Tuesday, April 20, 2010

A neighbor from Hell

Bob, one of my colleagues, had a puckish sense of humor. He had a neighbor from Hell, who was also one of our colleagues. Bob's neighbor was a man who brooked no opinions or actions that deviated from his own self adulating point of view. When I first moved to Lotus City and appeared exhausted after a successful and difficult case, Bob's neighbor from Hell asked me if I thought I would ever, "amount to anything"? You get the idea! Thank God he was Bob's neighbor and not mine. The neighbor , whose name was George, had a very short trigger. He could supply ire, at will, in a nanosecond! As a result, the bolder amongst some of us, those with a mean streak, would play George like a trout after a dry fly, as he would always rise to the occasion. Hardly mature and seasoned behavior on anyone's part really, but understandable. Bob, at some point, acquired a dog, a black Labrador retriever. The dog was enormously friendly and liked to wander, and stand on it's hind legs, leaning with it's paws on George's fence, looking at him. George loathed Bob's dog! Bob, not one to restrain himself, or let the opportunity for ironic humor escape him, named his dog, George. He would of course call the dog repeatedly for all manner of reasons at all times of the day, saying " Here George,good boy! Good doggy George, bury doggy do do!" and so on! Of course George would act with fury, but impotent fury. It is not clear to me, who was the neighbor from Hell! Probably both, maybe all of us, the tantalized and the tantalizer, the obvious and the non obvious. It's easy, and wrong, to be more sympathetic to the cool and funny bully, than the overt, pejorative, crank!

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