What It Means To Be An Asshole

When I moved back here in 1994, there was some ivy — I think it’s called Virginia Creeper (seen in this picture taken today, complete with dental floss) — that crawled all the way up the building to the 8th floor, where I live, covered my whole bedroom balcony and angled down in huge festoons, so in the summer the effect was looking out on a sea of green. Sparrows nested in it in huge flocks — the evening was a cacophony of them and my (then) cats were transfixed. Cat HDTV. They would chitter when they saw the birds, literally chitter. Have you ever seen a cat chitter?

I loved that ivy.

Then an asshole moved in downstairs, the floor below. He took it upon himself to cut the ivy at his balcony level because he thought it made his balcony dirty.

THIS, people, is what it means to be an asshole. Learn from it; absorb it; preach it; make it your mantra for today.

Now, maybe five years later, the ivy has yet again crawled up to the level of my balcony. But this time I helped it: I got some dental floss and grabbed it with a long stick from the side of the building and held it against the wall nearest me. Sure enough, it started to follow it. Now it has three tendrils crawling around the corner. But they were air-guitaring, so I thought of Fix #2 — tape them to the wall. And it worked. They need a little help, the little tykes. But they grow about two inches a day — I swear — and they’re on their way.



Maybe by 2010 I will have my tiny green wall again.

Oh, by the way, I make sure and drop all sorts of trash on Asshole’s balcony.