Human Nature

Like driving past a car wreck. There's this thing called "rubbernecking". You know where there's something out of the ordinary happening, usually something not good like a car wreck, the aftermath of a drive-by before the medical examiner removes the body from the scene. We are compelled to look. My rubberneck of the week, really isn't true rubbernecking. its more like Voyeurism 101.

It's no secret to those that know me well that I have weird neighbors. It could be that I have a knack for find the oddities and quirks in the mundane. The creative streak in me wants to dig deeper to find out what's really going on. So in that sense, I am the nosey neighbor. Every morning, around 6 or so after I'm done with Fajr prayer , I grab a cup of coffee, the newspaper and take a seat on my front porch. I open the paper, but that's just a cover. What I'm really doing is catching a glimpse of my neighbor across the street, two doors down. Why? Because she's a married woman with a husband who works nights. So every morning with the exception of two mornings a week, there is a car that doesn't belong to either of them that is parked in front of my house. The driver spends a great deal of time in the house and then around 630 or so , he leaves. At 7:15 sharp, the man of the house (well the one that I presume is the man of the house) pulls into the driveway. Are we all on page one of the drama? Oh I am waiting on the day when either one gets home early or the other leaves late.
On the other side of me, there are constant fights, in Spanish so I'm not quite certain of all the nuances, but the funny thing about high school Spanish as with most foreign languages taken in our youth, the "dirty words" always stick with us. So I get the gist of what is going on just based on the various choice of words.

Occasionally the police or a fire truck shows up and once we had a tow truck. There was the time that I had to call the police because a two to three year old toddler that was dirty and walking down the street. As it turns out, he lived four blocks over and his parents were asleep, high on drugs and didn't know that he was out of the house until later in the day when his photo was shown on the news. I don't understand those sort of people. Honestly. Five minutes, a room and a baseball bat.

I have learned since moving into the city that common sense isn't too common. If it was the norm, we wouldn't have to have "For External Use Only" written on Preparation H boxes. Bottles of shampoo wouldn't have to say "wet hair". I can't believe that there are people that don't know these things. They are like moths drawn to the flames of a fire, not realizing that if they get too close, they will burn.

It is in our very nature to test the stove to see if it is hot, to challenge our parents to see if we will lose privileges, Some people will try whatever drugs are given to them without knowing the effects. I doubt that I will ever understand the whys and wherefores and the idiosyncrasies that make people the way they are. I am as clueless as ever about people who lack common sense.