I am what a paramedic friend of mine once called a black cloud. That is, I often find myself witnessing situations which legitimately require a 911 call. Ever since I learned about the murder of Kitty Genovese in Psych 104, I promised myself I would always be the one who makes that call, since, statistically speaking, most people assume someone else will do it and don't bother. I counted, and in 2010, I called 911 something like 12 times.
Despite living on what must be ground zero for emergency responders in Grandview-Woodland and Hastings-Sunrise, I have only called 911 twice in the past 20 months for happenings in my own neighbourhood. Both were possible gunshots, and happily, I wasn't the only one to call.
Last night my dinner party was interrupted by one of the near weekly street operas that play out just below my balcony. This time it was a spectacularly loud relationship bust up, in which the woman swore she was "always f*cking faithful to [him]!"
Later on, when I was moving the open-windowed skunkmobile inside in case of rain, I was privy to a strictly verbal girl fight that was carried out with one woman walking down the middle of the street yelling at the other walking on the sidewalk. "Mary," one assured the other, "you do not want to get on my f*cking bad side!" With neighbours like these, who needs to go to the movies?
It must be the WASP in me who wonders why these people can't play out their dramas behind closed doors. That being said, I wouldn't trade my sometimes gritty, sometimes peaceful, but always interesting address for what I had in the 'burbs where people didn't seem to leave their houses, except to get into their cars.
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