Um...What??

2008: The Year In Photos (None of Which I Took Myself, Of Course, Because What Do I Look Like? A Photojournalist?) (I HAVE NO IDEA, ACTUALLY)

Welcome, "Um...What??" readers, to 2008: The Year THAT SUCKED THE BIGGEST A$$ EVER In Review! Before looking ahead toward whatever may come (ohdeargod), I thought I'd take one final look back at everything that was during this past year at "Um...What??" headquarters. Because hindsight is 20/20. And those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it. Of course neither of these things has anything to do with anything except for reminding you that I am very, very smart, where smart = I know how to look up famous sayings on Wikipedia. And also? If there's one thing I am, it's doomed.

Let us begin:

Youthful optimism! The world is my oyster! Anything is possible! Exciting, exciting, exciting!

      

Believe me when I tell you: It's way less interesting than it actually looks.

     

      

           

FYI: Warning signs are for amateurs people who actually read warning signs:

     

         

      

@#$%@#$%@#$%@#$%#$%!!!!!

      

      

 

     

   

I try to blog more often for you people. I swear, I do. But then, you know...this happens. And anyway – what do you all want from me? I'm tired. (See: January - October.)

And by the way, iStockphoto.com, when I query "run down" I do NOT want to see pictures of actual, real roadkill because WHO THE HELL WOULD WANT TO SEE PICTURES OF ACTUAL, REAL ROADKILL? Well, "Um...What??" readers, that's who, because they love dead animals. I'm not including any here though. Because that would be a downer and this post is nothing if not eternally uplifting. Or something. Whatever. Who cares. (NOBODY.)

            

     

But don't misunderstand me: I don't want any of you to lose heart! I know I'm not going to. Because I can already tell 2009 is shaping up to be that super-special kind of year where everything changes! You know –– the kind of year where everyone dies:

       

And with that, I leave you all with this one, final thought to close out 2008: Just remember anything that doesn't kill you only makes you really, really wish it did.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Happy Various Holidays, Um What-ers! Let's Celebrate With Pepper Spray, Bank-Approved Auto Theft And A Black Lace Tutu!

Today's post is dedicated to loyal (and suh-mokin' hot) "Um...What??" reader Lisa, whom I inadvertently neglected to mention in a previous post when I called out some of my favorite blogs. This is in NO WAY a reflection of Lisa's site and is instead completely reflective of the dullness of my brain. Sometimes I forget about my own site because I am busy trying to remember things like where I put the cat and also The Alamo. This one's for you, Lisa!

* * * * * * * * *

While innocently minding my own business last week something very, very deeply disturbing happened to me.

Specifically, I accidentally watched this. For three and a half hours:

 
I'm going to tell you anyway. This is called I Have A PhD In Blogging.

For those of you who are unaware (oh dear God, please tell me it's all of you) Operation Repo is a reality television program currently airing on TruTV. TruTv used to be Court TV. But, apparently, when you abruptly change half of your previously quality programming to stupid-a$$ sh*t like Speeders and Hot Pursuit and The World's Wildest Vacation Videos you also have to change the name of your network to include a misspelled word because incorrect spelling equals yore your you're stupid and so are your shows.

By the way. Did I mention this?:

Seemingly, anybody can now get a show. Hello? I WANT A SHOW.

In a nutshell, the premise of Operation Repo(hno) is that basically Southern California is filled with deadbeats who like to "have" new cars but don't like to "pay" for them, so these deadbeats need to have their cars taken away from them by people who look like even bigger deadbeats.

Enter the cast of Operation Repo(hdeargod), whose motto is "It Ain't No Joke If You Don't Pay The Note!" And trust me –– it isn't:
    

"Peek-a-boo! I'll repo you!" (This would be my motto.)
Although I'm not sure sure I look the required "deadbeat", but I do look "hot" which, obviously, is close enough. Come to think of it, why didn't anyone ask me to be a part of the Hot Blogger Calendar? Jerks. Maybe it's not too late for me to get into the Hot Repo-er Calendar? I'm assuming they have one because, well, the above picture? Sonia? Matt? Do I really have to explain it?

