That’s right, baby: You don’t have to live like a refugee! Particularly if living like a refugee means you and your extended family are holed up in a one-bedroom apartment across the hallway with 2 huge dogs. It’s not that you smoke on my front porch and I get to smell smoke when I open my door. It’s not that you leave your cigarette butts in the planter. (Because I’m always willing to “remind” you that people do not behave that way when they share public spaces with strangers, and by “remind” I mean sprinkle all your cigarette butts in front of your door to insure that you will pick up your trash.) [Oh, did I mention that I’m antisocial?] It’s not that when everyone knocks on your door, the barking of your 2 huge dogs vibrates my walls. Or that you have a fairly steady line of visitors throughout the day bringing covered casseroles and other goodies like used television sets. (And that the dogs have several opportunities while I’m studying & reading & minding my own business to bark.) It’s not that I’ve heard your sad & pathetic story about losing everything in New Orleans repeatedly since before you moved in next door to me, especially when the various do-gooders come over bearing casseroles or used television sets and you repeat your own sad & pathetic story to these do-gooders outside my front door. It’s not that you “escaped” the hurricane in your Mercedes or your Lexus. It’s not the fact that your 3½-year-old daughter likes to play outside my window in the sprinkler. It’s not your pregnant wife who’s about to split open and deliver another child any day now, adding one more to the already 6 people sharing one roof across the hallway. Or that I have to hear all those people come & go, or watch them parade in front of my window while I’m studying or reading or otherwise minding my own business, or walk through your throngs when I need to leave or come home. It’s not that I don’t have sympathy for your mother-in-law who is about to die of cancer any day now. It’s not that I’m worried about her dying in the apartment next to mine; although if she expires before the baby is due, then there will be zero population growth (only 6 people still in a 1-bedroom apartment!)–which isn’t really a bad thing. It’s not that I’m bothered by having to speak clearly & loudly when I speak to your father-in-law with the hearing aids. It’s not that the apartment manager was stupid enough to rent you an apartment in your time of need (although he conducted a credit check and background check on me when I moved in; but, of course, you’d certainly pass the credit check if you drive a Mercedes. And Lexus.) It’s not that you’re white and have a job and therefore are several rungs above the truly needy who barely survived Hurricane Katrina & her devastation. It’s not any one of these things…

…it’s all of them together that makes me hate your fucking guts.

But it don’t make no difference to me; everybody’s had to fight to be free….