Aug 19 2009

Chooch: Taking on the Neighborhood

Category: Uncategorized

choochdouble

Chooch is going through that phase that I always heard about but never paid attention to: the Telling People How You Really Feel About Them phase. For instance, he knows I dislike my neighbor Ruth (for all you LiveJournal friends, that’s Hot Naybor Chris’s wife/girlfriend/thing). She’s like the Ears and Eyes of the block, a gossip perpetuator, a rat. She’s always trying to trap me into her web by pulling me in close and whispering speculations in my ear about all the new neighbors, and then she expects me to rally behind her in her imaginary crusade. And on top of that, ever since Chooch had his step-falling accident in June, I felt like she was looking at me with suspicious eyes, silently accusing me. I also noticed that she had begun to speak differently to Chooch, almost like she was pitying him, which made me feel like a bad mom. So I said one day that I hated her.

And then two nights ago, she was outside and Chooch ran up to her and said, “My mommy hates you, Ruth!”

Henry was outside when it happened and he said Ruth didn’t say anything but that he’s 99.9% positive she heard him. Now, I don’t really care if she knows I don’t like her, but at the same time, I don’t need Chooch acting as some drama-spawning mouthpiece for me either. So that night, I sat with him on the couch and said, “Chooch, I don’t really hate Ruth, OK? I was just joking.” He looked at me like I was crazy, like he couldn’t fucking believe I was sitting there promoting the art of flip-flopping so blatantly in his face.

“Yes you do!” he shouted. “You TOLD me you hate Ruth! You told me THREE TIMES YESTERDAY!”

(In Chooch’s world, there are only two days: yesterday and Thursday. And everything is always said three times. Not twice, not five times. Three times.)

He also has no qualms expressing his own hatred to people. There’s a loud mouthed woman who’s friends with the infamous Robin from three doors down. Nearly every day, she visits Robin and then as she’s leaving, she always stops on the sidewalk right in front of my house, turns around, and continues conversing with a porch-planted Robin. And I’m always like, “Really? Does the whole town need to hear that you’re walking to CVS to buy a carton of Newports?” I don’t understand why she has to finish all of her conversations in front of my house. And she has one of those deep, distinctive, raspy smoker’s voices too, which makes it even lovelier. Sometimes, I like to peek out the window to see which Looney Toon character is on her shirt that particiular day.

Anyhow, this broad drives Chooch NUTS. He’ll be sitting on the floor playing with his cars and then next thing you know our living room is polluted with this grating sonance. He’ll pause in the middle of a Hotwheels collision, make a disgusted noise with his throat and with a great dramatic flourish will whine, “Oh, it’s THAT lady again. God, I hate her.”

She happened to be walking past our house Friday evening just in time for Chooch to express his hatred in person. It was awesome.

I just hope he doesn’t tell the priest across the street the thing I said involving a crucifix and his asshole.

[I have more neighbor news which I will share later, preferrably when I unearth more facts.]

EDIT:

robinsfriend

I was just outside and The Broad was leaving Robin’s house. Not ten seconds after I took this picture, she turned back and shouted (and I do mean hollared), “Did you take the keys out of my purse?!?” When she got no answer, she tossed her arms up exasperatedly and continued her drunken cat walk  in white foam mules. I am SO GLAD that happened otherwise I’d have felt like a liar in light of this post.

Broad with the pasty, spider-veined & suspiciously bruised legs, please don’t ever stop your hollering, because it never fails to make me lose it every time.

4 comments

4 Comments so far

  1. Andrea August 20th, 2009 3:42 am

    Oh dear god. I don’t recall hearing about Robin before. The movie with the fire trucks is so artful and inspiring. I nearly died. Please please put out a book with all of your blog postings in chronological order so I don’t have to miss a single second of all the fabulousness that went on before I met you.
    Chooch makes me want to have kids of my own to mold into little evil minions.

  2. blake robbins August 20th, 2009 2:22 pm

    This is my favorite post ever, for some odd reason.
    It reminds me of those books i used to read in elementary school.
    The ones that are always like “And the girl next store wasn’t quite who she seemed to be.”
    Like Goosebumps and shit.
    I read the whole thing. Brought me back a few years.
    Well done (:

  3. Alyson Hell August 21st, 2009 1:01 pm

    “(In Chooch’s world, there are only two days: yesterday and Thursday. And everything is always said three times. Not twice, not five times. Three times.)”

    This is making me Tolhurst so bad!!!

  4. Becky August 22nd, 2009 8:45 pm

    I have had some odd neighbors in my life, but you dear have me beat.

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