What the hell is wrong with people?

I should know better, but it always astonishes me the lengths that people will go to blame others for the consequences of their own behavior. Take our Drug Lord “friends” (please!)

Tonight I ran into one of the locals that have been very friendly to us in our new hometown. (Not the one that tipped me off to the drug activity upstairs) She is the manager of the local Big-Name Pizza franchise and told me that she hired the female druggie as a delivery person. Since the druggie had no idea that we were friends with her new boss, she started to complain about her situation.

What she had to say was very interesting.

According to her, “those downstairs assholes” are the cause of all her problems. She tells a fantastic story about how we “broke something at the house” and blamed her and that is why she was being evicted. She is also mad at us because our “constant plotting” has made her husband leave her. We also have robbed her of her beauty rest by letting our “bunch of little brats scream at all hours of the night”. (We have 1 4-year-old who is very quiet as 4-year-olds go) Of course, our friend knows better.

Here is a complete list of “provocative” actions we have taken:

• We called the landlord to get him to clarify the parking system on the property only after trying to resolve it ourselves. I guess “one spot for each apartment” was too draconian or hard to understand.
• We called the trash company and told them that we were not going to pay to have the Drug Lords’ trash hauled away. Horrors! What an asshole I must be!
• We called the landlord to alert him that drug trafficking was happening on his property.
• When that had no effect, we called the local police.

Now, here is a list of Drug Lord offenses I know about:

• Have not paid rent since moving in.
• Have piled up trash, first in front of the house, then in back, because they refuse to pay the trash company to haul it away.
• Are actively dealing drugs on the premises.
• Have caused problems for the landlord with the neighboring businesses by parking heaps on their properties.
• Have knowingly used the legal system to their advantage to the point of laughing at the landlord in the court parking lot.
• Have generated at least 2 fines from the Fire Marshall.
• Lied to a Judge.

There are certainly more to add to this list. At least the great amount of damage to the apartment that must be happening based solely on the loud crashing noises we hear around the clock.

Now it seems so clear to me, I never realized how awful I have been. I guess I should apologize to them for being such an asshole. I mean I somehow forced them to deal drugs from the house and live like fraking barbarians. I am sure that the lack of rent payments was a simple oversight, and they never meant to laugh at the landlord or lie to the Judge.

In all seriousness, what the hell have we as a nation become? This is not an uncommon story, it happens all the time. People make choices and when those choices (predictably in this case) go bad, they make up stories to shift the blame to others. Everyone is a victim; all the bad things that happen to them are someone else’s fault. No matter how hard they try, they can never get ahead because someone will always beat them down.

What is worse in this individual’s case is that she actually believes that I am the root of all of her problems. She will undoubtedly move on and start over, make the same mistakes because she does not associate her bad fortune with her own choices and will again be hauled into court and maybe into jail.

I have no idea what to do about this. I don’t even really understand why I have the old fashioned values of self-reliance, courtesy, respect and responsibility that most of my peers’ lack. This really troubles me.

Update: In the comments, Trouble gets me thinkin' and I come up with a link between morons like the Drug Lords and radical Islam.