Of all of us in my little family, Mr. Misha, Mimi the cocker spaniel, Harley the girl pug and me, I am the tolerant one. Mimi doesn't like anyone or anything in HER backyard and she has no problem telling everyone about it with her little bark. Harley, while she may snore, snort, burp and snarfle loudly, is quite disturbed and offended by the farts, burps or stomach growlings of others.
Mr. Misha, although he is getting better, has little patience or tolerance for anything. He yells at the remote control and throws it went it doesn't work. He gets road rage, yelling and cussing when some injustice is done while on the road. When clients started calling with Vista related computer problems, I thought he was going to have a stroke or punch Bill Gates in the nards. His bellows are quite scary to someone who doesn't know him. I know that he is really a big softy, but the dogs still run and hide between my feet when their daddy starts yelling.
I am the one who is afraid to flip someone off on the freeway, because they might chase me down and shoot me or beat me up (that actually happened to me, but that is another story for another time). I am the one that talks about Karma. I remind him that you get back what you give, so it is better to put the good shit out in order to get the great shit back. My ever-growing faith in the theory of "What comes around goes around" is what probably keeps me from committing an act of violence a few times a week. I am the one that usually lets stuff roll off my back. I am the patient one in the family.
Usually.
Saturday was a different story.
Saturday, Mr. Misha was the voice of reason.
At least for a little while.
On the other side of our little driveway in front of our home, separated by a honeysuckle-covered fence, is a private school. When we first moved here, I went to the school's website to check out the curriculum. It's a pretty serious school, I mean, they teach the kids LATIN. So these kids are there to learn and are generally a very well behaved bunch. They always holler, "Thank you!" when I toss the occasional stray ball back over the fence.
Every once in a while they do get a little rowdy during their recess, but I figure that if I was ten years old and just spent an hour conjugating Latin verbs, I would need to run around the black top screaming like a banshee. So I don't get to bent out of shape when one of the little conjugators wakes me from my daytime slumber during the week.
On weeknights and weekends, the school allows an Evangelical Church to use the school for services, events, and fundraisers. These folks are loud. They have loud cars, loud kids, they are all loud talkers. When I take the pooches for walks in the evening, I hear all the gossip about the congregation. I am pretty sure that my miserable, crabby, old neighbor, Charlotte, has called the cops on them for their loud talking late at night.
Saturday, at the stroke of noon, I heard a roar of applause and a man offering thanks to their creator for supplying the absolutely lovely day. After the prayer, I heard the familiar clicking of drumsticks and a hearty "One, two, three, four". The music started, incredibly loud, off-key, rhythm deficient, Christian soft rock. I took a deep breath. In fact, I took several deep breaths.
Then Mr. Misha came out of his man cave. He said he was going out to pick up some lunch and asked me what I wanted. I told him and he asked if there was anything else I wanted. My reply, "Yeah, if you get close enough to the fence, could you pull the plug on the sound system? I don't think I can take this Jesus music all afternoon."
He grinned and threw my words right back at me, "I don't know baby, don't you think it would be bad karma?" I groaned and nodded. While he was gone, I told myself that it wasn't that bad. I reminded myself that these people were expressing their joy and faith through song and to get pissed off and bitchy would only have negative effects on me and it sure as hell would not help the band play any better. So, I turned up the volume and went back to watching TV.
The music continued through lunch, adding a screechy girl and changing from Christian soft rock to twangy, Christian cow pie music. I was in hell. I thought the for sure Mr. Misha would crack, but he didn't. Then after a short break, a new group of "musicians" started up. I was hoping that eventually I would hear some soulful, Gospel music. No such luck. While Mr. Misha was cleaning out the carport, the most horrible sound blared across our front yard.
As I folded laundry, I waited to see how long it would take for my husband to lose it. I was amazed how long he held out. It took a few songs of records scratching and white kids yelling, rather than actual rapping, for him to reach his breaking point. After four hours, Rap is what finally did him in.
If anyone ever needed to know what sound would signal the start of the apocalypse, it's Christian Gangsta Rap.
Heaven help us all.
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