Shiny Happy People

So, I heard some loud fighting outside, between two families in the next building just now. They’ve fought once before, noisily and bitterly. House 1 has this old couple, the grandparents, their young-ish son and daughter-in-law and two small kids. The other house has an old couple and their young son, who’s long been divorced.

They were arguing loudly enough for me to be able to hear them from my room, where I am right now, working. It’s hard for me to translate this well into English but, at one point, the wife from House 1 screeched accusingly that theirs is a full and happy house. At once, the insinuation was that the other house is a sad, empty place because the chap is divorced and has no wife and/or kids.

Wow! I’m feeling a bit shell-shocked at the statement, especially because it also made me wonder what she’d say if I ever got into a fight with this woman. She’d rip into me, I’m sure, because, unlike that chap, who lives with his parents, I live all alone in a house that’s clearly too big for one person. What’s worse, unlike that poor blighter, I'm not even married! Man, she’ll make a meal of me, I’m sure.

What’s with people! Really.