Porch Tales

I spent a large part of the afternoon on my grandmother’s porch. I am a big fan of porches, probably in part because my parents don’t really have one, at least not one to sit on. They are good communal gathering places, but also perfect for reading a book and being slothlike. My sister and I had just finished a rousing game of badminton and retreated to the porch to split a Pepsi and cool off. (I’m not kidding about the rousing part—we play some sort of made up badminton version without nets, or scoring, where you can hit off a bounce and serve however you want. Extra kudos for jumping, knocking things out of trees, especially graceful or dramatic arm movements, or stomping through pachysandra to get to the birdie. Also, my sister’s badminton “intimidation face” is not to be missed.)

Anyway, we sat on the porch, as we have innumerable times before. Since it faces the street, which is moderately trafficked, you can get in some good people watching. We didn’t see any crimes, ala Rear Window, but we did start making up stories about the people who were driving by. It turned silly fast. For instance:

--A truck filled with dining room furniture and five guys drives by: “The guys just graduated from JCC [which is the local community college] and they are getting an apartment. Only two of them are moving in, the rest of their buddies are just there to help. Once they are through moving in today, they will order pizza and have a beer and watch Fight Club.” (I started to say they would watch “the fights,” and then realized that it is no longer 1910 and people do not go to or watch “the fights” anymore, but I still got mocked for the Fight Club switch, especially since I ended up saying “the fights…Club.” Sigh.)
--Older couple in blue station wagon: “adorable grandparents go watch their grandson’s soccer game. No, baseball game, since it’s not the fall.”
--Sedate looking elderly woman in immaculate car: “That woman is drunk.”
--Younger skinny guy in blue car: “Musician on the way to a gig. It is his mom’s car, so he’s being especially careful.”
--Younger skinny guy in blue car, returning from the other direction with a child in the backseat: “Musician on the way home from picking up his cousin/sister/niece/daughter from school. It is his mom’s car, so he’s being especially careful.”
--A man bicycling by, wearing a tie-dye shirt, a fedora and tiny shorts: “Well, he is probably high.”
--Woman in blue car with loud muffler: “Her muffler needs to be fixed, but she doesn’t have enough money to do so. She will have to sell drugs/sell her body/sell Avon/work extra hours to pay for it. Also, she might be pregnant but she doesn’t know it yet.”
--Older couple in red car: “They just moved here from Wichita. They’re not sure what to make of it yet, but they like the lake a lot.”
--A red truck with a flatbed attached, followed closely by another car: “The man in the truck stole it from the woman in the car, and she is chasing him to get back the flatbed. She doesn’t care if he keeps the truck. It was her ex-husband’s. They just finalized their divorce yesterday, and she cleaned him out, which he deserved because he was a total cheater. The only thing he had left was the truck, but he left it at her house so he could go out and drink away his sorrows. He still hasn’t returned from the bars, and now his truck is gone too.” (My sister the English Major told me that this was needlessly complicated.)

After awhile, my grandmother came out to sit with us and got caught up in the act. We speculated about her neighbors, most of who have moved in within the last five years, so we don’t really know any of them. So now, the woman in the little white house and who never opens her shades is probably allergic to sunlight (or is a vampire!) The people in the tan house are hard to pin down because they come and go so much, and there seem to be about three generations moving in and out, so we conjectured about who was related to whom. The people in the gray duplex also keep their shades drawn, but maybe because they are participating in something illicit. The boy across the street’s backpack was too loose for him and kept hitting him in the backside, which can’t have been comfortable for him. A man returned with groceries, for his wife who will not go out in the sun. And so on.

In short: a perfect, sunny, giggle-filled afternoon.