As far as I understand it –– and believe me, it's hard to understand much of anything when you're on sensory overload to the point you're just this side of having a moderate to severe stroke –– Lou is the father of Lyndah as well as the big brother of Froy. Froy –– who I'm guessing is named after some Middle Earth-y thing (A hobbit? A hobo?) –– either is currently or used to be married to Sonia. (What's next? THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE??) I don't really know how the hell Matt fits in, though. Some kinda repo freeloader or something. And they all do repo-y things together and live Happily Ever After! Or something. Seriously: I could be making up half of this crap for all I know. There were a lot of distractions going on. Like this one:
   

 

   And also this one:

 

Also, at one point I got seriously distracted thinking about this:

Sonia: Operation Repo(MG WTF)'s answer to Beth Chapman!
Honestly? I probably lost 20 minutes of my life all caught up in this line of thought. My days are very, very full and eventful. So in case you ever wonder why it sometimes takes a week or so for me to get up a new post, first of all, what is wrong with you people? Don't you have something more important to spend your time thinking about (??) and second of all I AM VERY BUSY. Obviously.

And now, Everything I Need To Know About Repo-ing, I learned from Operation Repo(hmahgah) and will now pass along to you:

1. The first rule of repo-ing is that to be a successful repo agent, you need to make sure you have the correct tools at your disposal: a reposession order (I'm pretty sure this is the least important part paperwork blah blah boring), a tow truck BEEP BEEP, pepper spray (more on this in a minute) and a tutu.

That's right. A tutu. It's the uniform of choice of all the most successful repo peopo. HAHA! See what I did there? Maybe I can have a show where I just do a whole bunch of rhyming and whatnot?? OH NEVER MIND. Back to this:

Trust me: If you could hear what was going on in this moment, YOU'D HAVE YOUR TV ON MUTE TOO. And yes. I actually recorded this. So I could recreate it here for you. This type of thing is called I Give And Give And Give To You People Until I Bleed.

And in case you think I'm taking creative license and the above is just Sonia stopping to do a repo on her way to a Costume Gala, IT'S NOT. Because look! Here is Sonia doing a whole DIFFERENT repo:

Because seriously? The language involved in this profession embarrasses even me, and I don't know how to say ANYTHING without using the F word at least five times. (HI MOM!) And another thing: If you're gonna repossess my car wearing this kind of getup –– fine. But you'd better perform some damn Swan Lake for me before you take my wheels because I Brake For The Arts.

2. The second important rule here is that when repo-ing, you should keep in mind the fact that for whatever reason people tend to get slightly annoyed when you try to take their cars away from them, where slightly annoyed equals they point guns at you and attempt to beat you over the head with baseball bats. (Big deal. This is exactly what happens to me every time I go into Chris's office and try to get him to look at the page bags that died on his desk hours earlier.) This is why, to be safe, you have to make sure you bring with you the pepper spray I mentioned earlier, because everybody knows that pepper spray totally beats both bullets and baseball bats and also? Paper covers rock. And of all the crazy, psychopathic, loan-defaulting deadbeats, never forget that women are the most totally insane of all and by that I mean you do not even want to know what I mean. I'm going to tell you anyway though, because I honestly cannot be expected to be the only one with the misfortune of knowing this crap.

The very first episode I saw is the perfect example of this: Matt, Froy and Sonia show up at some chick's house to repo the car she hasn't made payments on in months. Or ever. Or whatever. I'm kinda unclear on that part as I was too busy being hypnotized by Sonia's eyebrows.

 
LIKE YOU WOULDN'T BE EQUALLY SPELLBOUND.

Anyway, they all run up her driveway and start hurriedly hooking up her car to the tow truck wheel lift. (Or, you know, whatever the big hook part is called. Who knows! I found this term on line when I Googled "parts of a tow truck" because –– as it turns out –– I don't really know that much about tow trucks except for the fact that they "tow" things and they're also "trucks.") (Oh! And most of them are made by Tonka.) (Wait...right?) So the repo-ee chick catches wind of what's going on and comes running out of the house –– all 95 pounds of her –– SCREAMING HOLY HELL BLOODY MURDER and gyrating and wailing and flailing and cursing and sobbing really desperately (okay, this one was me) and slapping and kicking at anyone who tries to come near her or her car. And then suddenly she's SCREAMING HOLY HELL BLOODY MURDER while gyrating and wailing and flailing and cursing and slapping and kicking and throwing herself dramatically and messily all over the hood of her car.

