Imagine my surprise – nay – delight when, walking out of my apartment, I noticed her door was swung wide open. I realized, as I stood gawking, that in all my months of inventorying the junk she’d leave on the stoop, I’d never really gotten to see the inside of White Trash Woman’s apartment.

I had imagined it would be kind of dark and dank, maybe like the Castle Grayskull, or like my armpits after a long, satisfying run. The walls, I thought, were probably lined with the million kinds of Wal-mart brand beverages she’s so fond of. Pizza bones, like relics of a forgotten civilization would litter the floorboards, occasionally finding respite with a greasy chicken wing in the cushions of the couch WTW bought in 1982.

And it warmed the cockles of my heart to get to glance inside. This was my moment. This was my Shangri-La.

It wasn’t exactly as I had imagined it. It looked, to my eyes (squinting without glasses) a lot like my apartment – taupe carpeting, one long hallway with adjoining rooms. I did notice, however, it was filthy. It looked like a bomb had gone off, as crates of paper, toys and cloths were strewn haphazardly about the living area.

“What a dump,” I murmured, all smug like.

“Excuuuuse me?” a voice called back.

Oh snap.

Busted.

A pre-pubescent black girl was hunched against the steps, eyeing me just as intensely as I had been eyeing her stuff. I couldn’t believe it. This was the first time I’d seen her, but I was fairly sure I was in a stare down with the one and only, White Trash Daughter.

Slightly horrified and at a loss for words, I did the only thing I could think of. I quickly flipped open my cell phone, put it to my ear and said “Oh heeey you! I’m so glad you called!” Then – because it was such an important call, and it really wouldn’t have been proper to converse in the open – I had no choice but to skitter off the walkway, away from White Trash Daughter and the mysteries of her abode.

When I came back a few hours later the girl was still brooding on the stairs. In the time I’d been gone, mounds of trash had collected around the girl – it was more than I’d ever seen White Trash Woman put out before, at least at one time. And then it struck me –duh, White Trash Woman and her kin were packing up camp. The White Trash Family, they were moving.

And as I stood, blinking in the faces of the neighbors I’d imagined thousands of times, but never met in person, something else occurred to me:

1. White Trash Woman is not white.

2. Urinal cakes – They aren’t just for pissing on. Apparently some people use them for air fresheners to keep down the smell of decaying pizza bones. After three hours with White Trash Woman’s door open, why the entire breezeway smelled boys-room fresh!

So dear hannihaus readers, White Trash Woman is really gone. As quickly as she came into our lives, she’s now vanished. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, I guess. Would anyone care to say some kind words about the dearly departed?

Yesterday morning felt like Christmas. As I lay in bed, lazy on my day off, I just kept thinking that if I swung wide my bedroom curtains, I’d see a frosty window pane and a fresh dusting of snow on the lawn. I imagined the smell of evergreens, and the crinkle of heavy paper being wrapped round bright baubles. Bolstered by this unshakeable feeling, I began humming “Oh Tenenbaum”.

And this sentiment that had me wanting to hang paper decorations with the words “Un Joyeux Noel” on them, well, it was strange for two reasons: 1) it’s October and we’ve still got two major holidays to go before we celebrate Christ’s birth, and 2) living in Florida, it doesn’t even feel like Christmas when it *is* Christmas. I mean forget about snow and spruce trees –last December 25th it was probably 75 degrees and sunny. We couldn’t keep a live tree in our house because the heat from the windows makes for a 72-hour moratorium, after which point the pine needles fall off and the kittens start using the $40 trunk for a scratching post.

But I digress.

So yeah, when I finally did get my booty out of bed to peer into the space outside my window, there wasn’t anything Christmassy going on. There were no kids making snow angels, and for that matter, no snow to make angels with. No one was bundled up in scarves, carrying layers of pies and sweet treats. And not a single soul could be seen hanging lights on their veranda.

What I did see from my post as peeping tom was this: one skeezy-looking, super chunk lesbian walking her two dogs. She was wearing an XXL salmon-colored muscle tank with shorts that looked suspiciously like they could’ve been sweatpants in another life, before having had scissors taken to them.

And just like that, with one glimpse at those corpse-white, doughboy, lesbifriend legs, the splendor of the holiday spirit was gone. I shuddered briefly, before closing the curtains.