Fatale Abstraction

There's an area of Dallas that has in recent decades transformed from a warehouse/rundown/slummish sort of zone into actual hep cat neighborhoods. I moved to that area and started living in lofts about 20 years ago. I would always tell people coming to see me to pass the dealer on the left and turn right just past the three hookers. Sometimes I'd sit on the roof with friends, wine and cheese and enjoy the downtown view and the bracing sight of street folk using the street as a toilet.

There's one building in the area that has a large open space that makes a perfect venue for large parties and art exhibitions and gatherings. The folks to whom this space belongs have swinger parties. I know these people (though not in the biblical sense) and they've been in that neighborhood for nearly 10 years, and they are actually quite nice. I tend to be pretty live-and-let-live, anyway. If they want to open a can of worms, well, that's their business.

Several years ago, the re-development into neighborhood began in earnest, and now there are condos and townhomes springing up all over the area like mushrooms after a rain. This is a nice development for everyone, I think, and the new has seemed to ease in amongst the old, and it's generally been a peaceable kingdom.

'Ceptin' for one Mrs. Kravitz who moved into a new home and was morally outraged about the swinger party crowd. She bitched and moaned and ranted and raved to all and sundry. Folks politely listened and went on not thinking about the swinger parties. After all, the area is still somewhat industrial, the events have been going on for-evah, and there's actually no disruption to the neighborhood.

Well, that wasn't good enough for Mrs. Kravitz who'd twisted herself into a macrame owl over the issue. She decided to take matters into her own hands. One night during an event, she snuck into the parking lot and wrote down make/model/license plate of every car in the lot. Using that information, she wrote letters of outrage to the owner of each of those cars and mailed them.

What really cracks me up is that this woman acts like sweetness and light, sugar-wouldn't-melt, when in fact she's actually rude and selfish. If this group had suddenly moved into HER happy families neighborhood and started having their wingdings, I could understand her and all the neighbors taking umbrage. However, SHE moved into THEIR crappy neighborhood. She is the newcomer, and I really don't think she has grounds for playing high-and-mighty. In fact, she KNEW they were there before she moved there. Everyone knows.

But here's the real kicker to me: she has an auto tagline on all her emails to the local neighborhood online group. It says:

Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

I suppose she means for other people to be kinder than necessary. She's exempt, being as she is the hammer of justice.

Heaven preserve us from self-appointed Hall Monitors.