At first I was all, holy crap this b*tch is batsh*t crazy, but then I was all, wow, that's actually kinda sexy in a Tawny Kitaen/Whitesnake video kind of way and then I was all OMG, WTF IS WRONG WITH ME (???) and THEN –– and even Stephen King couldn't make up this kind of horror –– she pulls out a Taser gun from even God doesn't want to know where on her person and tries to zap the hell out of Matt (which you know probably isn't a bad idea regardless), forcing Sonia to finally put a much-needed end to all of the girl's insanity not by pepper spraying her but instead BY SITTING ON HER. HARD. And at that point the room started spinning and I think I blacked out for a minute.

Oh, and by the way? Did I mention the car at the center of this repo was a 1994 Honda Civic? First of all...SERIOUSLY? Second of all, who the hell can't afford to make the payments on a 14-year-old car loan? Someone who spends all their money keeping up with the latest in stun gun technology, that's who.

3. And all of this brings us to the last important rule of repo-ing: If you've done one repo, you've pretty much done them all. You're never just going to drive up, take the car and go. And if I'm wrong about this, NEVER MIND because boring repos result in everyone being really bored and nobody wants that. It's boring. Instead, there's always going to be BLEEPITY BLEEP BLEEP-ING and BLOOD-CURDLING SCREAMING and VERY EXCITING VIOLENCE-ING. Quick! Gather the kiddies around! OH! And there's also going to be a whole lot of "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM??"-ing, because seriously? At least three people asked this question during various repos I watched. What is this? Some kinda repo trivia game? Ooh, ooh! I think I know who you are!! A deadbeat. I do, however, need to give honorable mention to the below woman for elevating herself to a level above the every day deadbeat crowd when, in an attempt to keep the members of Operation Dumbo Drop Repo from taking her car, she made the uber-defensive, Ninja-style move of pulling out her own pepper spray and promptly pepper spraying herself:

 
To be more precise, she actually pepper sprayed both herself AND her husband which means, for those of you keeping score, that she managed to attack everyone on the scene except for every single member of Operation Repo(bi-wan Kenobi). Which –– not that I need to explain it –– is awesome. This is pretty much just like the time I tried to take a picture of the sunset but accidentally had the camera backwards and ended up taking a picture of my own eyeball instead. You know, except for the fact that I didn't need medical attention afterward.

And then, like any decent person would after experiencing more than three hours of this crap, I had an aneurysm and died. The End.

* * * * * * * * * *

P.S. Sorry I couldn't find any screen shots of Crazy-A$$ Repo-ed Chick laying around all over her car. I hadn't thought to record the show yet, and then I couldn't find anything on line. (I KNOW, right??? Why even HAVE an internet?)

P.S.S. to Lisa: Sorry the post I dedicated to you turned out to be, you know, this one. You deserve so much better.  So did Jesus though, and look at what happened there.

P.S.S.S. to Maureen, who earlier today gave me certain amounts of lip for taking so long to post here. More specifically, she called me CHRIS which, as anyone who's spent any amount of time around here knows by now, is the ultimate of insults: I mean honestly, woman. That is fairly rude. You KNOW how much extensive research (none) goes into each and every post I, you know, post and how much time (none) goes into that kind of in-depth research. I forgive you, though, being that you're my best friend in all the world. Okay, a little bit for that but more so because you gave me an autographed Kathy Griffin t-shirt. SCORE!

P.S.S.S.S.:  Speaking of Chris, Happy Boxing Day, dude! In celebration of that? This:

 
See, Maureen? It's called RESEARCH and it takes TIME.

P.S.S.S.S.S.:  I wrote all of these P.S.'s before I died. Obviously.

This Quasi-Post Defines Both "Highly Successful" And "Borderline Obsessive" (It Also Has Drunk People In It!)

Hi, loyal "Um...What??" readers! Today's post isn't so much a post as it is a memo that serves the purpose of taking care of a little housekeeping business. HAHA! This serves no purpose! Why would I start that kind of thing now?? I wouldn't!

