"For what do we live but to make sport of our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?"*

   Well, it’s official: I’m an asshole.

   Remember how I told you about my neighbors Jay/Jaye/J and his/her mystery roommate/boyfriend/girlfriend/buddy? Well, the mystery is officially solved and I solved it in a terrible, asinine fashion of which I am ashamed and can’t stop thinking about and obsessing over. (Yeah, I ended another goddamn sentence with a/two preposition/s. It’s a stylistic choice. IT’S A CHOICE.)
 

   So, I was heading out to pick up Chad and meet some friends for bowling the other night when I ran into Jay’s roomie (lover? Best buddy?) outside their door. Roomie was wrangling a pair of the most adorable twin boys I’d ever seen.

   I immediately dropped to my knees to chat with the kiddos (I hate children as a rule because they’re inherently evil, but these two were quite fantastic looking) and since I was already in good humor (what with having social plans and all), I used it as an excuse to chat up Jay’s companion.

“Hi, I’m Lacey! And who are these boys?”

“Oh, they’re my sister’s kids.”

“So you’re their aunt?” Fucking rookie mistake.

“No, I’m their uncle.”

   I decided to just keep talking as though I hadn’t made one of the worst possible of faux pas in the world.

“Oh, their uncle! Of course. What’s your name?”

“C.J.”

“It’s so nice to meet you finally!”

   C.J. was holding one of the twins and had a stethoscope around his neck that the toddler was trying desperately to get hold of.

“Where did you find a stethoscope for them to play with? Are you a doctor or something?”

   (At this point I was kissing his ass in the hopes that he’d forget that I called him their aunt. I should’ve corrected things immediately and said something like, “Oh, crap. I misspoke. Of course I meant uncle, but my friend from Oklahoma just became an aunt and she talks about it so often it just flew out of my mouth and how about those Dodgers (see—I remembered he liked baseball).” But I was so thrown that I felt compelled to just keep on talking like the moron I am. Why a DOCTOR would live in this shitty apartment building is beyond the scope of reality anyway, so there's no remote chance that he bought any of my brown-nosing bullshit.)

“No, I have asthma, so I keep a stethoscope around.”

“Ohhhhhhhh.” I tried not to let him know that this was a huge revelation and was answering so many questions. EUREKA! Finally I understand why the tuberculosis-style coughing happens in the bathroom every night.

If I were a doctor (which I'm not), I would totally have one of these...

“Well, your nephews are completely precious. Are they living with you?”

“Thank you! Yes, but just for a little while. My sister’s moving to L.A. so she’s staying with us while she's in transition.”

   While he held one twin, the other kept coming to the door with random objects and saying what they were.

“Shoe.”

“Phone.”

“Stethoscope.”

   I gave the little genius as many compliments as I could. Mostly so C.J. could stay standing with the one while my face tried to cool down from my intense mortification. Whenever I’m embarrassed I flame red and immediately run a mild fever. It makes embarrassment a million times worse when everyone knows how embarrassed you are, so I thought I’d crouch low to the ground and interact with the toddler. The way I acted, you would have thought the kid was reciting Tennyson.

   C.J. could not have been nicer. Which made/makes me feel EVEN WORSE. He was so sweet and friendly and warm. Everything Jay/Jaye/J had not been on our one and only encounter.

   It breaks my heart to think of C.J. sitting in his apartment with those two noisy twins and thinking about how his dumb bitch neighbor thought he was a woman. AND I DID. If you’ll recall, I definitely thought he was (maybe) a lady.

   But I feel like as many questions as were answered, a million popped up in their places. I mean, IS that a one-bedroom apartment? In which case, he and Jay are clearly the gay lovers I initially thought they were. UNLESS Jay is a woman, which is clearly possible. BUT, if C.J.’s sister and the twins are staying for what has clearly been well over a month, how can that possibly be a one-bedroom apartment? 

   And why does C.J. have better breasts than I do? And a higher voice? I've heard of hormones in people's foods doing such things. Maybe he has a dietary deficiency?

   Okay, so sometimes when I start diagnosing people and their issues, Em will say to me, “Is Dr. Rouse making a house call?” It's obvious that I think I know a lot more about everything than I ever actually do. If I were a doctor (which I’m not, for the record) I’d say, “Physician heal thyself!” Which, in this case seems to mean: I gotta do something to make it up to my neighbors.

   Stay tuned for what is sure to be a foray into some ill-conceived baking.

*This quote is from the divine Ms. Jane Austen. I certainly hope my neighbors are "making sport" of me, because I fucking deserve it. Sigh out loud.