I had a NIIICE run-in with a local guy in front of Casa del Asshole this morning. He was watching the backhoes across the street go MMRM MMRM from the foot of my driveway.
Whippet and I were standing around gabbing and he came up to us. For the purposes of this conversation it’s important for you to know he was a blue-eyed man with light skin.
“Do you live in this neighborhood?” he said. “I live right on the other block. Can you believe all this construction?”
“Yeah, Seattle’s really changing,” I said, hoping he would not go into a crazy old guy rant.
“I don’t know how long you’ve lived here, but BACK IN MY DAY a person could afford a house here. I am sixty years old and I am in an apartment and I have lost job after job to these people,” he said, gesturing at the jobsite.
“All that’s happening is that these developers are getting rich. And look at those people! Mexicans! Mexicans are doing the work for fifteen dollars an hour and more money goes into the pocket of the developers.”
Fabulous. My LEAST favorite crazy guy rant.
“I was in Fremont the other day and the whole site was speaking MEXICAN!”
“Well, you can’t tell if someone’s a citizen by what language he’s speaking,” I interjected, when he paused to take a breath.
He rattled on for a while longer, and I suggested that he take it up with the foreman, who was right across the street.
“No!” he said, and started moving off, probably because despite the fact that Whippet and I are both whitey-white ladies of Irish descent, one of us having the further distinction of being of white trash descent (me) we were not agreeing with him. “They just get HOSTILE if you try to talk with them. I’ve tried it.”
Well, he certainly wasn’t getting an audience with us, either. A hundred years ago I’m sure that people were throwing bottles at my great-great-great grandfather and telling him to go home. Now I’m all entitled to be here and whatnot. Life is weird sometimes, and sometimes the weird happens right in your driveway. That is my insipid thought for the day.
FURTHERMORE, I will come out as being for townhouses. I’d rather see three families on a lot than what I saw when I lived in Phoenix–sprawl to Tucson, the temps fifteen degrees higher than they should have been, and the Brown Cloud, in part caused by driving 3,000 miles to get back to your McMansion at night. Yes, the developers are getting rich. I think that’s called “what the market will bear” and some junk.
I hate it when people make assumptions like that about me. Don’t “oh noes foreigners” me, because then I will have to “OH NOES ATOMIC WEDGIE” you. Dumbass.
Anyone have a list of other names for wedgies? About all I could come up with was, “the dreaded rear admiral”.
Thanks a lot for missing my point.
BANNED! :p
I have recently had to come out as being pro-condo, too. I think most condos are ugly as hell, but you can’t be “pro density” while also complaining about condos. When people (*cough*The Stranger*cough*) whine about condo developments and yet also bitch about sprawl, I just want to slap them and tell them they can’t have it both ways. Look at Vancouver, people! That’s how you have high density living. Yes, it looks like a glass cock farm with all those high rise condos, but THAT’S high density. The alternative is Auburn.
You can’t have it both ways. And the phrase “Glass Cock Farm” OWNS!
I’m all for condos, but the crappity town houses that are going up around these parts are what the kids call “Teh Suxxors”.
They’re like “hey look granite and stainless kitchen!” and I’m all “Is this thing swaying in the breeze.” And they’re all “Peep the Hardwoodiness!” and I’m like “Is that wall actually made of cardboard?” and they’re like “Uh..” and I’m all “No thanks.”
We were lucky to get into our building when we did. Nice folks, communal attitude, and wacky neighbors.
Yeah, I’m fine with townhouses, condos, whatever, as long as they’re not ugly. And there are some trees around. And it would help if there was PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION, so that not every working and/or child-caring adult would have to drag a car around and find a way to park it, causing massive parking congestion around said townhouses and condos.
That would be a good thing. Just saying.
I hate when people say things like that assuming (it appears) that I’ll agree, but I love how disappointed they are when they realize I don’t. ; )
Els: DUDE! Totally. I was really sad when I found out the downtown developers are not being required to provide parking for the new mondo buildings, and yet the public transportation is not being pumped up. Lame!
The Meskins are ruining my neighborhood, too. Damn people come here to escape starvation and have the nerve to work harder and for less money than us Mur-cans. Then they open their own biznesses and succeed. That shit must be stopped! It isn’t patriotic.
The “Minute Men” (you know, the crazies who retire and then sit on the border calling the Border Patrol every time they think someone’s crossing?) started a branch in Kansas City, which I don’t know, is in the middle of the country or something. Their leader (the main minute man?) was on the news talking about how he went to a job site where no one spoke English. He called INS and reported the employer. Are you kidding me? Your proof of whether or not someone has the right to legally work here is their mastery of English? Because I have for sure see some less than conversant white folks in my part of town.
I don’t know, but I sort of get hostile when people come up to me and tell me that I have stolen their jobs and should go back to where I came from, which is Chicago. New Yorkers can be so intolerant when it comes to housing and jobs, ya know? Who can blame the Mexicans for reacting the same way? Viva la raza, up with la gente, solidarity, and all that.