Friday, June 6, 2008

Life in suburbia ...



When you live next door to two teen girls, you're bound to experience the residual effects of them getting "TPed." That's short for "toilet papered." No, the girls aren't targets of the popular clique. In fact, getting TPed is badge of honor in these Indiana parts as a sign of membership to said clique.

Last night, bandits (I assume young males, which is the typical sex of a TP perpetrator), under cover of night, entered the yard, armed with roll after roll of the white variety. The ammo of choice also is usually single-ply and unscented, of course, because why spend extra for the good stuff when it's going to end up in trees, right? The rolls are launched like a grenade and thrown high into trees for optimal streaming effect.

They must have been trained by ninjas because I didn't hear a thing and I was in the family room all night -- it's where I usually pass out, fully clothed, on the couch, watching TV, and is the part of our house that is closest to our neighbor's yard.





As you can see by the flags, part of a veterans monument a block from our house, the winds were whipping today. The high winds caused the paper to shrapnel into our direction sometime this morning. I spent about 10 minutes or so gathering fluttering strips of paper from our yard, front and back.

After cleanup I went inside to get back to work. A short time later I glanced outside the dining room window to see this:





The tree limb landed where I had been one hour earlier picking up paper debris.

Just goes to show ya that life in suburbia can be a treacherous lot.

Ok, that line is about as funny a I can get because I can't think of a joke that somehow incorporates "If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a noise?" or the ever-popular "Do bears s--t in the woods?" When you think of a funny anecdote, submit a comment!

4 comments:

QGIRL said...

"Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them."

Not sure if that anecdote is funny or sad but it is so true.

Scary to think that the tree could have dropped on you.
And I am especially glad that you weren't under the tree playing ball with Dylan like you two usually do on a warm afternoon.

BTW, have we updated our life insurance policy lately? :)

love you.
Q

QGIRL said...

I thought of another one! This one I can personally relate to..

"If a house in the suburbs is messy and needs cleaning, but no one sees the mess, is it really messy?"

Something like that!

Lisa said...

You guys are too funny! We live in fear every day that gigantic branches or trees will fall on our house..since we've got about 30 trees on our lot.

Anonymous said...

Quyen, I was so envious when I saw your garden... with the drought so bad in Australia I desperately wanted to transport myself to your backyard!