And What Is The Soup Of The Day?

Scene:

3:30 am

Darkened bedroom

Sleeping baby in next room

Parents (one really angry...me) awakened by booming bass and loud shouting next door.

After much debate and wincing as we heard the baby stirring on the monitor, it was decided that I'd going to go next door and give them the "whatfor". Ray, in his sleepy state, thought I was going to call our neighbours, but when he heard me open the door he realized I was going to the backyard to ask them to turn the music down. Wrong on both counts. I was going into their backyard.

You see, a few months ago, they lined their yard in ficus trees and their property on the left hand side butts right up to ours, so they have the "fencing right of way." This was not a big deal to us at all. It was better, in fact, as their foliage was much thicker than ours, enclosing our yard in way more privacy than our failing bougainvillea could manage. Out there in the night air, there was no way anyone could see me, much less hear me in our yard. So there I was, pajama-ed and barefoot, traipsing into next door's garden. 

I barely got out "Guys... hey guys" when I remembered that the two men soaking in the patio hot tub, listening to Kanye West's Heartless at a level needed to hear over the bubbles and their own shouting, were cops. Cops without senses of humour. Cops with guns.

Holy crap I thought. Am I going to get a cap in my ass? From their perspective, I'm a shadow creeping around their bushes in the dead of night. The focused part of my brain p'shawed it and figured they'd have no gun belt next to them much less on their swim-shorted bodies.

Anyway, I had to get at least four "Guys... hey guys!" out before they even noticed me (couldn't hear me apparently - you know, over the bubbles, Kanye and their own moronic arguing). I crept closer and closer until I was not just skimming the outskirts of their property, but fully in their yard proper. Finally, with waving arms and many HELLOs!!, I'm seen.

"HEY!" says one of the cops.

Fuck, I thought, now I'm going to die.

"HEY!" he says, "Come closer! We can't hear you!"

No shit Sherlock.

"Hi guys," (nice as pie), "I was wondering if you could turn the music down. My baby is awake and won't go back to sleep with the bass. Would you mind lowering it?"

To their credit, the non "HEY!" guy jumped out of the tub so fast and ran inside soaking wet to turn the music down. Asking if that was better (WTF?!! You mean you're not going to turn it off? It's threefuckingthirty on a TUESDAY NIGHT!), they apologized all over themselves for getting a tired mom out of bed. I said it was fine and tiptoed out of their dewy lawn.

Back in bed, Ray asked me if I had been nice. Yep. I definitely got back in a better mood than I'd left because it was just so ridiculous...so much so that we started giggling about the whole situation, worrying about getting shot, what the news headline would have been, etc.

Then he wanted details. So what was it like over there? What did I walk in on? We've been hotly debating whether these guys are gay so he thought this would be the clincher.

"Yeah, not gay, for sure," I said.

"Why?" asked Ray.

"Umm, when I first walked in their yard? It was like Angry Cop Soup...not romantic at all."