A Good Kind Of Bad

Do you know what a good kind of bad experience is? History is full of them. Take the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor for example - definitely a bad thing (from the U.S. perspective). Yet anything less tragic than this would probably have not been enough to get us off our isolationist asses and move forward into the world. As a result of this impetus, the U.S.A. became the emperor of the world. Granted, we are now feeling the cost of bearing this mantle for so long, but we simply can not ignore the fact that for many years after the war we derived much wealth and security from our newly attained position. And none of this would have come to be if those sneaky Jap’s hadn’t sucker punched us.
.
Of course, the perspective of each particular country has to be taken into perspective when considering this. For example, from the Japanese view, their attack on the United States was a good thing because it immediately immobilized the largest potential threat to their empire. Of course, the result was to propel our own warfare machinery to the point that we damn near wiped Japan off the face of the planet. So what seemed good at first (to the Japanese) actually turned out to be bad for them.
.
In addition to the numerous such historical examples to be found, most people have probably either experienced and/or witnessed such good-bad models of the personal type. What about the scrawny kid who got beat up a lot, and as a result began working out and taking better care of his body, and today looks and feels twenty years younger than his former classmates do? And the other view is equally exemplified by young girl, who was so beautiful that she never really had to worry about her personality. She always got away with being a bitch because her personality was never what the boys were even looking at. But now that what they were looking at is sagging and wrinkling, her natural deficiencies in other areas have become painfully obvious to all.
.
Well, my thirteen years in the HUD house here has provided many such good/bad scenarios. I never owned a gun and had hardly ever fired one before I purchased this house. This neighborhood, and the bad associated with it, is the reasons that today I am able to handle a fire-arm. Going even a bit further, living here has changed my psychology. Thirteen years ago, if a person was shouting in my face while I was in possession of a concealed deadly weapon, I simply would not have had courage or self-control necessary to not draw my weapon, even though drawing the weapon would not have been necessary. I can definitely say that I have a lot thicker skin today than I did thirteen years ago. This has worked to my advantage many times outside of this neighborhood as well, and it is a direct result of my experiences while living here.
.
Fire is hot, and the heat is uncomfortable, but that is what it takes to forge the steel. Like they say - No pain, no gain - and so we realize that the bad is often necessary to bring about the good.
Anyway, all this philosophizing is merely a prelude to explaining something which recently happened to my house. This past Sunday evening (Nov. 23), someone threw a rock through my living room window. Because I hadn’t finished framing around this window yet, I simply stapled a blanket against the wall there to decrease the breeze. This prevented the glass from coming through. The first thing I did was to grab my gun, then I called 911.
.
After the operator asked for my name and address, she wanted to know what the problem was. When I first explained what had happened, I can’t blame her for not necessarily viewing it as a priority call. Most of the time such an event is the work of bored kids, rather than angry drug gangs. The operator had no idea that I had a Glock in my hands and was about to go outside and take care of whatever problem I found there. So she proceeded to the usual protocol of asking a bunch of bullshit questions.
.
She wanted to know if glass was on the floor inside. I explained that the “curtain” covering the window had prevented this, and that I wasn’t even certain that it was my house window. I said it might be my truck which was parked on that side of the house. She asked another question and I realized that she wasn’t grasping the reality of the situation and that talking with her was prohibiting me from doing what I needed to do. So I calmly explained “Listen God Damn it. Two years ago these mother-fucking drug dealers tried to burn down my house because I was talking with the police. I don’t know exactly what’s going on right now, but I think you need to send a car.” She responded with another bullshit question to which I simply shouted “Send a God-damn car now!” I then hung up the phone and went outside.
.
I went outside and quickly confirmed that it was in fact my living room window which had been broken. I walked around the other side of the house, then went back inside to grab my flashlight. When I came back out, two squad cars were already on the scene. One officer shone his spotlight on the window, revealing that both panes had been broken through, leaving about a five inch diameter hole. The officer asked if I knew what had been thrown and I explained that the curtain had stopped it from coming through. As I turned to go inside and check, I added “At least it wasn’t smoking this time.”
.
It turns out that a rock (about three inches long and one inch in diameter) was the weapon of choice this time. As I displayed it to the officer, I said “I doubt if you can get prints off of this.” The officer declined to take the rock in as evidence. As he was leaving, the officer said “Man, I thought we had this taken care of.” - Apparently not.
.
I spent that evening boarding up not only the broken window but the other lower-level windows as well. About one in the morning, as I was boarding up my front window, a squad car approached from behind me. I turned and slightly waved t the passing car, which caused it to suddenly stop dead in the intersection. The window was down, but I couldn’t see who was inside. I simply said “Sorry, I was just waving. I wasn’t trying to stop you.” Without saying a word, the officer drove on. It could be that me nodded or waved in recognition but I simply could not see this because of the lighting. Anyway, that was kind of weird.
.
By the next morning, my home looked like just another boarded up former drug house. I waited for the mail carrier that day to explain the situation. She acknowledged that she probably would have assumed the house to be uninhabited and discontinued delivery there. She had me write a brief note that she would file at the post office to ensure that delivery was not stopped. I decided it would be easier to not explain about the whole “War with the aggressive drug dealers and incompetent police department” thing. I simply said the windows were temporarily boarded due to construction, but that the house remained inhabited during this time. I wonder, if it's a federal crime to lie to your mail carrier?
.
So that’s the scoop on the bad side of things around here lately. As for the good side, there definitely is one. I just don’t want to talk about it in detail right now. The short version of the story is to simply say that I was at a cross-roads as far as making certain important decisions was concerned. What happened earlier this week actually made it a lot easier for me to make those decisions. I was sort of at a standstill, but now I am moving forward. And for that I owe a sincere thanks to the scum-sucking, son-of-a-bitch bastard who threw the rock through my window. In addition, I expect my heat bill this winter to be substantially reduced due to the windows being covered.

So there you have it. My home is now officially a castle - steel plated, windows sealed, with viewing terraces on high for both the front and the back. It seems to me that if these drug dealers had any brains they'd offer to buy my house, rather than tear it down.