Keeping up with the Joneses: suburban style. 5 days before real life restarts. I’m in one of Americana’s suburbs….In a 7 year old housing development of detached single family $500K homes. It’s 815am. I’m clutching a mug of Earl Grey on a balcony that overlooks the entire street. Blue skies for miles. Emerald manicured lawns. Emerald manicured shrubs speckled with gardenias and petunias. Skinny trees spaced exactly 10 yards apart punctuate the sidewalk interspersed with gleaming red fire hydrants.. Basketball hoops stand silent sentinel over ebony driveways. Mailboxes have the red handle set back. Next to the mailboxes, green recycling trash cans are paired with black regular trash trash cans. It is trash day. To the left, where a house should be, is a kids playground. Plastic slides. Plastic swings. Plastic monkey bars. Wooden park benches. Beyond the playground is a fake lake dotted with water lilies and with a fountain shooting jets of water 10 feet into the air. The fake lake is hugged by a manicured strip of emerald grass. Birds bicker. Insects inspect flowers. It’s quite beautiful, really. Who wouldn’t want to live here? Well, I wouldn’t. I’m a fiercely urban creature. But I don’t mind the suburbs once in awhile because I get to observe my distant relatives homo sapiens suburbanitus. What strange customs to these people observe? A cheerful overweight woman power-walks by, dragging a compliant golden retriever. She says a hearty “Good Morning!” to an elderly Asian man dutifully walking a shi tzu chihuahua mix. He dutifully picks up the shi tzu chihuahua mix’s poop and dumps it in the recycling trash can but then realizes his mistake and retrieves the poop and deposits it in the correct trashcan. I am spellbound. Suddenly one... then two... then all garage doors slowly slide up and well-groomed children run out and stand by the sidewalk. Inside the garages are two cars: red or grey Toyota Priuses and a black SUV. Invariably a black SUV. And a proud parent. The parents smile politely at each other but don’t interact until the kids run across the manicured lawns to chat with their friends. Only then the parents follow. The neighbor is a woman in her mid 30s wearing white capri pants (girl, it’s after labor day) and a sparkling turquoise sleeveless blouse and espadrilles (really? at 823am espadrilles?). Her hair is perfect though. She chats with another mother and their tortured but jolly conversation ends when the yellow school bus arrives. I watch the yellow school bus drive past the houses. They are almost identical crosses between Cape Cods and Victorians. Except one. The Corner House! The Corner House is huge. Like on steroids or sth. Instead of the drab Cape Cod wooden slats, it has Baltimore bricks and faux granite. All the other houses have fake gas powered fireplaces so have teeny tiny vents posing as chimneys. But the corner house has a conspicuous chimney facing the street, finished in faux granite, of course. Dude, they have real fire in that house! They also have an attached pinewood gazebo area with a faux granite table and a built in grill. The gazebo area is enclosed by a 3 foot faux granite wall sheathed by a super green super manicured strip of grass. I look closer, the grass is actually greener on that side... And it is cut in the opposite direction as their neighbors’ grass so u can see the property line clearly. I notice their mulch is a striking red but everyone elses mulch is brownish gray. Red mulch against bright green grass looks amazing…. in a faux way. This family has manicured shrubs all around the house, not just on the street-facing side. Who lives there? And do the rest of the neighbors hate them for being so faux perfect? A white mercedes SUV backs out of the garage and drives off. Minutes later a white Prius backs out… (I don’t think I have ever seen a white Prius before) and drives off. I run downstairs and ask my friend, “Who lives in the corner house?” He says, “You will never believe me. A family called Jones!” I laugh out loud and then feel bad. But I am amazed. What are the odds that the family with the best house, best cars, best chimney, best gazebo, best grass, best mulch, best faux granite in your neighborhood is actually called Jones???
Posted on: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 16:50:41 +0000
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