That Time I Realized I’m Not Classy Enough for my Neighborhood

I’ve known for a while now that I’m not a classy lady. I choose burgers over fine dining, I’ll always pick the cheap moscato over your fancy cabernet that came from your wine cellar, and it’s been pointed out on more than one occasion that I swear like a trucker.

Despite this, I thought I could hide my unclassiness and fit into my super cute, clean-cut neighborhood. Now, for the past two years it’s been quite a lot of work to disguise myself as a woman suited for my neighborhood, but I was passing – even if it was just barely.

When I bought my house, my backyard was a damn fairy garden. Juliette, the elderly woman I bought my house from, probably had her own HGTV show based on the looks of my yard. 

Look at this!

I mean, there was literally a bedframe in my backyard filled with flowers and a sign that said “Flower Bed” on it. How fucking adorable is that?

SHE MADE A REAL LIFE FLOWER BED.
A LITERAL FUCKING FLOWER BED!

Well, in a year I successfully killed the garden. By the next summer, I turned it into a jungle with all the weeds taking over. But, in an attempt to pass as a classy lady, I hired a sketchy guy and some high school kids to rip the weeds out, so by the end of last summer my yard just looked like patches of grass and dirt and a few dead plants. Sadly, this was an improvement.

Determined to fit in my cutesy neighborhood where couples work on their yards together and wave at each other as we pull in our driveways, this spring I hired a sketchy ass guy off craigslist to turn my patchy yard into a plethora of grass. Nothing fancy. No plants. Just flatten the dirt and make some grass grow. Try not to be shocked when I tell you this: the guy was a total scam artist, made my yard look even worse, and managed to piss of my neighbors.

My yard looks like a balding man now.
Note the lush green grass that all my neighbors have.

On top of all of this, I keep my Christmas lights up until April, I have dinosaurs and a nativity scene in my front yard for Christmas, my cats occasionally escape and cause a neighborhood wide hunt before I find them all safe in my basement ceiling (not a joke, has actually happened twice), and I’m positive my kind neighbors (who bring me cookies, btw) have heard me yell profanities at my cats, tv, appliances, and other inanimate objects more than once.  

First, this looks awesome.
Second, those lights were seriously up until mid april. 

Still, despite all of this, I believed I could keep up my classy lady façade and recover from all these mishaps so I wouldn’t be known as “the girl who brings down the neighborhood.”

But in this past week I hit such an all-time low that there is no recovering.

First, when I came back from a week in D.C. I saw that my lawn had been mowed. I called my brother-in-law to thank him for taking care of my yard but he informed me that my neighbor cut my yard.

Yes, that’s right – I’m such a scummy homeowner that my neighbor felt compelled to cut my yard because it got so bad. I was mortified.

But wait - there’s more.

After apologizing profusely to my neighbor about my yard, sending my thanks to her husband for cutting it, and promising to be a better neighbor, I accidentally solidified myself as the worst person in the neighborhood.

How, you ask? Oh, take a seat and read along my dear friend.

On Sunday I was excited for the warm weather, so like many women in Rochester, I decided to shave my beastly winter legs in order to show off some skin in a few dresses this week. However, I hate shaving because I always miss a spot, so I decided to buy some Veet and spend a few minutes letting who knows how many chemicals burn the hair right out of my skin.

This is not my leg, but imagine this - except 3 times as thick - from ankle to pelvis. 

So here I am, sitting naked in my bathroom, rubbing poison all over my legs and singing along to Prince when suddenly my cat, Rose, decides she needs some attention and RUBS HER BODY AGAINST MY POISONOUS LEGS.

I quickly scream “NOOOOOOOOOO!” and my beautiful gray cat – who is now covered in hair remover – runs away in fear.

Not my best move. Clearly I didn’t think this through.

Visions of my cat losing large chunks of fur are running through my head as I try to figure out how to move with Veet covered legs without touching anything else with my toxic legs. Time is of the essence, so obviously there’s no time to wash off the creamy white toxins.

Then it occurs to me that Rose might try to lick the hair remover off of her, get poisoned, and then die.

My beautiful Rose. 

Now I’m in full cat mom mode, and decide the only thing I can do is attempt to chase my cat, tackle her, and wash the veet off of her. However, remember that not only am I naked, I also can’t run. I can’t even walk. If I said I could hobble, I’m being generous to myself. So the chase was not off to a good start.

After a minute of flailing my body around my house as I stretched my arms and pleaded with my cat to come to me, I decide to throw myself in my power wheelchair and give chase by chair. My other cat, Sophia, thinks we’re having a fun race, and I freak the fuck out thinking she might touch my deadly legs too. I yell at her to get away as I continue to chase Rose through my bedroom, then down the hall, then through my living room, and then, finally my kitchen.

When I got Rose cornered, I leapt out of my wheelchair to tackle her. Let’s all remember now that I’m still naked. Now might also be a good time to tell you I’ve never declawed my cats. You can imagine the screams from both of us.

Even though my cat was clearly trying to kill me and my kitchen looked like a murder scene, I held tight and reached for a kitchen towel to at least wipe her fur. I did the best I could before she escaped my bloody grasp.

This is a pretty accurate representation of what my kitchen looked like. 

At this point, I crawl back to my wheelchair, panting, and attempting to wipe up the trail of Veet behind me so no other cats become hairless or die because of my desire to wear a dress. 

When I finally get up into my chair, I look up and realize my curtains are open and have been open this entire time. 

Whhhhhhhy? 

Because I didn’t actually intend to chase my cat around naked with veet covered legs when I started this adventure.

But my intentions don’t matter.

The big guy with the poodle from a few houses down was right there on the sidewalk in front of my house. And if I saw him, there’s a solid chance he saw me.

Now mind you, this naked lethal cat chasing fiasco lasted a few minutes throughout every room – and every open window- in my house, so I don’t know how many of my other neighbors saw the show and hung their heads in shame.

The only thing I do know is that I am now, without question, the girl who brings down the neighborhood.

I’d like to take a moment to apologize to all of Wembly Road. I’m sorry that my existence brings down the value of your home and the reputation of our community.