Hotpants

It's been a while since my last post about the neighbors.  You've met Howard and Moira, but what kind of house would I live in if I only had neighbors on one side?  A corner house, of course.  Ah, those were the days.  Even then I wasn't immune to the oddities of small town life.  Wait til you meet the Herdsmen.  Until then, I'd like to introduce you to Hotpants.

Hotpants moved in right around the same time we did, and as neighbors go, she's about all anybody could ask for.  She lives alone, so there's no yelling, unlike at Moira's house, and we almost never see her.  In the eight years I've lived next to her I've probably had less than ten conversations with her.  But, she's awfully nice.  I'm mean super nice.  Whenever I have spoken to her she's been very complimentary, even to the point of jealousy on how nice my yard looks.  I simply pointed out that I water the lawn appropriately and fertilize when necessary.  She has yet to catch on.  It's as if Howard's filth demons have some nasty little weed demon cousins living in Hotpants's lawn.

But Hotpants's niceties don't just extend to me.  Over the years she's opened her home to a number of men looking for a place to bunk.  I lost track some time back, but there have been a variety of cars parked in Hotpants's driveway over the years.  She's quite the humanitarian.  I'd think one might tire of such everday, or night, entertaining, but she once confided that she has insomnia.  Well, you gotta do something to fill those hours.  And believe me, she's gotten hers filled.

As rare as a Hotpants sighting is, in the early years she was always wearing the same thing.  Hotpants, of course, but also always a phone headset.  Not your bluetooth, sticking out of the ear kind.  This was the old telephone operator thing that went over the head and had the boom mic in front of the mouth.  The weird thing is she always seemed to be home during the day, so naturally I decided she worked from home and needed her hands free for whatever it was she was doing while on the phone.  And there was only one logical conclusion to what that was.  Combined with her penchant for nightly entertainment, that headset told me in no uncertain terms that Hotpants was a phone sex operator.

This was confirmed when she came over one day wearing braces on both wrists.  What does that prove, you ask?  Nothing, in and of itself, but consider the story I heard on the radio later that week.  A woman was suing her employer for medical expenses because she'd developed carpal tunnel syndrome on the job.  You could say she was involved in some rather repetitious motions related to her work as a - wait for it----------phone sex operator.  In her case, a truly hands-on position.

The odd part about that visit from Hotpants wasn't the vindication of my theory.  After all, I'm right most often.  She came over because she was locked inside her house.  How she got out to tell me is a mystery I've yet to solve.  But this was to be a day long remembered.  For on that day, Hotpants invited me inside.

It was all innocent of course.  Unless you consider that she was only wearing a t-shirt and her underwear.  Not wanting to make anyone uncomfortable I chose not to point that out at the time.  She gave me a complete tour of her home, including her bedroom.  She's very neat, which I found a lovely change of pace.  Then we found ourselves in the garage.  You see, we'd had a hurricane, followed by several days without power and, because of her carpal tunnel, she lacked the strength necessary to raise her garage door by hand.  Me to the rescue.

Then she told me that the alarm on her car had malfunctioned and she couldn't disable it.  Now, every time she drives, the engine shuts down after a mile.  Not knowing anything about cars I suggested she plan all her trips a mile at a time.  I'm not sure how that's worked out, but I haven't been invited back since.

I did, on that occasion, notice about a dozen or more DVD players in her garage.  Clearly she has moved beyond simple home entertaining and phone sex and is now mass producing adult videos.  And I say good for her.  The world needs more entrepreneurial women, and she ought to capitalize while she's still got the body for it.  She seems to know it, and takes every advantage to show it.  Once I was leaving for work at about 4:30 in the morning and she was in her yard, in her underwear, weeding.  She waved.  Why not?

Oh, and she's had her Christmas lights up since Thanksgiving and turned them on exactly four times.

Typical.