Gamers with Game?

I'm the stereotypical crotchety, nosy old lady neighbor, except that I'm not old. (Yet.) I get mad when people wash their cars in the parking area (because their soapsuds run into the drains that say "no dumping" and have a little picture of a crab on them, because we live by the beach and the goddamned soapsuds go right into the ocean), I get mad when people overfill the recycling bins because they don't break down their stupid IKEA and Budweiser boxes, I get mad when neighbors let their dogs trample around and shit in the native plant restoration areas around our apartments. Call me crazy.


One of my favorite neighbors to spy on is a quiet guy named James **.
There's really nothing interesting about him; he's geeky but not geeky enough to be endearing, he has no style, and he has no charm. (He did used to have a roommate who had plenty of charm. The ex-roommate offered to help me carry my packages upstairs one day, and would always say a very friendly hello.) James is in his early thirties, he's pale as a ghost, he's got a big bald spot, and he walks like a robot. He's your stereotypical aging video gamer. The thing that always made me want to spy on him was his girlfriend - a pudgy, brown-haired white girl who wore a ton of stinky, gag-inducing perfume all the time. (I call her Ross because she smells like a Ross Dress for Less dressing room.) Ross was over so often that I was starting to wonder if she had moved in, and they were at the stage of their relationship where they would order pizza and Chinese food and watch movies at home. And I was happy for them.


Saturday we heard her loudly saying goodbye at the door. She sounded oddly fake, as if she were saying goodbye to a salesperson at Nordstrom instead of to her boyfriend. Then she trudged downstairs, wearing one of her trademark thin cotton skirts, tennis shoes, and a full backpack that made her look like a turtle. "He's such a jerk," I complained to my boyfriend. "He doesn't even walk her to her car." My boyfriend peered out the window. "She looks sad," he said. She walked to her car, opened the trunk, put the backpack inside, and left.


Cut to this morning... James was leaving at the same time I was leaving for work (VERY early... 6:30am) with a new woman, a thin, ugly version of Ross.
My God, I'm in shock. I feel like I've been cheated-on. Saturday, Ross was sent packing, and by Sunday James had an Ugly Girl sleep over. And he's so damned milquetoast... so bland... so plain... how is it that HE dumped one woman and hooked up with another one in the span of one weekend? Did he even have time to wash his sheets?! Pig. God, I hate heterosexual men. God, it just makes me wanna spray Ross' horrible Clinique Happy perfume all over the stairwell and also into his mailbox.

** names have been changed to protect the innocent.