To Bean or Not to Bean

We all know that there are a lot of things that don't mix.

• vinegar and baking soda - Explosion, right? I don't know, I'm not a scientist. Nor am I a baker.
• Coca-Cola and Pop Rocks - They say that consuming this mixture will make your stomach erupt from the inside. And you will die. But it's not like they can really test this. Here we have all of these perfectly good suicidals, and they're wasting great experimental opportunities by shooting themselves and jumping off buildings and boring everyone. You wanna kill yourself? Eat some Pop Rocks and finish it off with a swig of cane syrup. 
• toothpaste and orange juice - Have you ever drank a cup of fresh OJ after you've brushed your teeth? It's horrible. I actually have a list of things that taste absolutely disgusting after a good Colgate-clean-up, but none of them are as bad as orange juice. (Also stay away from drinking Red Bull and gasoline.)
• milk and apple juice - Have you ever mixed milk and apple juice together and drank it? Probably not. But I have. And I don't recommend it.
• knives and children - I'm running out of ideas here.
• alcohol and technology - Have you ever gotten drunk and gone on facebook? And started commenting on everyone's status that pops up on your news feed? You try to make jokes but are too drunk to fix your typos so it ends up looking like this: "hahajjjja ywah you know." And then the next day you've forgotten all about your drunken newsfeed rampage until you see a bunch of notifications. "Billy So-and-So also commented on his status." And you're sitting there thinking, "Who's Billy So-and-So?" and so you click on his response and see that he wrote back: "....what?" And you quickly glance up and see that you've not only written an entire paragraph, but you've commented twice in a row. And yet all Billy had to say was "...what?" as in, "...what the fuck? Are you out of your mind? I post about the football game and you've written something about zebra incest?" But you quickly click "Home" because there's no way you're going to sit there and read whatever keys you managed to hit with your belligerent phalangees. 

Those are just a few things that don't mix. We also have ten shots of tequila and ten shots of tequila, Sonny Bono and skiing, and Adam Sandler and good movies after 2004. But I've recently discovered that the worst thing to mix - is beans and cars.

Have you ever been beaned? Yeah well neither have I. I didn't even know that beaning was a thing until two nights ago. Urban Dictionary defines it as the following:

beaned: When you start a video chat session expecting to see a partially (or fully) nude female, but you're greeted with a close-up of some dude's scrotum instead. As in, I met this girl on AOL who said she would flash me. When the video chat started, I saw the hairiest balls ever! I can't believe I got beaned!" 

There were a few other definitions, but none of them defined my own experience. It all started with a phone call.

"Natasha, where are you?"

"Did you guys make it to my house already? Sorry, I'm almost there! We had to stop and get gas real quick."

"Well get here now, your neighbor wants to talk to you and she seems pissed."

"Talk to me about what?"

"I don't know, just get over here!"

Two minutes later, my boyfriend and I pull up to my house to see two of our friends waiting on my porch, and one angry woman waiting on hers.

"NATASHA."

How does she know my name?

"Yes?"

I approach her yard as she extends her arm toward me and points her finger.

"Is that your green car?"

"No, that's my boyfriend's..."

"Well it wasn't until that green car got here that our shit started getting fucked with."

"Excuse me?"

"That car left, and while it was gone, someone fucked with my truck and my bikes. Now I know it was you, so you better stop fucking with my shit or you're gonna pay."

"I'd appreciate it if we could have a calm conversation about this and not curse at each other."

"YOU FUCKED. WITH MY SHIT."

"You are blindly accusing people without any proof ---"

""YOU FUCKED. WITH MY SHIT."

"Can you describe this fucking with your shit?"

"You listen to me!"

"No, it wasn't us and whatever happened ---"

"No, you listen to ME."

"You have no reason to believe it was us! It was Halloween night, this is a college town, it could have been any drunk kid who walked by."

"If you fuck with my shit again, you're gonna get your ass beat."

"Is that a threat?"

"It's not a threat, it's a promise."

"Right, so that's a threat."

"It's a promise. Fuck with my shit again, and I'm gonna beat your ass."

"I have better things to do than mess with your motorcycles ---"

"GET OFF MY LAWN!"

I look down at my feet. I literally have one toe, the big one, on her grass. I look back up at her. She's in her police uniform. I'm being threatened by a cop, in uniform, who wants my toe off of her blade of grass.

"I'm sorry, am I disturbing your blades of grass?"

"We're done with this conversation."

"You need some rest, ma'am."

"No, YOU need to stop FUCKIN' with my SHIT."

