Ducky-don't.
Just a couple of days into the new year, Psycho-Tica was well on her way to opening her dreaded day-care center. She was spending several hours a day standing in the front garden of the house she'd rented (at a discount no less!!!), screaming at whatever hapless day-laborer she'd hired to re-sod the lawn, plant some ferns, put in shelving and clean floors. She did take a few minutes out of her busy day to mouth off to one of the other neighbors who had refused to sign. She was proving (at least to me) to be a borderline nut-job. After she went off on one older neighbor-lady that we are particularly fond of, T. decided to tell her to back off yelling at our friends. I had to practically drag him away and then, just to get a feel for who we were dealing with, went back and decided to play "good cop" and spoke sweetly to her in the kind of voice you reserve for knife-wielding sociopaths. She swore she'd told everyone the plain unvarnished truth and she even managed to get dewy-eyed when she spoke of how "hurt and surprised" she was that people were "lying" about her. She said that she planned to completely rehabilitate our park, "for the children", and she intended to pay for security like the other neighbors (well, most of them), even though that "nasty old lady" was the one collecting the money. The more she spoke, the more creeped out I got. I was starting to get the impression she was even more of a loon that I'd thought. Then, in the middle of all the misunderstood-little-girl bull-shit, she paused and this decidedly sinister look crossed her face and she said, "You have a child too, don't you? You should be careful how you act in front of her." I suddenly wanted to slug her. I told her that I'd talk to her some other time and that I hoped, for all our sakes, that her day-care was really going to be as trouble free as she was insisting. I went home and told T. that I'd decided she was probably more of a certifiable head-case than I'd thought. I told him that I got the impression she'd play hard-ball if she felt her project was threatened in any way. I told him that, for some reason, I thought she might even call PANI (child protective services) or worse if we pissed her off. I have no idea why I thought this, maybe it's just a feeling you get when you know you're in the presence of CRAZY.
Our house and our neighbor's is owned by a very nice Tica lawyer. She was horrified by the whole day-care business and, knowing some folks in the municipality, decided to check Psycho-Tica and make sure all her papers and permits were in order. She told us she'd update us when she found out. Meanwhile, my neighbor, C., who hadn't signed, caught me after I'd come home one day and told me that P.T. had called her over that morning and, crocodile tears streaming down her face, had told her that she wouldn't be able to open legally unless she got the signature of the home-owners on either side. C. told her that that was probably a good thing and that she still wouldn't sign. P.T. stormed back into the house and slammed the door. We hoped that might be it, but the next day, a Monday, she was open for business! Five shrieking, screaming, crying toddlers were dropped off and tended to by two of the most hostile looking women I'd ever seen. The noise started around 7am and continued until around 6pm. A day later a sign went up announcing the name, phone number and hours of the day-care: Duckydu. Two weeks later, our landlady called and said that she had some good news - it seemed that Duckydu didn't have a license to be open, she'd lied on the forms saying that it was a "special needs" daycare (among other things) and that it was true she could not be open without the signatures of the homeowners on both sides of her day-care! She told us she would be reporting this to the municipality. Two weeks after, last Tuesday, an inspector showed up. We're now certain she has connections at least in the municipality. Ten minutes before the inspector showed up, her employees hustled the kids inside, pulled the shades and when the inspector knocked, they didn't answer. The inspector then spoke to my neighbor, C., who filled him in on what had been going on. It seems she was in violation of quite a few of the requirements for having a day-care. By the end of that day we were pretty sure her party was almost over. Even more so when our land-lady called us and told us that P.T. had called her and said that she was closing down. We were so thrilled, we didn't stop to wonder how she's gotten our landlady's home phone number. We were so thrilled that the next morning, when I left around 9:30 for my daughter's tennis lesson, I never imagined that (OMG!!) Immigration would come banging on my door less than an hour later, demanding my papers, my maid's papers and my neighbor's papers. It seems that Psycho-Tica was more 'connected' than we'd thought. By the time I got home, my neighbor was pretty freaked out and wondering what might happen next. The only good part is that we're all legal - including the maid AND we pay the maid's CAJA (like social security), so Psycho-Tica must have been pretty pissed off that nothing happened to us. The neighbor and I stood in our doorways and chatted about what she had done and what she might do next and we were entertained by P.T. driving around the block 6 or 7 times, watching us. She even sent some skeevy looking guy walking down the sidewalk to spy on us. He looked a bit suspicious and then we saw him jump into her car on her last pass and they drove off together. The next day I saw her standing outside the daycare and I smiled and waved. When she glanced around to see who I was waving to, I yelled that she might want to get Immigration to come a little earlier or later in the day or else they probably wouldn't catch me at home. She just scowled and stomped off.
All of that happened last week. Nothing else since and, as expected, she was open this morning and the sound of screaming kids was back by 7 AM. I'll keep you posted if anything else happens, but for now, my neighbor and I figure that the daycare's nap-time is likely around 1PM and from now on, we will be turning our speakers to the wall and cranking up the music right around that time.
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