Betty Crocker Redux

Our new suburban community has a bank of mailboxes at the middle of each block versus individual boxes. I was walking down the street just after dusk after picking up my mail when I noticed a Minivan shadowing me. I moved over closer to the curb, thinking I might be in their way, but the driver stayed a good 10 feet behind me. The car suddenly sped up and came to a quick stop beside me.

"Hi, you must be the new guy," the woman driver said. "I heard you just moved here from New York and had a baby...how's everything going?"

Excuse me, but who the fark are you??? And how do you know my shit? I've only lived here for 3 days! Actually, I was very polite and told her all about the baby and the move, but I still wondered how in the hell she knew the last details of my life.

Anyway, point of the story is that she wanted to bring me and my wife "a nice hot meal." Now, I don't know about you, but in New York I wouldn't have accepted a meal from one of my deranged neighbors for fear of having their DNA mixed in as a special ingredient. But coming from this cheerful, pleasant hausfrau, it seemed allright.

A few days later, she dropped off a casserole that was right out of the 1950s. Chicken, greenbeens, dried onions, scalloped potatoes in some kind of a condensed Campbell's Soup sauce. And you know what? It was fucking delicious. And very sweet of her -- although I'm convinced she dropped it off just so she could scope out our furniture and decor.

Nosie Nellie.