What's Going on With My Neighborhood, or Don't Forget to Write When You Get Settled!

Every day's a little longer, every day's a little warmer, and to top it all off, Holy Hannah, it's Friday!

Can ya beat that?

Once again, in my pointless and somehow sacrilegious need to understand what's going on before it even happens, I consult my iPod's playlist in the hopes that, if I listen intently, perhaps while squinting, the future will be revealed.

Honeybear by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Are You Alright? by Lucinda Williams
Long Division by Death Cab for Cutie
Love Long Distance by Gossip
Temptation by Tom Waits
Love Dog by TV on the Radio
Atomic Dog by George Clinton
Hey by The Pixies

Hmmm. I'm either being held prisoner by a college radio station or I'm getting a dog.

Onward.

Today is the last of our serial-Friday installments re: the Jefferson Hillbillies.

Today's episode?

How Can I Miss You If You Won't Go Away?

I would like to report that their moving out was a raucous adventure of questionable folk from Minneapolis' seedy underbelly, that the local chapter of DA (Deficient Anonymous) showed up to help them pack up the four large-screen TVs, the ping pong table and the seemingly dozens of mattresses that I witnessed them move into the house down the street.

But I cannot.

They left in the middle of the night, leaving nothing but tire tracks in the front yard, a large piece of furniture that may have doubled as some sort of sacrificial slab, a broken cooler, and two horrifyingly stained king-sized mattresses.

They left these items on the boulevard in front of their house.

Oddly enough, Minneapolis' garbage haul-away policy is amazingly liberal; and all of these items could've been taken off the neighborhood's hands by simply leaving them in the alley with a note that said "Please Take".

And as enticing as a game of "What does that stain look like to you?" originally seemed, I tired of the view of their household scabs almost immediately, and called 311 (the number to the city) on the second day.

"I'd like to report a large pile of crap, please."

The woman on the other end chuckled. "Can you describe the crap, ma'am?"

I could, and I did.

"Do you have the address of said crap?"

"Well, it's four down from my house, but the house numbers seem to run by both fours and twos, so I'm not sure of it right now. I can walk down there if you like."

"Let's start with your address and go from there," she said.

In minutes, she had Google Maps pulled up, had found my house and had counted down four houses.

"Is it the house with the lamp post in front of it?" she asked.

"What?" I said. "You can see that?"

"Google Maps is a wonderful thing," she said.

I had been unaware of this street-level feature. "I'm stepping outside," I said. "Can you see me?"

She laughed politely, as one does at the clueless. "Ma'am, it's a satellite image."

There was a slight pause as I listened to her type.

"We'll have someone out to pick it up tomorrow."

"Really? Just like that, huh?"

"Just like that," she said. "Is there anything more I can do for you?"

"No, ma'am," I said. "That's plenty."

True to her word, the City of Minneapolis hauled away the residuals of their brief stay with us, and so ends the tale of the Jefferson Hillbillies.

They came, they saw, they littered.

And now they're someone else's problem.