Lou

So last night at 3:45 am, I am awakened by the sound of a loud car revving in the alley followed by the breaking of glass bottles. I quickly got up and looked out the window and down into the alley below. There was a large black sports car (I thought it was probably a Monte Carlo) parked in the alley next to the house. From it, ethnic music was heard and I also heard the driver talking loudly, either to a passenger or to his cell phone. The car sat idle for a few moments before peeling away down the end of the alley. I wondered if the driver noticed me, since he took off pretty quickly. I ran down the stairs and peered out the dining room window to see if I could spot what had broken, and through the darkness noticed some bottles at the side of the house. As groggy and dizzy as I was from the rush of activity so soon after waking up, the last thing I wanted to do was to go out and clean it up.

The next morning, Aimee and I went out there and saw that there were indeed some bottles, some broken and some intact. Some Polish beer I guess. We cleaned it up, and in my mind hoped it wouldn't happen a third time.

The first time someone dumped their crap at our house (in the exact same spot, mind you) was about one week ago. We had just had our cable and Internet installed and I noticed two swollen garbage bags near the spot where the installer had parked his work truck. At first, I thought the cable guy left his mess for us to clean, but when I looked inside a bag, I saw that it was full of drywall- chunks of drywall and lots of powder. Each bag weighed a ton. Annoyed by the thought that someone would actually dump this stuff for a stranger to clean up, I grabbed the bags and started my long journey to the garbage cans. It was one of those situations where if these bags had weighed just one more pound each, I would not have been able to lift them. This was definitely the extreme upper limits of what I was capable of carrying. When I arrived at the garbage cans, I was very relieved to put them down to shake out my hands and give my arms a rest. Now, it was time to finish the show, time to plop these heavy sacks of crap into my own garbage can (because I'm nice like that and wouldn't want to fill up anyone else's can). I lifted the heavier of the two bags with both hands so I could get it up and over the garbage can opening. All of a sudden, I heard a loud "poof" and the bag became very light. I looked up to the sky and let out a long, frustrated sigh.

So there at and on my feet was a big white powdery mess. All because some idiot was too lazy to dispose of his own waste. Who would put this much material in these cheap, weak bags? Now, I had to clean up this big mess. Ironically, I had just spent several hours the day before cleaning up the same area, since it was full of debris and compost from years of neglect.

Lou Piniella retired from baseball today after managing for 28 years. Today officially marks the end of an era that I definitely won't forget. Despite the fact the Cubs have played terribly this year, I have fond memories of watching the Cubs games headed by Lou over the last four years, with family and friends, at home, in the car, at school, at work, and at the ballpark. Lou surely was a character. It's been fun.

Joe