Sunday, August 31, 2008

Dog Shit

Apparently I am not the only person to hate my old landlords. Last week, when I pulled up to my house the "crazy man" across the street approached me and started ranting to me in Vietnamese. I have mentioned the crazy man before but for those of you who missed those references let me just explain that there is a guy who often stands across the street, shirtless with a crazy look in his eyes, always staring at me. He totally creeps me out and Huyen too. Moving away from him has been one of the positives on my mental plus/minus list of moving.

Anyway, he approached me and started making gestures at the house. The gesture had three parts: a) point at the house b) hold his nose like something smells c) shake his head back and forth. I took this to mean, "those people who live there stink." I told him I agreed and gave a thumbs down at the house. This was my first sign that the neighbors didn't like Binh and Minh.

Here's the better sign: Every morning since living in the house I was awoken by Minh running a faucet in our alley. He would always be filling up a bucket around 6AM. Well, I finally realized why he was doing that the other day. I woke up super early and exited the house before Minh had filled up his bucket. Well, in front of the house on the front walk were two HUGE piles of dog shit. Pictured here:


Well I quickly put two and two together: The neighbors all have their dogs shit on Binh and Minh's front steps. I also had a flashback to a few months earlier when I came home from work and there was a ton of dog shit on the front steps. I happen to see Binh and said, "There's always dog poop on the front steps." She didn't understand me since she can barely speak English. I pointed at my shoes, which had some fresh poop on the bottom and she quickly understood. In broken English she said, "Yes! They go toilet here. I stay home from work once to catch them but could not." Anyway, knowing that the neighbors all hate B&M made me really happy. I guess dog shit attracts dog shit.