Bound to Happen…

With the way people speed down our street, I guess it was only a matter of time before this happened.

Last night after returning from a gas fill-up/car wash/Starbucks run, we were greeted to the sight of just about every resident standing on the sidewalk gawking at an accident scene. It took me a second to adjust my vision–it’s much better than Ann’s night vision–to see what happened.

“Oh, man. They hit (our neighbor) George’s truck,” I said disappointingly to Ann. He’s only had it a year.

And here’s the damage.

Turns out he was rear-ended by a group of “kids” in their 20s driving one of those wanna-be off-road trucks. You know, like the ones I wrote about in this post. With the exception of their collective wardrobe, which gave me the impression they idolized Mr. Sandra Bullock and have really bad taste in music, these guys were from the same dick mold as those I describe in the aforementioned link/post.

This suspicion was confirmed when the suspect–I’m twice as big and old as he was–began cussing at and flipping off another neighbor as she told him and his troop of little boys to slow down. This happened after the police arrived and did nothing, not even issue a citation because the suspect was driving without a license and ditched a brown bag at a friend’s house shortly after the accident. Nice work, boys.

A spark ignited inside Ann. She was pissed at how this moron not only didn’t care about what had happened but also his behavior and language afterwards. She yelled at him to shut his mouth and not speak that way in front of children. He continued, so I had to intervene as he proceeded with his one-man parade to the end of the street where his truck eventually stalled and his group of fellow “tough guys” was waiting.

“Hey, tough guy,” I yelled as I stepped in his direction. “Don’t you dare speak that way in front of my wife and son. There are kids in this neighborhood. You don’t mouth off like that around here.”

Once he realized my voice alone was bigger than his entire body weight, he ended his little tirade.

Then Tough Guy’s parents showed up. (His truck was covered under their insurance policy.) All I’ll say is that I know now where he got his fantastic people skills and extensive colorful vocabulary from. But what could they possible know–they drove a Saturn.

Ann demanded an apology for they way their son acted of what he said. No dice. Basically, it was a no-harm-no-foul situation for a child they obviously gave up on years ago. Chalk it up as a simple accident, they said. I blew a fuse.

“Okay. Let me tell you something. When your precious little snowflake there (points to Tough Guy) comes flying around that corner again and runs over my son, it’s not going to be an accident. It’s gonna be your ass.”

Tough Guy’s mom goes into the whole accident thing again.

“Oh, that’s right,” I replied sarcastically. “It’ll just be an accident. We’ll be fine. Just accident. And Junior will go home to his loving family again while our son is in the hospital. That’s perfect.”

Then Dad began to warble something out of his ass. I was still yelling at Mom.

“Oh, get lost. You’re all trash,” Ann spouted as they got in their car and drove away.

Later that night Ann told me how Anthony said he was “scared” of those people. So from that point on, I resolved to be more vigilant in this neighborhood, because it’ll be over my dead body if my family has to live in fear in their own front yard.

And I hope to [insert appropriate deity here] that George’s insurance screws these people for all they’ve got. People like this don’t deserve anything, not even the free oxygen our environment provides.

We’ve got your back, George.