Staring at a Tesla until My Eyeballs Explode

 O pity poor me, readers! I really mean it this time. Here in the Independent Republic of Johnsonia I am besieged by a Swasticar constantly! Or at least whenever my rich neighbor isn’t at work. It’s excruciating.

Some of you long-time fans might recall that a developer demolished the house across the street from mine (as well as four beautiful mature trees), I guess about six years ago now. In place of the one house and four trees, the developer built two ugly McMansions. These atrocities were quickly snapped up at a cool million each.

I have never been rude to my new neighbors, but I never baked them a pie either. I sit on my porch with my back to their hideous homes. Guess that speaks volumes.

Some time ago, an electrical contractor spent the better part of three days at the house right across from mine. Part of the work was creating a charging station. Soon thereafter, a gleaming white Tesla sedan appeared on the right side of the double driveway.

Even then I wouldn’t have swapped it for my 2001 Saturn. Looked to me like status and conspicuous consumption.

One day I happened to be on the sidewalk when my neighbor came out to get into her fancy machine. I said, “Do you like it?”

She said, “Yes.” Got in and drove away.

Longest conversation we ever had.

Election season arrived, and the Tesla family peppered their lawn with Harris signs. Hey, this is the Great Blue Northeast. A Trump sign would have surprised me more.

Now the election has come and gone, with disastrous results. And there sits that goddamn Tesla sedan, day after day, an assault to my eyes every time I venture out my door.

Oh reader. How my hands tingle as I flex my keys on their ring. How my lip curls! How my nasty thoughts turn to the gold spray paint in my cellar!

Thank goodness I have achieved a modicum of common sense in my dotage. Twentieth century me would have been hard pressed to show such restraint. Even now, the ghost of badass young Anne says, “But you could at least fling a little roadkill behind it…”

No worries. I have finally (mostly) grown up. And it’s hard to find roadkill in Haterfield.

From time to time I think of my terse young neighbor. (She’s a surgeon.) No doubt she purchased the machine for its carbon impact and its subtle hint that she earns some serious ducats. But now she’s stuck. She’s in the Great Blue Northeast behind the wheel of a loathed automobile. I wonder if anyone has bad-mouthed her at a stoplight yet. It’s bound to happen.

There is no moral to this story, no takeaway lesson. I’m just very bummed that I have to stare at this piece of shit car right outside my house. I do take some solace that the thing doesn’t belong to me. Nor will it ever.

I had a jaundiced view of Tesla before 2025. Let your imagination run wild on how I feel about it now.