Upon meeting my servee I was struck at how normal and yet strange she seemed. She didn't seem to be aware of the crazy amount of security that surrounded her community. She had forgotten to call me in, somehow being under the delusion that I could either A) stroll right in to her oppressive mini-state or B) leave them with a guard (a ploy that had worked so well the last time.) Even stranger was that she was under the impression that I knew these rules, as if we all lived in Canyon Lake-like areas.
When I drove up the first thing I noticed was that there was this little three year-old boy playing out in the driveway, right near the street.
This struck me as strange firstly because my neurotic suburbanite meter is set a few clicks above the normal suburbanite. If I see someone walking out late at night they must be up to dastardly deeds, it's not because they like the night air or that they're a night owl or that they're a creative writing major trying to organize their thoughts for their novel. No, it's because they've just committed murder.
Secondly, I thought it was strange because his mother wasn't watching him. Or at least, she can't have been very carefully. I understand that there has to be a point where the umbilical cord needs to be cut, but this boy was the very definition of toddler and he was on the divide between his driveway and the street. I'm a reasonably careful driver, but if I were any worse or if I had just been texted and stupidly answered the phone and that boy had fallen....
Thirdly, I thought it was strange because the second I got out of the car the boy looked up at me with the strangest face. It was a mixture or fear and curiosity. Like he had never seen anyone get out of their car in front of his house that wasn't his father. It was almost like there was a realization that there was a world outside of Canyon Lake.
The mother came down, she was very much the modern woman, the forty-ish work-at-home mom with a toddler. She was very gracious in accepting the documents, and I think had I been anyone else she may have invited me in. And again I got the impression that she had no idea what a strange community she was living in.
Maybe that's what Canyon Lake is. It's Stepford. It's a place where the troubles of the world are checked at the gate with the Winkie guards. It's a place where you don't have to worry about letting your child play too close to the street because everyone drives a very attentive twenty-five miles per hour.
But I do believe there's a price you pay for that. You lose your perspective on things and you become not unlike a character in Alice in Wonderland, completely separated from the world. I can't help but wonder what will happen now that the world has found them in the form of a pair of rather thick documents.
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