Before I get to my point (heh), I'd like to throw out a special hello to our newest reader dsbs42 who, if she's visiting here today, is in all likelihood doing so in order to procrastinate some project she should be working on for school instead. This is exactly the same type of studying technique I employed when I was in college and now look: Today I have this highly successful blog! And by highly successful I mean I can't even get my own mother to leave a comment on it.

And speaking of comments, this brings us to the business at hand: I've updated the formatting for the comments you all leave on this blog. This change is the result of two things –– Typepad rolling out their new "Typepad Connect" profile feature AND (more importantly) the endlessly fascinating fact that you guys actually stop by here to visit AND THEN EVEN LEAVE COMMENTS WHEN YOU DO. (I used to think there was something wrong with you for doing this, but now I just think there is something wrong with you for doing this.) Time is precious and this blog is not and yet here you all are. If I could hug each of you and lick your faces, I would!

The new comment platform looks a lot like what most of you use on your Wordpress blogs. I'm hoping if you're so inclined, you might go ahead and sign up for a Tyepad profile to use when leaving your comments here. It would make this blog so much more personal and intimate and inter-connective and social and oh, I don't know. This is what Typepad is telling me, anyway. Mo's the first to create her profile because I made her asked her to and see?:

Isn't this nice? With her little picture and everything? (Mo: Queen of The Daily Snark.)

I'm hoping XUP might create a profile and then upload one of her sexy-slash-mysterious profile pictures where we can sorta see her while at the same time we absolutely can't see her at all. And maybe Debra will create a profile that'll include the first ever known online picture of herself so we can finally see what she looks like! (SHE WON'T.) Maybe Chris will create a profile with a picture of him and a figure model or him and a supermodel or him and some other naked-ish-type model. Like this one, maybe:

Sadly, I'm neither naked-ish OR a model. The crap poor Chris has to endure.

And seriously? This is also perhaps the worst picture ever taken of either one of us. So naturally I'm posting it online! DUH. All I know is my face is NOT that pointy and Chris's head is NOT that round and if I remember correctly, Maureen took this picture with Chris's camera which is, apparently, a funhouse camera. Why would he even HAVE a funhouse camera? (Plus? Chris accidentally cut off all his hair and I accidentally put on not one stitch of makeup and maybe we were already drunk before we left our houses??)

And since we're talking about comments? If you've been lurking around here for a while, I'm hoping maybe the new comment field will inspire you to finally come out of the shadows and introduce yourself because...okay, honestly, there's really no reason at all that it would. What if I told you there was going to be a giveaway and that the more you commented, the greater your chance would be of winning?  Well obviously that would be a big fat lie. There will never be any giveaways here! What do I look like? A blogger who does giveaways? I really have no idea. Although maybe I could just give away this whole stupid blog?? Anyway, according to my stats, there seem to be quite a few of you lurkers around and I'd love to know who you are. On the other hand I could be wrong and all my extra hits could really just be my friend MC clicking on this site like 200 times a day, which is probably the case now that I think about it because he TOTALLY loves me. In a borderline obsessive way, really. And by borderline obsessive I mean once he completely forgot I existed for almost a year. By the way, here's this blog's first posted picture of MC. I didn't ask his permission either, because that's the kind of blogger I am –– the kind the rules do not apply to:

 

Seriously? More girls?? Why the hell aren't there bunches of dudes everywhere I go??

Honestly though: MC does read this blog. And then offline he says cool things to me like, "That was funny!" or "I love the part where you said (insert brilliant thing that I said here)." (Brilliant/Stupid. Same thing. Semantics.) But you know if he ever actually leaves a real comment here, it'll be something along the lines of, "This is SH*T! No one would ever want to read this, right?"

That's. Right.

So go ahead –– sign up! It's totally easy (after all, I managed to do and it and so did Maureen) (HAHA! I'm just kidding...just because Mo is blonde doesn't mean anything!) and then you can commence commenting and making yourselves known! There won't be any cash or prizes, but I CAN promise you countless more useless "posts" like this one.

This Post Has Door Slamming AND The Slammer! (It Also Uses the Word "Dipsh*t" Twelve Times)

This is a door:

"Um...What??" management -- that's who!

