"In the Ghetto....."

There is an old classic song that is sometimes played on the oldies station. It has a chorus that repeats the phrase "In the Ghetto". I've been singing this song alot lately. I don't really think I live in the ghetto, but some things I've seen around here have definitely given me reason to sing this song. I guess the town where we live is like most towns, there are good parts and bad parts. Unfortunately, I seem to have stumbled upon some of the bad parts. Here are some things that have been happening in my lovely hometown.

The other day, I went to wash my car at a local car wash. This is the kind of car wash where you put in quarters, adjust the knob, and wash the car by hand. So, first, I had Mary Alice get out of the car because I mistakenly supposed that she might want to help me wash the car. This is how I usually wash a car-- prewash, apply tire cleaner, soapy spray, foamy brush, high pressure rinse, then a slight wax if I have any time left. I'm pretty fast, if I do say so myself, and pride myself in how little money I can spend washing my car. So, I came to the car with a little more than $2 in quarters ready to clean off our filthy suburban.

This is how it went... First, I put three quarters into the machine and started up the "prewash". Things were going great and so I moved on to the "apply tire cleaner" part of my routine. The pressure of the tire cleaner was adequate (water running out in a tiny stream), but no tire cleaner came out! "That's annoying, but oh well!" I thought. On to the next thing, which was "soapy spray". I ran back to the knob to change to soapy spray, changed it, and ran back to the other side of the car. Guess what? No soapy spray, only water came drizzling out! By this time, I was getting very annoyed!!! I thought that I would just have to change my plan even more and use the soapy brush to soap off the car. I sprinted back around the car to grab the soapy brush only to find that not only was the brush not soapy, it was not there at all!! Yes, that's right, someone in the ghetto probably stole the soapy brush. So, what's left? Oh yes, high pressure rinse and the slight waxing. Due to my frequent unplanned trips around and back around the car, I now had run out of change. I scoured my car and found a dollar bill. I went to the change machine and found that it had been vandalized. It was badly dented and looked like it had been beaten with a baseball bat. Next to the ransacked change machine was a vending machine that had also been vandalized. All of the goodies inside had been taken except for ONE bag of chips. Weird. I know this doesn't make any sense, but I really wanted to finish washing my car. I dug through every crevice in the suburban and found three more quarters. By this time, I was very curious to see if the wax job would work. I skipped the high pressure rinse (Go figure) and moved on to the wax. I was determined to give my freshly rinsed vehicle some kind of a treat. I turned the knob to "wax" and, I'm sure you can guess what came out of that nozzle. Good ole H2O!
G-H-E-T-T-O! Who vandalizes car washes anyway? I mean, the change machine I can understand, but the vending machine, and the FOAMY BRUSH!!! Seriously? Who ARE these people?????

Now, for my ghetto dry cleaning experience. I took three garments in. Two of them had spots. One was a pair of wool pants that were clean, except for a dime sized spot on the front pant leg. I think Major dropped some food on them? So, I dropped off the garments, explained the spots, showed them the spots, and returned the next day to pick them up. Two of three garments still had the spots on them! The spots didn't look lighter or anything. They were just as bad as when I dropped them off. It is not like I spilled motor oil or black ink on them, just small amounts of food. It wasn't until I got the clothes home and took them out of the bag that I realized that the clothes were still spotted. Annoying! Maybe this dry cleaner has been vandalized too? Maybe someone stole their foamy brush? Cleaners? Whatever. I wasn't rude when I went back in, just nicely explained that the items were still spotted, showed them the spots and returned the next day to pick them up. Yes. I'm looking for a new dry cleaner now. Requirement: They must actually clean the clothing. Merely hanging it up in a plastic bag will simply not suffice!

In the same week's time, I went to get the oil changed in my car. The place that I went to is a national chain and has a large proud sign out front that says something like "voted best oil and lube in _______" The place looked clean and nice. I took the kids inside. The woman working there must have thought I looked like an idiot. (Sometimes I do, but you need not treat me like one. That is just unprofessional.) She recommended so many upgrades, treatments, replacements, rearrangements, that, if I had actually been silly enough to fall for her sales tactics, I would've walked out of there having spent HUNDREDS of dollars! I just don't like that. I don't like people trying to trick you into spending money. Just give me my oil change and I'll be on my way.

Oh yes, and I REALLY dislike siding on houses. Not a small, tasteful amount, but when you cover more than a fourth of the building with cheap siding, it's just plain ugly! An apartment complex was built down the street from us whose ratio is very much 3 parts siding to one part brick. It just looks junky. It is also painted a peach color. Sick! It's like the builders ran out of money halfway through the project and were forced to finish up with cheap materials. Junkified. "In the Ghetto..." I think that if you don't have enough money to build a decent looking two story house, one that can be dressed appropriately, you need to scale down to one that you can afford. To me, siding is distasteful in large amounts. My apologies to you if your house is one of those.

Last of all, we have some very noisy neighbors. I first need to say that they are EXTREMELY sweet people. We like them alot. They are just too loud! It is kindof funny, really. They play this ghetto rap music REALLY loud nearly every day. It is so loud, sometimes, that I can actually hear every word of the lyrics. (This can be worrisome at times, as rap music isn't some of the cleanest stuff out there.) I have thought about booming some of Mary Alice and Major's sing along songs in the direction of their house, but realized that would not be a Christlike way to respond. :) So anyway, these neighbors are not trying to be rude, I think they are just trying to have a good time jamming out to their tunes.... EVERY DAY. Ok, so one day last week I was outside playing in the back yard playing with the kids. The neighbors were also in their back yard. They were playing their rap music... LOUDLY.

"Hey!" our neighbor yells over the fence. "How ya'll doin'?" he says with a big smile.

"We're doing fine. How about you?" I yell back with a smile.

"Good. Good. I was just wondering.... does this music bother you?" he asked.

"It's not my favorite," I said. "But I've heard worse."

With laughter he said, "Well, what do you want me to play then?"

"Ummm. Classical music?" I joked with him. He laughed. We both laughed. I think he got the idea that I don't jive with his ghetto tunes. I wasn't rude, just honest. We have a good relationship with these guys. Their music has actually toned it down a little bit. I can't hear the lyrics now, only the loud bass booming. :)

Speaking of ghetto, we have the ghettoist yard around. Josh's lawnmower is in the shop. So, as soon as it is fixed, we need to get our lawn together, before we become known as "that yard" in the neighborhood.

It can be freeing living in the ghetto. Who cares if you walk around town in your pajamas? I mean, I could even go barefoot into McDonald's without anyone so much as looking in my direction. :) I haven't actually tried this, but I could if I wanted to!!!

I'm really kidding. I have noticed some ghettoish things, but things are changing around here, the town is growing really fast! There is even a car wash WITH a foamy brush down the street! I rarely notice spots on people's clothes, which leads me to believe that there must be a good dry cleaner as well. Our yard will soon be mowed. No more ghetto yard! We're movin on up!