Cuckoo's Abound...

I'm truly beginning to feel as if I somehow attract them...kind of like those metallic green flies which tend to home in on that one pile of dog poo left behind on some cracked and winding square of pavement. No matter where my family decides to stake it's claim on this planet on whatever plot of land we find desirable at that time in our lives...we never fail to find ourselves living next to escapees from the Nut House.

Case in point...while spending an unusually warm, spring afternoon swinging my daughter in the backyard, our seventy-something neighbor lady pulled into the driveway next door. I glanced up just in time to see her car skid to a stop next to their mail box, while very nearly getting clipped by a semi which apparently hadn't expected her to suddenly pull off the road. The foggy throttle of an airhorne momentarily caught the attention of every chirping robin in our yard for almost a full minute, before resuming their quest of ridding my lawn of all spieces of wormlife.

Completely ignoring the swerving, swearing driver behind her, our neighbor lady popped the trunk on her car, hopped out of the driver side, and rumbled over to retrieve the mail. She yanked what appeared to be at least a half dozen envelopes from the mail box, turned without giving the letters so much as an errant glance, and tossed the entire pile into the trunk of her car.

She then rolled her aging, pearly-white Thunderbird down their blacktopped drive as the garage door leading to the first of their three bays began rising. Sensing that an odd series of events may be about to take place, I watched as the opening garage door revealed what I had already guessed, and I'm quite sure that somewhere in her mind, she surely must've already known. For inside the first garage bay was where her husband always kept his car, a pearly-white Crown Vic. He had recently traded in his pearly-white Mercury Cougar for it and considered the move a major upgrade.

As if completely ignoring the now open garage door, she whipped her car under their adjoining breezeway, (where she always ends up parking her car, whether she realizes it or not,) and as I curiously observed, hit the button on her visor, thus lowering the garage door back down.

She stumbled out of the car, popped the trunk, gathered up the mail, which apparently was the only occupant currently in the trunk, and ambled her way toward the side entrance of their home.

Just as I was about to turn my attention back to the duty of pushing my squealing daughter into the air as she grasped her swing with both hands, the troubled old coot suddenly stretched her purse into the air and hooked one of the straps onto one of the hooks her husband had attached to their roof, normally reserved for hanging flowers in the spring. She then continued inside, leaving her purse swinging from the roof of the house under a glorious dose of sunshine.

Moments later, looking a bit unnerved, she returned to the scene of the crime, spotted her purse dangling from the roof, and placed her hands upon her hips irritably, as if asking herself, "Now how the hell did my purse get up there?"

Despite reaching an outstretched hand, she was unable to lift her purse from the plant hook. Clearly angered, she then turned and stormed back into the house.

Then, as I was beginning to explain to my daughter why I had to go help out the disturbed neighbor lady, she returned with a renewed sense of vigor, literally launched herself into the air, grunted out a fart loud enough to again stifle the robins in my yard, but managed to at last unhook the dangling purse from the roof. Then without so much as glancing in my direction, she stumbled back inside, where I'm happy to report, she remained for the rest of the afternoon.

I'm fairly certain at this point that she's somehow related to our former neighbor lady who several years earlier, while thanking me for mowing her backyard, made sure to inform me to keep an eye out for the people in the trees while in their vicinity. I assured her I would, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't cast a wary glance upward while steering my rider under her flowering dogwood.

Loonies here, loonies there...and at least whenever I'm around...loonies everywhere.