What’s doing in my neighborhood, Mr. Rogers?

Well, I’ll tell you.

There are blue Christmas lights decorating a number of trees on Broadway. It is not yet Thanksgiving. I’m finding this somewhat disorienting.

Last night, as I neared my front door, I passed two elderly women, who were proceeding very cautiously along the sidewalk. As I got to my front steps, I heard one of them call out, “You should be careful about where your dogs walk!”

I turned slightly and saw a white man stalking in military hostility with two equally purposeful bull dogs pulling on their leashes. “Shut the fuck up, you fucking Jew bitch!” he yelled back at the woman.

This is a neighborhood with many more synagogues than Chinese restaurants.

“It’s not a great idea,” I said to him quite mildly, “to say something like that in this neighborhood.”

“Shut the fuck up, you fucking bitch!” was his response. I was just about to recommend some meds when he and dogs passed out of earshot. I guess he forgot to call me a Jew bitch.

Oh, did I tell you? Blue Christmas lights on a block of trees on Broadway and an entire turkey farm’s worth of turkeys in Fairway.

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