Garbage Bag Guy

Because I live in a warm climate homes generally don't have a basement - they have a crawl space.  I don't know - maybe no homes have a basement.  What do I look like?  A home builder?  In fact, upon some reflection, I have no idea why homes have basements.  I just assumed they're places to store more crap that you no longer need, that you never needed, and that you should just throw in the garbage.  I may have read once that cold weather climates cause the ground to shrink and expand so a basement is needed to counteract this.  I have no idea why I would remember that.  It sounds like something I'd make up.  I explained to a friend that the reason my hair was standing straight up in the air as the result of riding my motorcycle to the meeting.  "You have a motorcycle?" she asked.  "I have three motorcycles." I said.  If I'm going to make shit up I'm going to go all in.  If she believes I have a motorcycle I might as well own three of them.

Where I am here?  Oh, yeah, we had sneaky rats get into the crawl space a few years back, making entry through some poorly sealed openings that I guess allow the crawl space to breathe or something.  Get some air flow through that crawl space and I'll tell you this as well - crawl space is an apt description because you're going to have to crawl to get around in there.  A nice dude comes out, seals up the openings and catches all the rats, of which there were an alarmingly large number.  Now, the rats have returned.  The sneaky bastards found a small hole around a water pipe or electrical conduit or sewage outlet and took up residence again.  Not the same rats, I'm assuming, maybe some relatives.  Dude comes back out and is catching rats and sealing holes and all will be well, all will be well, all will be well.

I started to ponder why rats and why in my house?  We have fruit trees all around my property so I'm going to make an effort to keep any fallen oranges and tangerines collected and disposed of.  What else?  Where else for the source of the rats?  I peer over the fence into Boat Guy's back yard and what do I see but a whole ton of garbage bags which appear to be filled with bottles and cans for recycling.  I can only hope that's what they contain.  God help me if it's actual garbage.  For the record . . . he no longer has the boat - replacing that with a beat up old truck - so maybe he needs a new nickname?  Garbage Bag Guy? 

No way this is allowable under our community rules.  But I'm stuck again in the Conundrum:  Do I escalate this by contacting park management or by confronting Garbage Bag Guy directly?  It's amazing how things can spiral out of control once official mechanisms get activated.  Nonetheless, it's not fair to me that he's behaving like this.  No one else in the community is collecting cans and bottles for recycling.  No one else is parking junk trucks in their driveway.  No one else is irritating the shit out of me.

Fair disclosure - I'm hitting another age milestone that ends in a zero in December.  I've had some struggles with these numerically significant transitions.  It's uncomfortable to ponder the passage of another decade.  You look around at your friends and think: "This is it?  This is the best I can do?"  When you are young the End of Things is so distant it has no meaning.  Now the Grim Reaper is on the horizon.  He's still out there a bit but I can make something out and if I use binoculars I can definitely see someone in a black hoodie with a sharpened farming implement.  I have to be aware at times like this.  Boat Guy . . .  er . . . Garbage Bag Guy is no longer making a lot of noise so there's that.  Is the status quo bad enough to risk a new status quo?  Always possible that a new reality will  irritate the shit out of me in a different way.

Often, keeping my mouth shut works out best.  When I talk . . . bad things happen.  When I'm silent . . . things work out.