powdered sedatives I can release in their air conditioning system, I will write all of the cards to your extended family for all coming holidays except Christmas because I’m not a pagan.).

Sometimes I just want to go on hating the inhuman barbarians prancing about on my ceiling as I try to nap. I want to continue to curse the cloven hooved creatures that sweat marbles and burp billiard balls. But now I cannot. My spouse did the humane thing by presenting our own humanity to them and thus, ruining my own demonizing of them.

This is how I want to think of them all! Can't I hate them all, from baby to irresponsible adult? Is that so much to ask? Source

 Can’t I go on hating a faceless enemy? Can’t I simply continue harvesting hate for a vague, group of inconsiderate jerks? Not now. Not now that I know these are actual people.

Source

And it was all downhill from there. Coming back from a run (jog) one of the ruffians was riding his bike and said, “Hey, hey, c’mere, I wanna tell you som’in.” I was sure I was going to be killed in a hillbilly ritual. Instead I simply helped the mini-troll fix the brakes on his bicycle.

This sickens me. This humanizing of the creatures has taken my pure, smooth, pearl of hatred and broken it down into a jagged, nuanced cube of passive aggression.

This is my lesson, I suppose: If you have an unseen nemesis, it is truly better to simply occasionally put all of your hate into him/her/them than to dare confront your problem because it might just crush your ability to hate what can’t be fixed anyway.

[Can that fit on a bumper sticker, because that was freaking deep?]