Satan, Thy Name is Summerfest

June 7th, 2004

Summerfest is a street festival. A chunk of Virginia Avenue is blocked off to traffic, parking spaces are clogged for three square miles, and people saunter around in the sun doing whatever it is that people do.

But Summerfest to the residents of Virginia-Highlands, my neighborhood, is something else. It’s a weekend-long party. It is, in short, hell for a little toy robot: guys with white baseball caps drinking beer out of paper cups, furniture dragged out to front lawns to form impromptu patios, and seismic cheers erupting from scattered pockets of drunks at irregular intervals.

It meant I had to park a mile from my apartment all weekend, I had to reschedule a visit from the cable repair man, and the entry to my building was clogged by two lonely, large women sitting on my steps crushing cigarette butts into my yard and looking for a hookup.

This is not the ideal environment for a little toy robot to flourish. Don’t get me wrong; I like to drink a beer out of a paper cup every once in a while myself. But I needed the party to end, the street to settle into silence, so I could get back to standing guard on my roof with superhero vigilance looking for injustice to quash with my mighty fist of injustice-quashing vengeance!

4 Responses to “Satan, Thy Name is Summerfest”

  1. Lady Crumpet Says:

    I suppose street festivals are a good idea so long as they aren’t in your own neighborhood. But honestly, do they ever offer anything worth the hassle, the aggravation, the littering, the drunks?

    The trials of living in an happenin’ ‘hood.

  2. carol o Says:

    You know, I totally forgot Summerfest was even happening this weekend? The joys of living on the very edge of a happening ‘hood, I suppose…

  3. ltr Says:

    That’s it, I’m moving to Tucker!!!

  4. carol o Says:

    Outside the perimeter?? Let’s not do anything too drastic…