But it's not just any door. This particular door belongs to my new neighbor who just recently moved in across the hall from me. Or does it?? This is called The Setup or trying to get someone (ANYONE) not to immediately click off after waiting more than a week for a post from me and then logging on only to find a picture of a door. By the way? Here's another one:

 
This is totally true! You know, unless you count the home of The Bloggess or The Daily Snark or XUP or Wil Wheaton or Bossy or Reflecting or Maggie or Ryan (HI RYAN!) or Waltz or Lisa or Issa or any other blog on the web. Except Chris's blog, of course. BEING THAT IT'S DEAD.  Chris does have a nice Facebook page, though:

 
At least I'm assuming it's nice. I can't actually see it myself since I'm not a member of Facebook because Facebook is for people who actually do things like doing things, after which they brag about them online to people they know. Because Facebook is also for people who actually know other people. I know my cat, but that's called CATSTER and anyway I'm getting totally sidetracked at this point.

As far as I can tell, my neighbor moved in across from me about two weeks ago. At least that was when the new and festive doormat appeared. It was striped and colorful and kind of reminded me of the circus which made me think of clowns and how it would be kind of awesome to be neighbors with a clown, except for that whole part about how clowns are completely creepy. Not to mention the fact I've worried on occasion –– usually any occasion I happen to be watching Poltergeist –– that my death might end up being directly or indirectly caused by a clown. Which would be pretty embarrassing if you think about it. Way more embarrassing than, say, getting killed by a Samurai which would at least have some kind of dignity due to the fact he would have a gigantic sword. And I don't really know for sure, but I think a Samurai is a more polite version of a Ninja, and that's nice. Because if you're going to kill me, the least you can do is try to be polite about it.

Okay, honestly: Why are we on this topic? Enough about my death (You: Nooo! We love this topic!) and back to the subject of my new neighbor. Appearing next to his doormat on that first day was a cheery stone sculpture of a rabbit, which doesn't really have anything to do with anything except for how I know you guys like dead animals and whatnot and this is the closest I can come to including one in this post.

Anyway, you'd think a festive doormat and a cheery stone bunny would add up to a nice new neighbor, wouldn't you? WELL IT DIDN'T. Instead, it added up to this, where 1 + 1 = IS IT 2 LATE FOR ME TO JUST GO AHEAD AND OFF MYSELF?:

 
Meet! My! Neighbor!
"Won't you be, won't you be, won't you be...MY NEIGHBOR?!"
OH MY GOOD GOD. NO.

Also, it turns out I just found out this guy's real name. More on how I discovered this further down in the post. This is called Dramatic Suspense or THE SIX PEOPLE STILL READING THIS DO NOT CARE.

I'm not sure what issue my apartment complex has when it comes to doors, but our individual apartment doors slam just as hard as the one to our gym does. If you don't hold onto your doorknob to help guide your door closed -- and forget ever having your door stand open on its own -- you're going to knock pictures off your own walls. And this is not even a slight exaggeration since I am not exaggerating even in the slightest. All you have to do is accidentally let your door fly just once and you're not only going to realize that what results is way too loud and way too violent for civilized living, but you're also probably going to need some kind of resuscitation from your self-inflicted heart attack, but none of your neighbors are going to give this to you because you just slammed your door and, well, DIE, DOOR SLAMMER! (You'll also need a new picture frame for the picture of Moses the Cat you had hanging in your entryway that is now in two pieces on your floor.) And so for these reasons and also because you don't hate your neighbors, you're going to be careful when you close your door. Because you live in an apartment community where community equals a social group where each of you shares a certain locality with the others but you don't want to actually talk to or interact with anyone else but still want to know that someone will care enough to call the authorities should they smell something dead coming from your apartment, especially if no one has seen you go in or out of it for days.

But these rules of community do not apply if you're The Dysfunctional Door-Slamming Dipsh*t Guy! Because if you're The Dysfunctional Door-Slamming Dipsh*t Guy YOU WILL JUST KEEP SLAMMING YOUR DOOR. OVER AND OVER AND OVER. LIKE A DIPSH*T. Because, well, who cares? Because Dipsh*t Guy has nerves of steel -- you don't even know the half of it yet (this is called Foreshadowing or THE FOUR PEOPLE STILL READING THIS DO NOT CARE) -- and because Dipsh*t Guy should also have a totally different doormat -- like one with the phrase "I'm A Dipsh*t Guy" written on it. Or perhaps the slightly less poetic but equally appropriate phrase, "SCREW YOU."

