One house up the street from us was Ms. I've Never Seen A Book Before. My husband and I have an extensive library, and as we moved in, we carried numerous boxes of books into the house, along with a relatively small collection of furniture, since I was still in college. We had the necessities: bed, kitchen table, sofa, a few chairs, tons of bookshelves of course. And, as we were moving, we didn't exactly wear designer suits or dresses to carry boxes around--jeans and T-shirts seemed appropriate attire for that task, or so I thought.
Our landlord called us the next day, distraught. It seems the neighbor-lady didn't know what was in all those boxes (clearly marked, "Books-Biochemistry," "Books-American History" etc. in three-inch-high letters), wasn't sure if we were both men or both women or what, but in any case decided that we must be drug peddler hippies looking to ruin the neighborhood (as if that was possible), and she had drawn this conclusion from 1. our many boxes, which could only contain a drug lab 2. our lack of furniture and 3. my small, C-cup bra size. She called the landlord's mother (not him, his mother) and told her she'd better get, and I quote, "those dirty fag hippies outta the neighborhood yer son is rentin' to" or she'd call the cops, and explained her line of reasoning.
The landlord instructed his mother to simply hang up on future calls, but sure enough, not much later, a police officer did indeed show up at the door. He asked politely if everything was all right. I said it was, he looked vaguely around the living room and said a neighbor had called saying "strange people" were creating a disturbance, breaking into a house. I replied that it was our house, he could confirm it with the landlord if he liked, he said that wasn't necessary and went back to more important tasks, like keeping the community safe from arsonists. We later heard her on her front porch, loudly discussing our "offenses" with another neighbor: Other guy: "Well, they in college--seems like I saw books in there when we took the kids trickertreatin'." Rude Neighbor: "Nonsense. Who would ever have so many books? No one needs that many. Besides, license plate says Ohio. Why would anyone from Ohio move here?" Yes, I confess, Ohio is indeed a cultural Mecca. George Voinovich has been trying to keep it a secret, but...
Neighbors0704-02
