My Neighbors

I love my neighbors so much. Well, I love overhearing bits and pieces of their conversations as they walk by my window. There's Motown guy, who's always singing Temptations songs as he strolls down the sidewalk. Pretty decent voice actually. There's Loogie Man, who hocks the world's most impressively loud loogies at all hours of the day. He must have a condition or something. The Guy who lovingly washes his car every single day and listens to Mexican polka with the volume set to 11. The creepy security guard at Barato Dollar Family who basically just watches you shop for a living. The super nice lady whose name I forgot but who said I had a "cheery" face. The girl who talks in a chicken-like squawk and repeats everything she says thrice. At least six households have some kind of large jungle cat depiction or statue on or around their house. Like the lion mural on the garage door, a giant stuffed cheetah sitting in a tree that always terrifies me, tiger statues adorning the fences. It's a weird place, this Jefferson Park.

I catch the most random soundbites living in this apartment. One time I heard a man yell at his crying toddler to "Shut the fuck up!" That was upsetting. But just now I heard a middle age woman walking by saying, "Did you ever see the movie Forrest Gump? You know that part where Lieutenant Dan jumps into the water? That's how I feel right now." I have no idea what she was talking about, but it just made my day. I thought I would share. I think one day I'll just sit by my window and listen to the wacky things people while they cross in front of my perch. I realize this may seem creepy and stalkerish not unlike the Barato security guard, but I can't let these verbal gems go undocumented!