Tales from the 'Hood, Vol. 186

We made plans to occupy our whole weekend, so we were sure we'd be able to avoid the weekly visit from the police or episode of domestic violence. Unfortunately, fate found us only moments before we walked out the door on our way to Don and Joan's:

As I put shoes on all six little feet (right in front of our door), I heard a frantic pounding. I looked out the peephole to see our neighbor, Adria (14years old) cowering by our door and sobbing. I let her in and she immediately ran into our bathroom, choking out "Don't let her beat me anymore!" I asked her to calm down and tell me what was going on, and she said her mom was beating her. Nicole (her mom) knocked on our door and Adria started sobbing again, whispering "Don't tell her I'm here!" Adam explained to Adria that we couldn't hide her in our apartment without criminal penalty, so he let Nicole in.

At this point, Adria was calling her grandma on our phone (we said she could), and Nicole took the phone from her hand and commanded her to "hang up that (expletive) phone and get your (expletive)-ing (expletive) outside this minute!" Adria screamed back, insisting she wouldn't leave our house without police presence, so Nicole and Adria stood in our entry way screaming four letter words at each other, wrestling and struggling in front of our kids (and Nicole's other two kids who are 10 and 3 years old) for about five minutes while Adam and I stood next to them in utter disbelief and shock.

Finally, the drama had gone far enough, so Adam told them it had to stop. I said we couldn't have that happening in front of our kids, so Nicole apologized and asked (aksed...ha ha ha, just kidding) Adam to please tell Adria to leave our apartment. Adria didn't look like she was wounded, but we didn't know for sure because she has really dark skin. I wasn't sure what to do, so Adam offered to call the police and told Adria she could wait by our door until they came. Adria finally went outside, where Nicole was waiting (right in front of our door) to rail on her for disrespecting our house and embarrassing her mom in front of neighbors, using the f-word more frequently than any gangsta rapper I can think of.

It was quite the spectacle, and a very, very awkward situation. I never imagined we'd get to witness the infamous Arbors-at-Georgetown-Ghetto-Action right in the comfort of our own living room! Needless to say, our poor kids were utterly traumatized (I was, too). Only six days left...hooray!