Bewildered

The neighbors across the street from us have been the same my whole life. Their daughter was my summer babysitter, driving me to the pool and then to Little Caesars for pizza in her jeep, playing 4 Non Blondes What’s Up? on repeat. My brother played basketball and video games with their middle son, and I made their youngest son drink shampoo.

In late-February 2020, while living in Thailand, I went to visit my parents in New Jersey and got stuck. Politically, our family leans in one direction, the neighbors lean in the other. While chatting on their lawn they asked me, “Are you one of us?” No longer sheltered by the lush Thai jungle, I was confronted with the American tribalism I’d been trying to avoid.

I don’t initiate political discussions with people I know will never agree with me, or with people who don’t know how to respectfully disagree. So, whenever they bring up politics, I try to politely listen, then redirect the conversation to a topic that’s not likely to get heated, like how I sometimes let Luna, another neighbor’s black cat, come into our house just so I can see her freak out when she sees our cat.

Last Friday morning, my mom saw an animal control truck outside the neighbors’ house. Later in the day, it was still there, so my mom went over to ask if everything was alright. The night before, while watching the first presidential debate of the 2024 election, bats flew through their living room.

Then, at two in the morning, the wife awoke to bats flying in their bedroom. She called 911. Animal control showed up at five. They were able to catch one of the bats. That afternoon, as she was cleaning her sunroom, she saw what she thought was a pile of dirt. It was a baby bat, asleep on the floor. Bat feces lined the windowsills.

Whether they be a black cat crossing our path, or bats flying overhead, we’re all seeing bad omens. We’re all stuck in the house, hissing at our opponent, flying into windows trying to get out, watching the experts bewildered as they fail to solve the problem. 

Even the bad omens don’t want to be there.