Box of Clothes

I've been walking in my neighborhood lately. I actually live in a very suburby section of the Valley and, let me tell ya, I'm just a middle class white girl at heart. I wanted to be fabu and glam and edgy and urban, but I'm not. I'm getting to the age where I can embrace my boring, Wonder Bread-ness. This is me, and it's OK. So, I'm completely comfortable telling you that I've been enjoying my Soccer Mom morning walks in my little hamlet where Porches are parked outside houses that look surprisingly like my grandfather's house on Candy Lane. However, do not doubt that just because I'm living in my comfort zone my imagination isn't still finding murder and mayhem around every corner. In my mind it's all a little Desperate Housewives: Season One. Case in point: The house with the mysterious box of clothes in front of it.

I started doing this walk about two, possibly three, weeks ago. I start off on my street, take a right, and end up on a private road. And there, smack in the middle of this private road, is a house with a very big fence around it. The fence is half concrete and half wood. But the wood is not slated like a picket fence, rather its placed horizontally, one on top of the other like a layer cake with nary a space to peek through. I'm assuming that the double doors that gate off the driveway -- also made of wood and also manufactured so that you can't see beyond it -- work on some sort of automated system. If the fortress-like fencing wasn't enough to keep prying eyes out then the big sign that says, CAUTION: DOGS ON PREMISES probably would. Whether these are German attack dogs or Bichon Frise, I'll never know. But it's all very secretive and intimidating and very, very curious. I probably wouldn't have thought twice about this house if it hadn't been for the box of clothes that has been sitting just outside the gate since the very first walk.

At first, I thought it was a homeless person that had curled up and fallen asleep there as some of the clothes were strewn about a bit. But as I advanced, I realized that it was just heaps of clothing. And this made me think, "I wonder what he did?" Because, really, it looked like some Woman Scorned got good and pissed, and went willy-nilly through the house dumping men's clothing into a box then punt kicked it outside the front gate before calling the locksmith. The box and the clothes stayed in this haphazard disarray for a couple of days before the the clothes were once again gathered up and dumped into the box. Two -- possibly three -- weeks later, the box of clothes is still there. The box is beginning to break down a bit, and the clothes look a little sodden. But no one has come to claim them. And no one has thought to throw them out. "Curiouser and curiouser!" Cried Alice.

I want to knock on this person's door. I want to ask him/her what happened. Was it a lover's quarrel? Did he sleep with the nanny? Did he lie on his tax forms and now the IRS is threatening to take the wooden gates and Bichon Frise and all? What is the secret of the box? Nosey neighbors want to know!

Of course, the answer is probably something ridiculous like they had a tag sale and these were the items that didn't sell. Or a friend was supposed to pick up the box on a random Tuesday morning when the owners were at work and never got around to it. Or maybe the clothes are free, but the idiot in the house didn't bother to post a sign. Don't know. And I will probably never know. But one thing is for certain, I'm grateful for the box of clothes. It gives me something to think about on those Soccer Mom morning walks.