There Goes the Neighborhood

I live in a funny little secret neighborhood that's bordered on three sides by water -- a tidal estuary and the shallow harbor -- and on the fourth side by the highway.  Lest you think me one of the yuppies, my house is definitely on the low rent side: no water view, and constant low grade highway noise.  Still, I love my neighborhood.  It's quiet (besides the hum of the highway, I mean).  There's no through traffic, just neighborhood residents, because all of the streets are dead ends.  It's two streets wide and three and a half streets deep. 

We're not exactly cozy as neighbors, but there's not much turnover in the neighborhood so you get to know folks and wave at them every day.  There are people I know by face and then a bunch of people I know by dog (when they walk by) or by house (e.g. the woman with the Tibetan prayer flags on the porch, and the neighbor with all the plastic flowers and plastic geese in the yard).  Others I know mostly by vehicle (e.g. the old guy with the busted down Volvo wagon who drives about two blocks away to get coffee and drives back every morning, and the truck with the "Pipefitters for Kerry" bumpersticker and the red Mercury Sable with the vanity plates and the Boxer Rescue association door insignias). 

One of the neighbors I know mostly by vehicle is the people in the red house who have suddenly introduced a big black Hummer into the neighborhood, emblazoned with the logo of this company.  It's parked at the end of my street and I go by it most days on my walks or runs and wonder who it belongs to.  I'm not much of a fan of Hummers but have been watching for indications about who lives there and what Irish Boyz is all about.  Maybe these are hip young folks who will change my mind about Hummers.  But today, right in front of the red house, I saw something that makes it almost impossible for me to continue to feel good about these neighbors.

There are two jet skis sitting there.  I am unequivocally against jet skis. 

Comments

[pjm]

I've seen some vehicles like that around my college town. I think an advertising company gives some college kids use of the vehicle so they'll drive it around town as a rolling billboard. The kids are too jazzed about driving a swanky car (SUV, Hummer, whatever, usually something tall) "for free" that they don't mind being participants in the drive to put marketing messages on any available surface and commoditize our attention. (Not that I feel strongly about this, or anything...)

[hkd]

I too hate jet skis and Hummers. When we were house hunting I actually rejected a house we were on the fence about because the next door neighbor drove a big yellow Hummer. Of course, we bought a house that we love and our perfectly nice new neighbor promptly went out an bought an even uglier orange Hummer. Yuck.

My objection to your neighbors is the fact that they pluralized with a Z. Next to a sticker of a peeing Calvin on the back window the Z-plural has to be the surest sign of a creep.

[Soupie Johnson]

What if Calvin is peeing on a word pluralized with a Z?

[DaveL]

Jet skis are really good for surf rescues. Other than that, they're basically a crime against humanity.

[turboglacier]

Jet skis have some usefulness. For example, they good for ferreting out schooner captains carrying illegal stores of black powder:
http://www.sailnet.com/sailing/02/f&bjan02.htm

[em]

I loathe jet skis. I live on a river (no, I'm not a yuppie, this is in Trenton) and the high-pitched screeching of these things can go right to the center of your skull. makes you wish you had a paintball gun...

[Bill Altreuter]

Jet skis bad, Hummers bad, phoney Irishness bad. Three strikes. Count on it: these are the sort of people that put upholstered furniture on the front lawn.