"Go take a nappy nap! You need a little nappy. Have a great night!"

Three or four hours later, after playing board games inside and bitching about our crazy neighbors with my roommates and friends, we step outside to drive to get some beer. And that's when we see it.

"Is that puke?"

We step closer to my roommate's car that is parallel parked in front of our house.

"Ew...someone barfed all over their windshield..."

"Why is it so chunky?"

"Holy shit, look!"

We look over at my other roommate's car - which ALSO has chunky, brown vomit all over it. All over the windshield, all over the passenger window, and all over the top of his convertible.

"Someone puked on one car, and then went and puked on the other?"

"Is it on anyone else's car?"

"No, just my roommates' cars..."

"Hold on a second."

We step closer.

"Dude. That's not puke."

"Then what is it?"

"Dude, those are beans."

"Beans???"

We all lean in to the gooey mess.

"Holy shit, those ARE beans!"

"Your roommates got beaned!"

"Beaned?"

"I guess that's what you'd call it. I mean, they dumped beans all over their car."

"I bet it was my fucking neighbors."

"They did just threaten you not three hours ago."

"She did say she was gonna fuck up my shit...with...beans?"

"Beans."

We immediately go inside and tell my roommate's that they'd been beaned - which was a first for me. They rush outside to clean it off, but were unlucky, for the grease from the beans was wedged in the window, so every time they rolled the window up or down after cleaning it, bean grease would show up once again. They called the cops to report it, but of course, the neighbors denied the whole thing. If I were a cop, I would have asked to see if they had any cans of beans, to compare and contrast the two, but I guess police officers don't do that. 

"May I take a look at your beans please?"

Yeah, that'd be a little weird.

Following this night, the War of the Neighbors not only continues, but is giving the world new, creative ways to enjoy revenge.

beaned: To open up cans of beans and pour them on someone's car. An action that typically follows telling this person who were gonna "beat their ass," but instead, you "bean their ass." A cheap way to get revenge. As in, Man, we got no money. But we do got dem beans! Let's bean their ass and give 'em a real beaning!

After committing a beaning, be aware: the beanees will want revenge, as well. 

Leonardo da Stinky

"Hey, you guys...you know there are full trash bags scattered all over our front porch?"

I just moved into a new house in August. I'm wondering if maybe they do things differently here. Where I'M from, we don't scatter the trash bags, we tend to pile them. It's more of a sloppy game of Jenga than it is leaving a trail of Reese's Pieces for E.T. 

"Oh. Yeah. Well at least it's not as bad as the last time."

What? I'm sorry, did you say the last time? 

"The...last...time?"

Mind = spoken.

"Yeah. Last time he actually opened the trash bags and dumped all of our trash all over the porch."

Rethinking some things I tend to throw in the trash...

"Who's...'he?' "

"The neighbor."

Did you hear that, boys and girls? MISTER ROGERS IS DEAD. There's no such thing as a nice neighbor anymore. Somehow, crackheads, Nicholas Cage, and Furbies have managed to make it - but nice neighbors? Extinct. So don't go looking to unbutton any cardigans. Or whatever nice things Mister Rogers used to do. Look, it's been awhile, my memory's not that great. All I remember is him taking off clothing. Like sweaters and shoes. Stripping. Always stripping...

Neighbor Man is not like Mister Rogers at all. He's more like a giant asshole in need of some toilet paper. He's like a Snickers bar without nougat and caramel and peanuts and chocolate. He's like a nose that doesn't ever stop running except right at the moment when you go grab a tissue. Then as soon as you realize 'Hey, my nose stopped running!' you walk away from the tissues, but then it starts running again. And so you go back to the tissues. And then it stops running. And this endless cycle continues.

God, can you imagine how awful that would be? Sorry, it just hit me. Like...woah. That would SUCK.

And yes, I do realize that a Snickers bar without the nougat and caramel and peanuts and chocolate is nothing at all. Which would SUCK.

Apparently, Neighbor Man does not like trash in his yard. He is said to be quoted about a month ago saying the following. 

"There was a bottle!"

"Wind blew it!"

"In my yard!"

We were only able to gather certain excerpts because Neighbor Man does not like full sentences. He's more of a fragment kinda guy. This bottle is what led him to dump all of our trash across our porch. Sometimes he changes it up. Why just last week, he threw the bags in our front hedges, instead of on the porch. He's really getting creative with it. A modern artist. We'll call him Leonardo da Stinky.

