Classless

The neighborhood I grew up in was probably the most nondescript place I could have possibly imagined. Located in a suburb close to a big city, the town-proper was centered around a small village that dated from the 1700s. It was truly a middle class haven. All sorts of people lived there that were both unique and obsequious. As I think back on all the drama that happened in that small sphere, I realize that there must have been a lot more that either escaped me or got sucked into another black hole that was my Mother's communication style. I could write an entire book on this and still not understand. Suffice it to say that she spoke in riddles, was intentionally evasive in hopes of being so severely misunderstood as to cause the listeners to simply give up any inquiry. How much could I have actually picked up on and still pay adequate attention to my expeditions into parts unknown? Imagine how much really went on if my tiny childish brain absorbed as much as it did.

One of the most exciting events happened one summer night when a car went careening through our front yard and ended up in the ditch across the street. It was like the car had appeared from another plane in the universe and was so shocked upon entry that it simply went haywire and decided to self-destruct, but the physics didn't go according to plan and instead it ended up just wrecked, immobile and abandoned.

That morning, neighbors emerged from their houses scratching their collective heads, delirious with questions - looking at one another in disbelief. How could this happen here? Like most members of the middle class, they firmly believed that some behavioral barrier existed around their social rank that would protect them from intrusions like this. The barrier looked like this,"This person must be some sort of degenerate. They must be from the other side of 8 Mile. How did they get all the way up here?" The shocking part was that they were so quick to assume that people couldn't misbehave or have accidents or become irrational if they were truly members of their middle class. Yes, they owned it and it was being stolen while they slept.