Yo, Whyn't Youse Come Over Here So I Cans Beat Your Ass?

As uttered by some white t-shirted kid on the corner down the street from me last night while I was attempting to watch ER and knitting a sweet little baby blanket (not for me). At first, I thought the noise was coming from the TV (when you knit and watch TV, it's more like listening to a radio program b/c your attention focuses on the task at hand. Most TV shows now don't require a visual component anyway, particularly not ER or Law & Order where the dialogue usually just supplements the action for those viewers who may be really, really dumb or toddlers.

Example from last night's Grey's Anatomy: "So you're saying you don't want to have the double mascetomy because you feel guilty about being mad that if you hadn't been breast-feeding, you wouldn't noticed the lump in your breast?" Mom: "Yes! Yes!" (a nod would've been fine, but a nod might be too subtle.

Example from any episode of Law & Order: "I get it. You were angry. You took the knife and stabbed your wife's boyfriend in a jealous rage and then planted the knife in your wife's purse and then faked your own stabbing in hopes of framing her for both crimes, right?" Perpetrator: "Yes! Yes!").

Anyway, after looking up from my knitting, I realized that the yelling was coming from outside. I poked my head out and saw a bunch of identically dressed dudes on the corner, challenging each other in some kind of fight or precursor to a fight. "Yo, dude, do it! Hit him! Hit him!" I had my glasses on which reduces my vision by about 50%, but it didn't look like anyone was actually punching, but lots of guys were shouting back and forth so it seemed imminent. I dialed 911 and gave the operator the wrong street name (said Tulip instead of Memphis), but in about one minute, two cop cars whizzed by. I was very impressed with their speedy response until I heard one neighbor lady who had her head stuck out the second story window say, "Yeah, I called the police like fifteen minutes ago when I heard all that bullshit start up." Haley's mom also had her head out the window. (By the way, Haley's parents decorated the front of their house with all of this Halloween crap, but it's not the typical stuff (scarecrows, jack-o-lanters); it's really scary and ghoulish like with this big black witchy monster that moves and lights up and has red eyes that glow at you. That must be fun for Haley). All the neighbors had their heads out the window or "winder" as it's called in Fishtown. The crowd dispersed. I went back inside knowing that if I were ever called to be a witness, I would be destroyed on the stand. "Isn't it true that with your glasses on, you can't see more than four feet in front of you and everything else is fuzzy and out of focus and so therefore, you couldn't really tell if it was a fight or maybe if they were just street dancing?" "Yes! Yes!"