I live in a second story apartment in Hyde Park that overlooks some unlucky freaks’ yard. They’re tolerant enough of me staring at them from my giant west-wall picture window, but you can tell everyone is slightly uncomfortable with the situation. These kids have turned their garage into an artists’ studio/band rehearsal space/dungeon and lots of dogs and dyed-haired hotties go back and forth between it and the house, occasionally looking up to where I am, spacing out in the general direction of their yard and suddenly making eye contact where none was desired.
When I first moved in, it was a different set of freaks occupying the house and they had two giant sculptures tossed behind the garage: a 5 foot tall tropical fish painted in gaudy colors who had seen too much rain and was slowly disintegrating into the lawn, and a 4 foot tall extremely pink and well proportioned disembodied hand that appears to be giving a giant Thumbs Up!
Some new freaks moved in and the fish eventually went bye-bye after a series of storms made it commit suicide. The new freaks moved the hand from behind the garage to a center stage appearance behind the deck. Now it is in the middle of my field of vision whenever I look out my bedroom window. I cannot stop staring at it. For a year and a half I have stared at the giant pink hand. It commands the eyes, it’s always saying “Way to GO!” “Keep at it!” and “HEY! YEAH!” with its giant thumbs up. It is mesmerizing. Its image is seared forever on my retinas. I’ve thought about going around the block to talk to the kids in the house to see if they would move it, but the thought of how that conversation would play has stopped me.
*knock knock*
“yes?”
“uh, hi, i live in the building behind you, the window right above your backyard?”
“yes, you’re the one who’s always staring at us.”
“ah, yeah, well i don’t mean to. look, i was wondering, could you move the giant hand?”
“what’s wrong with the hand?”
“i can’t stop staring at it.”
*blank look at weirdo on doorstep*
“it’s driving me crazy.”
*more silence*
You see how it would be.
bug | 21-Jul-03 at 11:40 am | Permalink
Giant Hand demands TRIBUTE, Giant Hand demands PRAISE. All Hail the GIANT HAND!
db | 21-Jul-03 at 9:55 pm | Permalink
The only real solution is to make a giant paper-mache penis in two parts, which you attach to the top and bottom of the hand in the wee hours of the morning, so that it becomes a thumbs-up for autodiddlin’. If that doesn’t do the trick, steal ten gallons of mayonaise from a local restaurant surplus store and a battery-powered remote-controlled pump.
Kimberly zemke | 15-Aug-03 at 7:34 pm | Permalink
Hello there,I just thought perhaps you could
either send them a note or go to them and try to
buy the gaudy statue, tell them you love it and
you cannot live without it, give them a crisp $20.00 bill so they can buy either drugs or booze
and then take the lovely piece of sh-t hand back to your place put on some Strauss or Beethoven
and get out a sledge hammer and do your own work
to enhance the sculpture thereby letting off the steam of the last year and half of looking at it!GRIN