Saggy Lessons

My mother's upstairs neighbor was kind enough to feed and watch out for her cat Jack, while we were at a family wedding. My mother can't stand this guy, so why she continues to ask him to feed the cat, I have no idea. 

He's an odd dude. He loves to wear sweat suits. He loves to wear said sweat suits with out a t-shirt underneath. He likes the jacket unzipped about half way down his chest, revealing far too much skin and hair for anyone's taste. He's older and set in his ways, so he's a bit of a complainer and a bit more of a bullshitter. He'll talk your ear off, if you let him. 

Sunday morning after we got back, I decided to run out to my car to get something. I was half way up the stairs when I identified the strange noise I was hearing. Click, pause, click, pause, click, pause. The unmistakable sound of nail clippers...right. above. my. head! This neighbor was sitting at the top of the stairs above me, clipping his nails. I ran up the rest of the stairs holding back a gag, as I pleaded with the gods to not let any toe nail clippings fall on me.

I kept my head down and face forward hoping he wouldn't notice me. No luck. "Well, Good Morning!" he yelled as he clipped away. I took a quick glance back and said "Morning!" I felt the tiniest bit of relief to see that he wasn't clipping his toe nails above my head. It was merely his finger nails...still disgusting! I have very strong feelings on nail clipping and foot sanding in public. They should be kept in the privacy of their own bathroom! What about pedicures? Somehow that is alright if you are in a spa having it professionally done. Maybe because I know I will be walking into a business where I will see this, I can anticipate and prepare for it. However, I do not want to be surprised while I walk to my car or while on my vacation...this just isn't cool.

After a quick good morning, I high tailed it to my car. I got what I needed out of the car and headed back towards the apartment. I said a little prayer under my breath that he'd be gone. Of course he wasn't. He was waiting at the top of the stairs. It was then that I realized that he had veered off his normal uniform. Not only was he sans t-shirt, he was sans jacket. He was standing up there in a pair of baggy gym shorts and too big flip flops...that was all. I was lucky enough to be looking at saggy old man boobs.

Of course, he was already talking to me as I came around the corner. He was talking about feeding the cat, and raccoons, and the cat hanging out with raccoons, and throwing his flip flops at raccoons in the trash can...blah blah blah. I decided I was going to nip this in the bud. I started slowly walking down the stairs one step at a time. With each sentence, I took another step down. He pointed toward the window that the peeping tom raccoons where looking in...I took another step down. He thinks the cat and the raccoons are friends...another step down. 

I was two steps from the bottom, when he started talking about the deer that was hanging out next to the steps earlier that week. I was just going to look up and say "All right, thanks for watching the cat! See you later!" However, the big, huge, ginormous hitch in my brilliant plan was reveled. Under most circumstances, my evacuation plan would have worked well. However, when I looked up to say good bye, I looked straight up his baggy shorts at saggy old man balls. Today was the day that I learned the upstairs neighbor not only goes without t-shirts but also goes without underwear.

Karma really can go either way. This time she reared her head and kicked me in the face! It was a steep learning curve, but I have learned my lesson! I won't be such a shit to people I don't want to talk to. I will stand there and make awkward conversation with strangers.. just so long as I don't have to see any more saggy old man boobs and his matching saggy balls.