Because it's one thing to slam your door every time you go in or out of your apartment. It's another thing entirely to slam your door every time you go in or out of your apartment when you have periods where you go in and out of your apartment an average of 20 times in an hour. At all hours including many times before seven in the morning and other times after midnight. Sometimes I'd have absolutely no idea what he was doing because I couldn't see where he'd go. Other times I'd have even LESS of an idea what he was doing because I could see him, and my brain simply couldn't process the information. Like, for example, when everything came to a head during last weekend's Beach Chair Incident.

(No, not this weekend that just passed. The weekend before that. Thanksgiving weekend. Because "Um...What??" is that busy. YEAH RIGHT. No one is busy here. This blog just SUCKS and it's THE BEST WE CAN DO and we consider it a miracle when we can even FIND the publish button. Or our pants.)

Anyway. The beach chair. Last Saturday afternoon, The Dysfunctional Door-Slamming Dipsh*t Guy slammed his door no less than 13 times in a half hour period. That's right. I took notes because I wanted to tell you all about it here because I knew you totally wouldn't care. Basically, he was moving a beach chair around. And moving his vehicles around. And did I mention he was moving a beach chair around?:

Exit apartment.

SLAM!   (This is when I ran to the peephole and then ran to my front windows and then back to the peephole and I am a VERY, VERY busy person, by the way. That time before when I said I wasn't was just creative license.)

Go downstairs. Retrieve beach chair from back of truck and bring it upstairs into apartment.

SLAM!

Go immediately back outside, still carrying beach chair.

SLAM!

Go downstairs. Put beach chair back into truck.

Go back upstairs into apartment.

SLAM!

Go back downstairs, maybe 30 seconds later at most. Retrieve beach chair from truck again, this time stuff it into back seat of BMW. Stare at handiwork for a moment, then go back upstairs into apartment.

SLAM!

Immediately open apartment door again, glance around hallway for a bit, then go back inside.

SLAM!

(Seriously. WTF?)

Wait a couple minutes, then emerge from apartment to go back downstairs again.

SLAM!

Take beach chair out of BMW (I AM NOT KIDDING) and (do I even need to tell you??) put it back into truck.

Pull truck out of parking space and move it into visitor parking. Then move BMW into space truck was in. Even though BMW already in a legal, assigned space. TAKE BEACH CHAIR OUT OF TRUCK AND BRING IT BACK UPSTAIRS INTO APARTMENT.

SLAM!

BOOM-BOOM!!!  Okay. This part actually had nothing to do with neighbor guy and everything to do with the sonic booms created by the space shuttle reentry. Only I forgot about the space shuttle reentry -- despite the fact I'd just been watching NASA TV online –– because I became momentarily distracted running around between my windows and the peephole. And since I was now certain that the booms I heard were the result of an explosion because suspicious neighbor had just BLOWN UP HIS PART OF THE BUILDING, I had a slight heart attack followed by the urgent need to breathe into a paper bag only I didn't have a paper bag because who makes brown bag lunches anymore and what else would I use a bag like that for? Oh. RIGHT. But then Wil Wheaton sent this tweet and I realized I didn't need a paper bag or a defibrillator:

Seriously: 70% of what I know is from Wikipedia, the other 30% is from Wil Wheaton. NOT REALLY!
85% is from Wil. Duh.

Until:

SLAM!

Stand out in hallway and look thoroughly concerned and perplexed. Obviously doesn't know what the sonic booms were. Clearly not enjoying LOUD, FRIGHTENING DOSE OF HIS OWN MEDICINE. Goes back into apartment.

SLAM!

Go back downstairs (NO BEACH CHAIR) and move truck into parking space where BMW was. So now (for those keeping track) both of his cars are back in his assigned spots...just reversed now. We are also at 10 slams. Get out of truck and stand and stare at it for a while. Go back upstairs into apartment.

SLAM!  (Now 11.)

