You dont know Jack!

Literally in my case.

So its been about two and a half years since we've been here in the new place in the borough that thinks its so tough that its got to be called Scar-borough. The toughness of Scarborough, the place where no one smiles well thats another blog in itself but lets just say in my opinion I'm completely surrounded by Plexi-glass thugs. (yo I need to copyright that term.)

Anyway where was I, oh yea, two and a half years living in the burbs. Yea dont get it twisted , the folks on the street in Scarborough may mean mug but this place is definetly the burbs. Ok maybe a bit of an edge every now and then to the burbs here but its burbs nevertheless.

Man, I'm still not a burbs guy, too much quiet makes me a bit uneasy like a calm before the storm. I'm always waiting for something crazy to jump off cause I think that the burbs lulls you into a false sense of security and then you're unprepared when the ruckus comes through.

Still my hood is pretty quiet and nice too I must say. My neighbors are very diverse and for the most part most of them are pretty cool. I kind of keep pretty much to myself still. Thats just my usual m.o. I do the pleasantries but its not like I'm stopping by to borrow a cup of sugar or gossip or anything. If I see you then I see you and wont be rude but thats about it. Most I've gotten into is conversations about the annoying raccoons or about lawns and gardens. Oh yea and now that we have a baby thats always a source of conversation too.

But onto Jack. Who's Jack? No not Jack Bauer. Jack's one of my neighbors a few doors down or so I thought.

Jack's a pretty cool guy. We say hi whenever we see each other and we may go over to each other and start a conversation. You know neighborly stuff. One year I was out raking the gazillion leaves that blow off the other side of the street onto my lawn and he even lent me his leaf blower. Pretty cool guy. Think he's got a snow blower too. Hmmm maybe I should get to know him better.

Anyway all that preamble to get to the meat of the story. Yesterday I'm out watering the garden (its all about putting my stamp on the flower beds this year) and Jack was out mowing. So he comes over and we get into a conversation. Its going pretty well and he's talking about work and stuff when he makes a comment referring to himself in the third person like 'they say Jack blah blah blah'. Only problem is, wait a second, did I hear correctly he didnt call himself Jack. He referred to himself by another name.

So now I'm standing there like ummm is that his middle name or something? Hmmm. I didnt ask any questions but I'm thinking oh oh I may have been calling this guy by the wrong name for the last two and a half years and wait a minute if he isnt Jack then who the hell is?

Still I play it off as we chat even though I find it a slight bit disturbing and meanwhile my brain is working furiously trying to decipher this event.

Conversation ends I go back inside still trying to figure it out. So my wife smart person that she is actually wrote down all the neighbor's names when we first moved in, mind you she thinks he's Jack too. Anyway she looks it up and what do you know his name isnt Jack after all.

Somehow for two and a half years we've both been calling this cat Jack and thats not his name? And he never said anything about it?

Hmmm well maybe he thinks that Jack is like a cool black term for friend or something. Or maybe he just thinks I'm an idiot (which is true). Whatever it is the whole episode thought me that I really didn't know Jack.

Now if I can only figure out where I got the name Jack from in the first place?