front porches

When we first moved in to our condo community three years ago, we received in our mailbox one of the community-wide notices that our beleaguered, slightly gnarly office manager distributes on occasion. It contained a reminder that keeping a clean porch and deck is part of our condominium charter, and a plea for compliance. This document had, as far as I have observed, no effect whatsoever on the porch-cluttering behavior of the community.

I had very uptight, cluttered-porches-are-trashy views on the matter when we first moved here. But I’ve loosened up. A bit. People who live in single family homes often have garages or sheds to house their grilling equipment, outdoor toys, tomato cages, ratty gardening shoes, and the like. Condos just don’t give you many options when it comes to that stuff that really wants to live outdoors or at least in some middle space that holds up to regular dirt exposure. I’m still a little snooty about it, I admit—I do occasionally find myself prissily wishing that my favorite neighbors would clear their front porch of the old political signs and Christmas decorations (though at least the signs are for Obama). My own front porch, as it happens, currently sports a green plastic tarp and a five-gallon bucket, and has in the recent past also played host to two cloth outdoor chairs with mold issues, and a pair of tatty vinyl cushions. For a while, I tried to convince myself that my outdoor shit made more sense as outdoor shit than did my neighbor’s shittier outdoor shit, but dudes, this is a slippery slope. Face it, Stephanie. You fit right in.

I might also at this juncture mention the piece of scotch tape that lives on our front door. It has been there ever since we have moved in, and cannot be removed without a razor blade, which would remove paint, which could then only be replaced with the permission of the condo association board. However, you can’t tell how complicated this removal process would be from looking at it. Nope, it just looks like we are too indolent to be bothered with cleaning up the skanky old piece of tape on our door. This piece of tape is a daily reminder to me to keep a leash on the running commentary of suspiciously middle class-bred judgment that is one of the less enlightened things going on in my head at any given moment.

Unless I’m in the neighborhood about three-quarters of a mile south on our street, which I was several days ago as I returned home on foot from taking my car the shop. Let’s just say I have as much trouble keeping my judgment on a leash over there as some of the people around here have with their dogs. If anyone ever wants to make a coffee table book entitled “Redneck Tableaux of the Heartland,” I will direct you to this block, where you can find a certain two-story house with a “For Rent” sign in the yard. The boards of the low, wide porch are warped with water and age, and a large couch with battered orange and brown upholstery rests atop them. The couch, as well as the surrounding area, is strewn with clutter: clothing, knick-knacks, picture frames, small pieces of furniture. Two wooden signs, lettered with black spray-paint, are propped against the supporting beams. One reads, “FAMILY ONLY.” The other reads, “GIT UR SHIT.”

It’s hard to tell whether the residents of this house created this porch display out of a genuine desire to distribute lost possessions back to their proper owners, or because they take perverse pleasure in appalling and/or entertaining the sorts of people who are likely to go home and write about the porch on their blogs. Or some combination of the two. When I related the sighting to Eric, and pontificated over this question, he suggested that they—the porch people—probably have a complicated relationship with irony.