Good Neighbors

Now that I’m telecommuting, I’m seeing my neighbors much more than I ever did. We live on a very nice street with some very interesting people. Well, that is, we used to live on a very nice street with some very nice people until those two women moved into the last house on the left with their two children. Now, we have to worry. I can feel the threats to the rest of the families on our street already.

I can't believe this has happened to me on my very own street, the one place I always thought I'd be so safe. What could be more scary? Certainly not something like America’s current economic crisis. I mean, we all know those elite private boarding schools and all-summer-long-sleep-away camps where all the billionaires get rid of (I mean send) their children, are so much less of a threat to American families. And you know, what better way to instill good-old-family values than for most children in America to be living in homes in which both parents are working long hours and still have to worry the whole family may end up homeless any day now, while the neighborhood school may be closing down, because it doesn’t live up to the No Child Left Behind standards? I say, if only these testing companies would hurry up and figure out a way to get those number-two pencils into those tiny little hands in the womb, maybe we could stop building schools altogether in some neighborhoods and spend those tax dollars on something important, like invading Bermuda (I heard they’re hiding WMDs in the Bermuda Triangle, you know). And let’s test the parents, too, to see whether or not they really deserve to own homes.

Meanwhile, I saw these new neighbors of ours, two seemingly-devoted mothers (don’t let them fool you) on my street talking to the teenager who lives a few houses down. Despite the fact she talks about boys all the time, I just know they’re busy planting seeds in her head and plan to turn her into one of "them" as soon as they can get her alone (you know, the same way that neighbor on your street turned you straight when you were a teenager). And I can tell by the way they wave and smile at me, they’ve got home wrecking on their minds. If they come knocking at our door while Bob’s not here, you’d better believe I’m not opening it.

I’m most worried, though, for the young couple with their baby boy who live at the other end of the street. How on earth are they possibly going to explain this family to their poor son? And what kind of a pervert will he become growing up on a street like this? Or worse yet, he might become some sort of “girlie man.” I’m really going to have to talk to his parents and tell them to get out now, before it’s too late. Take a loss on the house if that’s what’s necessary. This is their son we’re talking about here, and I’m afraid some damage may have already been done, because that little boy is just so loving and affectionate. Can’t have that. Can you imagine anything worse for the American family than affectionate men? I just know our new neighbors, and others like them, have been ruining our tough, strong, patriotic men for years, so that now so many of them are nothing but wimps, who’d rather protest a war than fight like real men.

It’s just overwhelming. I’m terrified. What can I do to save my neighborhood (and my country)? I know; I’ll do what my president would tell me to do in such worrisome times. Where’s my credit card? I’m going to go shopping.