The greatest things about having immigrant hispanic neighbors:
- Never having the same parking space twice
- Never a quiet moment (except on nights before the workday)
- The occasional birthday party underneath my window, complete with piñatas (even more entertaining if only just to see if the kids will accidentally whack each other in the head or their fathers in the nuts)
- Even more frequent barbecues, complete with rising smoke and with blaring, distorted conjunto playing from a car with raised trunk lid, underneath said window
- Leering glares as I cross the parking lot to my car to leave the noise
- The constant and interesting stream of fresh young cholos moving in with their scary driving habits
- Having kids playing near, around, and on my car with nary a chastisement from their parents
- The random and sometimes frequent chirping of hypersensitive car alarms going off when the dumpster gets emptied or the kids play too close to those cars
- A constant flux of roofing and carpentry detritus either scattered across the parking lot or piled dangerously near the dumpster
- The here-and-there appearance of an empty cerveza bottle, a pair of children’s shoes, or a metal ladder
- The wafting scent of boiled chicken blowing around when I get home from work
- The loud talking, frequent yelling, and occasional shrieking of young and old without being able to comprehend a single word
- And, finally, the dead car, with borrowed sandbags, stolen from a nearby road construction site, in front of the tires, rotting in one of the few prime parking spaces.
Ah, never a dull moment. God bless ’em.
¡Vaya con Diabolo!