A needle in a stack of tall grass

Sunday afternoon, I was walking alongside the sidewalk in my front yard on Gosnold Avenue, cleaning up the week's accumulation of trash: Cheeseburger wrappers, discarded cigarette cartons, one well-used diaper, candy wrappers and beer bottles. And as I stooped over to pick up a small piece of unidentifiable trash in the tall grass, I saw something I've never seen before: A hypodermic needle.

I carefully picked it up and showed it to my husband. His response: "I guess some poor diabetic didn't have time to properly dispose of his needle so he tossed it in our yard."

I was not amused.

The needle itself was bent over and the gradations on the side of the syringe were almost faded to obscurity. I surmise that it had been used many times. This morning, I called the police and they were kind and sympathetic, but unimpressed. Not much they could do about it. I understood, kind of, but was still disappointed.

The cop explained that druggies like to hold onto their needles and only toss them when they no longer function correctly. The bend in the needle could have been the reason it was tossed. He also said that sometimes the druggies will throw them out the window when they're afraid of being caught by the cops (as in, when being chased).

I now know more than I ever wanted to know about the habits of druggies.

I'm very unhappy that a needle was tossed into the front yard of my supposedly respectable suburban neighborhood. Heaven knows, we certainly paid enough for this house that we should not be subject to druggies throwing their used hypodermics into our front yard. In fact, we paid well north of $300,000 for this two-story, center-hallway Colonial. I mention that, not as a point of pride, but as a point of context. It boggles my mind that decent-but-not-extraordinary 80-year-old center-hallway Colonial homes in average suburban neighborhoods are fetching more than $300,000.

In 1979, I paid $24,000 for a two-bedroom cinder-block, formerly-a-two-car-garage home in neat and tidy Westhaven/Grove Park (Portsmouth). In 1981, we moved up to a $31,500 three-bedroom, 1250 square-foot cape cod with a view of the river. That may have been my all-time favorite house. It was on a dead-end street and if a strange car ended up on OUR road, we all ran to our windows to see who was entering our sacred and private space.

But now it's 2009 and modest two-story center-hallway Colonials fetch $300,000 and up and it blows my $31,500-nice-house-on-a-dead-end mind.

And even with that handsome, more-than $300,000 price tag, you still are faced with the unpleasant task of walking your yard once a week and picking up other people's filthy trash and disgusting debris and if that's not insult enough (and trust me, it is), sometimes you have to pick up their discarded heroin needles and call the cops.

On March 31, 2007 my 2003 Camry was broken into and all its contents were hastily dumped on the floor. I wept from despair and frustration. My husband told me, "This is life in the big city." The second time my 2003 Camry was broken into (in the back yard), he told me, "This is just life in the big city." The first time a man paused at our side yard to relieve himself on the tree, my husband told me, "Well, there are worse things that could happen." The second time an old drunk stumbled up to our tree to relieve himself, my husband said, "He's obviously intoxicated."

I understand that I must pick up filthy trash if I want to keep my yard nice. I understand that I must tolerate abhorrent behavior on occasion in this highly urban setting, with so many people crammed into such a small space. But I will never understand or accept that every now and then, some drug addict will choose to throw his discarded needles into my beautiful yard.

Soon, there'll be a time when I'm able to move out of The Big City and into a "Gentleman's Farm," far, far away from the maddening crowd.

I'm looking forward to moving from The Big City to My Small Farm. My day is coming.