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signs it's time to move

2007-08-06 - git

You�ve seen the homeless woman in the alley hit rock bottom 46 uniquely new times. You�ve witnessed 21 arrests, overheard three shootings and seen seven homeless fights take place between two and seven a.m. In fact, your designated block captain was shot and killed by gang members for attempting to protect your neighborhood the first year you moved in.

At least two people have told you they can't go into one of the rooms in your place because "there's an evil entity lurking somewhere in there. And whatever it is, it doesn't like men."

The neighborhood kids prefer the dealer to the ice cream man. Every other week, the dealer is the ice cream man.

You�ve seen three corn and pork rind vendors work the neighborhood and retire.

The Mexican kids next door who used to run drugs on their scooters are now training their own kids to do it.

Your landlord asks you to turn your apt into a storage unit once a year at inspection time so that the city won't have him arrested.

The landlord then asks if there's any way he can raise your rent by making some home improvements so that he can afford to send his daughter to rehab. When you argue that there's no way anyone could possibly improve the apt without the walls crumbling in, he forces a half assed smile and looks down. You then suggest he call it even and just fix the hole in the ceiling so it won't look like it's raining every time Tim upstairs takes a shower.

Your apt complex is referred to as �the compound.�

You have the homeless woman in the alley on a weekly allowance, yet you�ve started to call her Mom.

Between fire throwing once a month and the unemployment checks, your next door neighbor pays his rent effortlessly.

People in the complex are having monthly yard sales with stuff they don�t own, including stuff that you vaguely remember storing in the garage when you moved in. You note that someone is also selling his Rubik's cube and "Party Like it's 1999" t-shirt there. At sale's end, a few of the homeless have migrated to to the front yard, and are sleeping on the $15 sectional couch draped in hot pink Mardis Gras beads.

After people move out of the apt complex, they begin to come back to visit so they can sit quietly out front to reinforce the idea that "it could always be worse."

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