My Neighbor is a Douchebag (v.1: The Ego Speaks)

Yes readers, get ready - this is the first installment in what I anticipate will be the highly-entertaining, oft-recurring segment here on saltychelle entitled My Neighbor is a Douchebag. Perhaps we'll throw an adjective in there from time to time (i.e., My Neighbor is a GIANT Douchebag) when the situation mandates.

By way of introduction to this new and exciting addition, I offer the following, culled from http://www.topdouchebag.com/ (worth a look-see when you're dying to waste a few moments):

what's a douchebag? A person almost completely lacking in social awareness, yet believes they are Casanova defined. Extreme inflated sense of self worth. Commonly seen with popped collars, pink dress shirts or overly tight jeans. [EMPHASIS ADDED]

Now, just because this is the first post in the My Neighbor is a Douchebag segment, by no means is it the first instance of his douchebaggery. It is, however, a lovely representation, and fits quite perfectly with the definition above.

Ok.

So the neighbor - let's call him Dick (perfect in so many ways), and his common-law wife Jane, live in the other large unit in our 4-plex. It was originally one of those old double-homes, basically a main house (mine), with a townhome attached (theirs) that share a vertical wall. These days both of our basements have been renovated into little garden apartments, making the whole building a 4-plex. Anyway, background really at this point - though the set-up comes into play into many of the other myriad tales I could spin in here. But we'll stick to last Friday.

I'm standing outside, and notice Dick walking down the street with his laptop and some books and papers. (They are both PhD English professors at the University here.) I've noticed him doing this regularly as of late, and supposed he was going to a coffee shop or something. Until I walked down the street myself recently and saw him working on his laptop in the nearby church parking lot. Sitting on the asphalt. No blanket or chair. Just sitting there working away. Curious. So Friday he's walking toward the church and I ask if he goes down there for wireless or something.

"Oh no," he says. "It's just so LOUD in our apartment during rush hour that I can't get any work done."

Now, I would like to point out that while we do live less than a mile from the capitol and downtown, this is a quiet, residential neighborhood. In Salt Lake City. Not the most bustling, cosmopolitan metropolis you've ever visited, by far. And Dick and Jane keep their windows shut and the swamp cooler pumping 24/7, even on the nicest days. So I'm not really sure how the minuscule amount of traffic on 3rd Ave. during "rush hour" can keep his well-oiled PhD brain machine from concentrating. But apparently it is an issue for Dick. (One of many.)

Whatever. That's not even the best part.

I ask how he's faring without his lady around, as Jane is in Chicago for a few weeks working on her book.

"Oh, alright I guess. The cat's depressed. I'm just not enough for him, he misses Jane, and he makes that pretty clear to me."

"Well, at least school's starting up next week," I offer. "What do you teach again?"

Melodramatic groan from Dick. "Renaissance Lit. Shakespeare."

"You're not looking forward to going back?"

"God no."

"Oh. You don't enjoy teaching?" I ask. I love Renaissance lit, I nearly offer. But don't.

(I continue conversation with a proven douchebag because I am an idiot. But that's a whole other segment.)

"You know," he begins, in his most whiny, lamenting, let-me-attempt-to-explain-something-to-you-pleb tone, and then trails off, formulating either his thoughts or a dumbed-down way to explain said thoughts to me, his degree-less single-mother of a neighbor.

Sigh.

He begins again. Incredibly thoughtful. "You know, it's a lot like being an astrophysicist. You get three months out of the year to work on your groundbreaking theories on the time-space continuum or an analysis of string theory, and then the rest of the year you have to go back to teaching kindergartners how to tell time."

Exactly what "groundbreaking theories" on Renaissance literature he's been working on this summer I didn't dare ask. Because I was sure that if I opened my mouth I'd laugh in his eerily ass-resembling face.