fight!

I am smitten with a pressure cooker. Dinnertime is a nightly experiment in how many things I can put into the pressure cooker. Ribs. Pot roast. Sausages. BBQ chicken. Last night I made ham hocks and beans, and decided that they needed cheese biscuits to go with them. I've never put cheese in biscuits, so I sought out Paula Deen to tell me how to make delicious (hopefully non-racist) breadstuff. Paula Deen just puts cheese in biscuit mix, as it turns out. I did not have biscuit mix, and I wasn't sure if waffle mix was an acceptable substitute, so I just made regular cream biscuits and put cheese in them. Felt like a genius as I pulled them out of the toaster oven, hot and golden and cheesy.

At just that moment, things went apeshit. People were screaming, doors were slamming, and we ran to the windows to watch three of our neighbors tumble out into the parking lot, yelling and kicking and punching at each other while a woman with no pants on cussed at them in operatic volume. A man shaped like an inflatable pool shark in a t-shirt started dancing around on his toes, "One on one! Come on, one on one!" His opponent threw a golf club at him. They ran to opposite sides of a truck, reaching into the bed to throw things at each other. An empty tool box. An aluminum baseball bat. A putter. Pool shark grabbed a shovel and chased the other men in circles. He threw the shovel down, started dancing on his toes again, and one of the other men picked it up and put it back in the truck while the big guy took fake swings at him. By this time everyone on the block was at their door with 911 on the phone - including us. I stood at the screen door and took video with my phone. When the sirens started blaring, the men all leaned casually on the truck and waited for them, while the woman ran to put pants on. A cruiser pulled up and an officer leaned out. "Was somebody fighting over here?" "NO. FUCK YOU." Very convincing. 5 cop cars stuffed into the lot. As soon as there were badges between them, they all started screaming at each other again, feinting forward as if the cops were restraining them. Girlfriend ran across the street and took up her screaming from a safe distance. The cops ignored her, but she almost got hit by a bus while trotting backwards into the street.

Then I remembered my cheese biscuits. Which were now cold. UNACCEPTABLE. I chased everyone to the table and made them eat, eyes straying to the windows.

And so it was that my biscuits were upstaged by hambeasts with garden tools on a Tuesday night. My nosy footage is on its way to the court house with the fed-up father of one of the brawlers. Will be locking the doors tonight.