At this point I have had enough and I am writing A NOTE. There's another slam (SLAM!) but I don't see what he's doing because I am busy writing A NOTE that includes the word "PLEASE" 13 times (counting the extra one in parenthesis for effect) as in "PLEASE x 13 STOP SLAMMING YOUR DOOR." And the fact that the number of times I wrote "PLEASE" and the number of times he slammed his door ended up the same is either a total coincidence or it is foreshadowing of the evil that is to come because 13 is an evil number, right one whole person who is still reading here (or: Maureen)?
 
So while he was outside doing whatever, I ran across the hall and shoved the note in his door jam. Then I ran back inside as fast as I could because I'm not an idiot (well, I mean except when it comes to blogging) and I'm fairly certain this guy is BATSH*T CRAZY. He eventually comes back up the stairs, pauses to read my note, crumples it up and goes back into his apartment.

SLAM EXTRA SUPER-HARD WITH FEELING!

By the way: When he came back up he was holding THE BEACH CHAIR. No one could make up this crap. Which means he went down with it. Again. And then immediately brought it back up. Again. And I have NO IDEA what is going on. Again. And oh yeah: JERK! Deliberately slamming his door after one of his neighbors sarcastically politely asked him if he he could maybe please (x 13) stop?

So, I did the only thing left to do: I e-mailed the apartment manager to complain. And by Monday night when I got home, there was a note on each of the doors in my building talking about "increasing complaints of door-slamming" and citing various 1.23 blah blah codes in our lease about "noise regulations." Because where I live? They take your crap seriously. That...or the fact that the one person who actually shares a wall with Dipsh*t Guy and, therefore, might be the one guy more annoyed than me is the apartment manager. HAHA, World's Dumbest Dipsh*t!

The letter stated that if the door slamming didn't cease and desist immediately management could and would evict the offender(s). First off, this is the kind of balls-to-the-wall management style I can totally get behind. "PAY YOUR RENT ON TIME OR WE'LL BURN YOUR SH*T DOWN." Second off, they were NOT kidding because shortly thereafter the police showed up, slapped the cuffs on The Dysfunctional Door-Slamming Dipsh*t Guy and hauled his a$$ away! Because guess what??? It turns out that slamming your door repeatedly in the Santa Clarita Valley IS A CRIMINAL OFFENSE.

HAHA! Of course it isn't. But running a multi-million dollar credit card scam out of your apartment is.

To be totally honest with you, I had no idea at all about the arrest at the time it was happening. Sure, I was in my apartment and sure there were like six cops milling around in the hallway outside my door (I found out later) and sure I could see the flashing cop car lights through my front window and didn't think anything of it. Because, apparently, unless door slamming is involved I cannot be bothered. For all I know there might have even been a shootout in the hallway (I'm not totally clear on this) but I do play my TV kind of loud and sometimes Moses The Cat can get all chatty and who the hell can hear the blaze of gunfire over the sound of the meow-meow? No one, that's who. And really? The only reason I know anything about this at all has nothing to do with either Wikipedia or Wil Wheaton this time and instead has everything to do with my friend Kathy who -- for the 14 plus years I've known her -- has had an uncanny ability to remember and put together the most random of details to observe things in the world most people miss.

This is what she did last week when, after I made a very passing mention of my door slamming dipsh*t of a neighbor and his two vehicles and his unhealthy obsession with his beach chair, she came across an article in her morning paper last week that instantly caught her eye. "Hey," she said to me. "Doesn't that guy have a truck and an older BMW? And didn't you say he still had a bunch of moving boxes stacked up inside his door?"

OH. MY. GOD. Yes and yes. And as it turns out? This guy was up to a lot more than slamming his door:

 

You do realize the irony of all of this, right? The door slammer? Going to the slammer???
 
Welcome, everyone who has hung with me this far (or: Maureen), to my neighbor's NEW door(s)!:

NO.

Innocent until proven guilty and blah blah blah GUILTY!!! All I know is three dudes showed up a couple days ago and hauled away all his stuff. Now the place is all locked up and I can't get in there to snoop around RUDE. And now I am left in blessed, slam-less silence to contemplate my two remaining burning questions:

1) What the hell happened to the beach chair? And 2) WHAT IF THE DUDES WHO LIVE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF ME ARE UP TO SOMETHING, TOO?? Oh, like I even care. The fact is they NEVER slam their door so I LOVE THEM.