The Neighbor's Kid

Outside of my backyard, in the alley, someone's garbage spilled and there's cabbage and hot dogs everywhere. I think it's disgusting, my dog thinks it's manna from heaven.

My dog called her girlfriend, Sparky, a pug that lives in a Gramercy co-op.

“Sparky!” she howled, “You have to buy in Hudson. The streets are paved with MEAT! It’s amazing. I know this cat, Mitzi, she knows all the good real estate deals. She’ll totally hook you up. Do it before the humans move in. As soon as those thumb-wielding, uprights are here, it’s OVER. Yes, darling, JUST like South Beach.”

Anyway, as I'm cleaning up the hot dogs, (something us vegetarians LOVE to do), this kid, about ten years old, with a baseball bat, comes up to me and asks, "Do you have any work?"

Work? My mind raced. I told myself, 'Not THAT kind of work! He's TEN!'

I had to think. I mean, I guess if I really cared about my backyard or my house, then yes, there's work. I'm sure that my interior design friends could easily find a ton of stuff to do. But, I don't really see it. My theory is, my house has been here for 200 years, it ain't going anywhere anytime soon.

I looked at him and said "Well, I did need help shoveling snow, but I don't need that done anymore...."

"Oh" he said, disappointed.

"Do you live here?" he asked me.

"Yes."

"OK, so are you here only on the weekends?"

What does this kid want? Why is he asking me these questions? He's ten years old. What the fuck difference did it make? Was he going to rob my house when I wasn't around? There's nothing to steal, anyway, just some old furniture and gay porn mags. There’s dildos. Does he want my dildos?

I lied, "Yeah, the weekends, but sometimes during the week."

"Do you own or do you rent?"

"I own." I said, wondering what the fuck?

"Cool." he said, and he took a twig and hit it with his baseball bat.

Then he looked at me and said, "What rate did you get?"

"What?" I asked.

He said, matter of factly, "what rate? Your mortgage...." He said it as if he was saying, "like, duh?"

I said, "6.75%"

"Oh." he said, and he looked downwards.

I said, "What? That's a good rate!"

"It's a little high...."

"It is not! It's fine." I said, "That's what the rates were at the time!"

"You don't have to get defensive." he smirked at me, under the brim of his baseball cap.

I looked at him and said, "Kid, are you implying that there's something wrong with my credit history? There is NOTHING wrong with my credit history....OK, maybe I was late on a payment once or twice, but my credit score is FINE."

Folks, you can call me a big fat whore. Call me an ass-eating, cock-sucking queer. I'm fine with that. But DON'T you DARE imply that I have a low credit rating!

The kid noticed that I was annoyed, "I was just saying, it's a little high. If you had shopped around some more, you probably could have done better...."

"I have 6.00% in the city." I said "You know what? Where's your mother!?! I want to have a talk with her!."

"I think that's her calling me now. I gotta go - BYE!"

He left me there, and I went back to cleaning up the hot dogs.