Candy Cane Vengence

I moved into a new area six months ago and my neighbors may think I have some anger issues. Around Christmas, all of the houses were lit up and decorated. An older lady from two houses down asked my girlfriend’s dad, “hey, aren’t you guys going to decorate this year?” He said, “I don’t live here” then came inside and told me.

I had the decorations gathered already, but was lagging on putting them up. Now, I am staring at the stupid decorations and realize I can’t put them up because she will just think I am decorating because she said something. I can’t let someone have that type of power over me. She probably went back into her house with an obnoxious smirk on her face to her family and said, “I talked to them. They’ll put something up.” As she watched my house from her window, sitting in a worn leather rocking chair, sipping on Chamomile hot tea while stirring it with a silver spoon like the mom in “Get Out.”

I grabbed four of those candy canes that light up and planted them in the garden near the door. I even brought out a ladder and leaned it against the garage. I was hoping she saw the candy canes, the ladder, and was riddled with excitement. She yelled to her family, “oh my goodness! He’s decorating like I asked! He’s finally in the Christmas spirit!” I never came back outside. That was all I decorated all of Christmas. Just those four candy canes and I never even plugged them in. I wanted to plug them in, but I couldn’t out of spite.

I got a sense of happiness every time I came home to see those four pathetic candy canes. I just imagined her looking through her window mumbling, “Just four candy canes? Why even decorate? Does he know they aren’t plugged in? Why did he take out the ladder?” I would come home and see the boxes full of decorations that could have been put up: lights, wreaths, more candy canes, even a god damn snow man. I felt a small sense of victory.

The second thing happened this morning. I woke up in a bad mood because I was up with the baby all night. My girlfriend was driving us to work. When we got into the car there was frost on the windshield, so I got out of the car to scrape it off with a squeegee. As I was scraping it off she accidentally turned on the windshield wipers and they hit my hand. I didn’t even want to be squeegeeing. Come to think of it, I don’t think I am ever in the mood to squeegee anything.

I completely lost it and chucked the squeegee in the air like I was throwing a javelin in the 86’ Olympics. I watched it fly majestically through the air in slow motion like a bald eagle soaring over the Grand Canyon...as it landed on the roof of my house. All of my anger was gone, as I realized how irrational I was being. I knew there was a small chance my neighbor was again staring at me through her window, sipping homemade apple cider that she immediately spit out, as she saw the squeegee land on my roof. I can’t wait to get home to see that squeegee. I’m up 2-0 against an old lady who doesn’t even know she’s in a war with me.