Busy Bodies

Sometimes the things I write about my childhood make it seem like my mother let us run wild without supervision. That would be a mistake. In reality there was a very simple yet effective monitoring system in place, that we as children weren't always aware of.

It was called the busy body network, and consisted of all the housewives in our little subdivision. The way it worked was this. As a wayward child wandered down the street, with mischief on his mind, or some idea of hanging out with the wrong kids, a slight movement of curtains in nearby houses might be noticed. This was not caused by a breeze or inadvertent movement within the house. This was the busy body network in action. This was the ladies of the neighborhood taking a peek at who we were with, what we were doing, and if necessary reporting that information back to the appropriate mother.

It was when I was about twelve or thirteen years old, when I finally realized what was happening, but by that time I had already been caught doing many bad things. Before I figured out that I was being watched by all my moms friends up and down the street, I assumed that she had some kind of super mind reading powers. I was scared to death that she might unleash those powers at the wrong time and besides burning in hell for what I was thinking, my mom would know and help me get there faster.

During the past month or so, I have been suffering from busy body withdrawal. In this case I am the busy body, and all my neighbors are the informants. You see, when I used to walk Molly around the block every day, I garnered as much information from the other busy bodies as I could on what was happening in the area. By not doing the daily walk I have missed out on a very important bit of info that directly affects me. My next door neighbors are getting divorced. I knew something was up as early as last year when he suddenly started to lose weight and get in shape. Then about two months ago he changed his hair color, a sure sign of middle aged crisis. I can only hope that whoever gets the house in the settlement, decides to sell it to some nice, quiet folks with excellent taste, and no kids. Somebody who minds their own business.