Where You At Bitch?!

Last week's gangsta rap neighbors have been replaced by a younger crowd, and while the absence of gangsta rap is refreshing, this week's neighbors are actually worse. For the last two days, I have awoken to the sound of a child repeatedly yelling, "Mom?" from outside his house. This goes on for ten minutes at a time while I lie there wondering A) why the hell the kid doesn't just go inside and find his mom, B) why the hell the woman doesn't come outside and tell her kid to shut up, C) what the hell he wants so goddamn early in the morning, and D) where the hell people leave their brains when they go on vacation.

Because you know if I can hear the kid inside my house, his mom can certainly hear him inside her house. And she's really starting to piss me off. Answer your kid lady!

This morning I got so irritated with the kid yelling, "Mom?" that I actually sat up and opened my window in preparation to do a little parenting by shouting, "Hey kid! Stop screaming!" But he'd already gone back inside, presumably to find his mom.

Later though, as I was reading the paper, he started in again with this incessant and ineffective attempt to locate his mother. After about ten minutes of, "Mom?" I thought, "What the fuck is wrong with these people?!" And then I thought, "Maybe this kid is retarded or autistic or something and that's why his mom is ignoring him."

So I stepped out onto the deck and looked next door to assess the situation. I didn't see a kid anywhere, but I could still hear him calling, "Mom?" I stood for a minute listening to him yell, "Mom?" and waiting for him to show himself.

He didn't. But as I was waiting, I noticed something strange on my neighbors' deck. A cage. With a parrot in it. And when I yelled to the parrot, "Hey parrot! Shut up!" the parrot yelled back, "Mom?"