You've all seen the videos of the parliamentary leaders in places like Assbackwardsstan jumping over podiums and slugging each other. On Tuesday I had one of those Borat-like moments. I have the red nose and bad back to prove it. More on the fisticuffs in a minute.
For those of you that have been reading my blogs you might remember one awhile back entitled, "Like A Good Neighbor". It dealt with the L.A. Department of Transportation, parking restrictions, and neighbors that find selfishness a virtue. Basically it concerned all the battles that the wife and I had with all of the above. New parking restrictions had been installed on our block that made it easier to park in front of an Iraqi embassy than in front of my house.
Even though the new signs were up, the wife and I were not done fighting the battles to bring justice back to our street. For those of you that don't know my wife - she makes Erin Brokovich look like a pussy.
We were finally able to get the Department of Transportation to at least say the word "oops" when it came to the handling of the parking fiasco. They, and they never do this, said because of all the "confusion" that we could re-file a new petition.
Good news on the one hand, but a daunting task nevertheless. We now had to get 2/3 of the households on the block to agree to changes. Oops was a start. Taking down the signs would have been better. We needed 18 households to jump on board.
We talked to a few of the neighbors that had been on our side before to see if this seemed like something we should pursue. We proceeded cautiously. At the beginning we were just opening the car door even though I wanted to get laid.
We were pleasantly surprised to find out that there was venom in the air. Hatred towards the new signs. That's all fine and dandy, but how do you get to 18. We began to fill up the petition. Most of the neighbors wanted to roll the restrictions back much further than what our petition stated but realized that his compromise would stand the best chance of going through.
We eventually had 16 signatures on our petition. Including 10 households that had signed the original petition. They had signed our new petition because they had been either bamboozled or simply despised the new East Berlin restrictions. But, unfortunately, 16 is not 18.
We knew that we were never going to get the signatures of the Selfish Six. We were shocked that 3 or 4 other homes wouldn't even listen. They felt "safer". They felt that now they could take their trash cans out without cars illegally parked in their driveway. No one has ever seen any illegally cars parked in their driveway, but why would reason come into play.
So; the wife and I sent out a memo thanking the 16 and saying we weren't giving up, but for now, we were at a standstill. We had tried our best.
The "whiny trash can guys" then decided that they wanted to have a meeting to bring the neighborhood back together. Like we were all having dinner with each other all the time. Please! The wife warned them that there were a lot of heated voices. Unless we are going to change the restrictions there is no point to the meeting. "No, let's all hold hands", said the whiny passive-aggressives.
So; a meeting was held this past Tuesday night. Both sides arrived with hair-triggers. There was forced civility at the start. If changes were not going to occur that night - our voices and bitching were definitely going to be heard.
The meeting started. A few eyebrows were raised by the Selfish Six when someone had the audacity to say that I would like to have a family member visit without having them park at the Von's about a mile away. Certainly not the worst thing in the world to be asking for.
Then one of the Selfish Six started speaking. He had not been brought up to speed and was spouting stuff that no longer applied. It was up to me to point that out to him. I explained to the Selfish Senior that things had changed due to the Dept. of Transportation and the "confusion".
Confusion was the word that pushed the button. The snakey original petitioner, in his uniform tank top, said there was no confusion and that the only confusion was caused by me and the wife. I responded in about as manly a tone as I could, "You're the one that lied." "Are you calling me a liar!", as he charged in my direction. "You lied to me", I barely got out.
Down Goes Frazier! Down Goes Frazier! Down Goes Frazier! He hit me right in the face sending me flying through a cheap wall. Now, I haven't had a fist fight since the third grade when that annoying Emily Rosenberg cleaned my clock. It took a bit to clear the cobwebs. The first words out of my mouth when I got up were, "Alex, I'll go to Bits and Pieces for $200." I then checked to see if I still had all of my teeth. I was shaken and marginally stirred.
The police were called. Nice folks. Not the ones that beat Rodney King. At the time I decided to not press charges. That might change. The meeting continued on sans Evander Hollyfield. Bickering and some common sense. Don't know how it happened but we got two more signatures. 18 - the holy grail. I hope the new signs are put up soon. I don't want to write another blog about this.
As my nose got redder and my back got sorer I felt empowered that I had taken one for the team.
The whole evening had been surreal. Idiotic and dangerous. Looking back on my first MMA experience, you know who I want to hit? Sadly, he is no longer with us. Mr. Rogers. Yeah, the guy in the sweater. That Mr. Rogers. A lovely day in the neighborhood, my ass!!!
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