He's grown into this habit of walking to the side of my house and yelling at its walls. Sometimes I think I should let him know that wood doesn't respond to humans, or to anything at all for that matter, but I never do. For all I know, his best friend is Plank and ---

I've been told that I make too many allusions that people don't understand. But I'm not going to stop and explain myself because I would be ruining the whole flow of the story. Which, by the way, I JUST DID.

--- I would be spoiling some lifelong friendship.

"THIS WAS ALL A LIE, PLANK!"

"....................."

"ALL THIS TIME, AND YOU KNEW YOU COULDN'T RESPOND!"

"........................."

"LEADING ME TO BELIEVE THAT YOU WERE JUST THE SHY AND QUIET TYPE!"

".................................."

"YOU WILL NEVER BE MY MORNING WOOD AGAIN!"

Neighbor Man didn't make his first debut to me personally until one night perhaps a month or two ago, when I heard this lovely melody floating along the air into my bedroom door:

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!

I'm sorry, did I say lovely melody? Oh, silly me and my silly typos. What I meant to say was FUCKING BULLSHIT.

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!

By the way, my bedroom door? It's on the side of the house. Not only that, but it's the very first door that you come to after walking up the stairs of my front porch. Pizza guys, my roommate's friends, hookers, they all come a'knockin thinking that my bedroom door is the front door of the house.

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!

I jolt up out of my bed, because I'm in bed, BECAUSE IT'S FUCKING MIDNIGHT, and I turn toward my door to make sure it's locked. But guess what. My eyesight sucks. So I can't even tell whether the lock is turned or not. And I'm too scared to get out of bed and check, because I don't want him to know I'm in there.

"I KNOW YOU IN THERE! I KNOW YOU IN THERE!"

...FUCK.

"DON'T YOU BE LIKE THIS! DON'T YOU BE LIKE THIS!"

Be like what? Be lying in my bed at midnight? I'm tired, you asshole.

I decide to sit still and wait for the storm to pass. But then my phone rings. And I answer it.

"Hello?"

"OH COME ON NOW! COME ON NOW! I KNOW YOU IN THERE NOW!"

One, why did I answer my phone? Two, why is anyone even calling me at midnight? Three, my toes are freezing.

Revision: One, because it rang. Two, all your friends refuse to call you UNLESS it's midnight or later. Three, your toes are always cold.

Revised revision: One, because you're a dumbass. Two, because YOU always call people at midnight. Three, put on some socks and quit bitching.

"DON'T BE LIKE THIS! DON'T YOU BE LIKE THIS! BANG BANG BANG BANG!"

I don't think you're the one in the position to be telling people what and what not to be like. 

Eventually, the knocking ceases and I hear retreating footsteps. About twenty minutes later, I hear pacing outside my door. 

Thump thump thump thump...

I'm gonna die tonight.

Thump thump thump thump...

He's gonna cut off my belly button and put it on some toast to eat and call it Jelly-Button.

Thump thump thump thump...

He's gonna kidnap me and make me watch reruns of The Nanny. Then he's gonna dress up like Fran Drescher and pinch my earlobes.

I wait like this for ten or fifteen minutes, and then the pacing halts.

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!

And the knocking commences.

I leap out of bed and run to my roommate's door to wake them up and tell them I'm being ambushed. I tried my best to explain the severity of the situation, for I didn't want the conversation to go like this:

"SOMEONE IS KNOCKING ON MY DOOR!"

"...and?"

"THEY'RE KNOCKING MULTIPLE TIMES!"

"...you woke me up to tell me that your door is being tapped by knuckles?"

"IN A REPETITIVE MANNER!"

"Go to bed, Natasha."

Luckily, I did avoid this and was able to freak them out just as much as I was freaked. 

"What should we do?"

"I don't know, he won't go away!"

"Should we call the cops?"

"Should we?"

Of course there were less dramatic alternatives. Perhaps I could just open the door and try it Mister Rogers' way.

"Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won't you be my neighbor?"

"I AM YO NEIGHBOR, HONKY!"

"It's a neighborly day in this beautywood..."

"WHACHU SAY?"

"A neighborly day for a beauty..."

"WHAT DA FUCK YOU TALKIN' ABOUT?"

"Would you be mine?"

"HELL NAH, BITCH."

We decided that we should just call the cops, and so we did. Three cop cars and one denial later, he was gone. But that was only the beginning to what would be an epic battle between The Blue House and The White House. Unfortunately, things were about to get worse. But that, my friends, is another story altogether. So lace up your combat boots and strap on your camo. The neighbor war has started.