funny yet true story about the older reclusive couple in the dark orange, more accurately "burnt sienna" victorian across the road you may or may not be able to see from the head-on photos above:

i've been getting occasional mail of theirs misdelivered to me since I moved into my place. like state farm, i try to be a good neighbor and walk their damn mail over to them.

within the last year sometime, i get a registered-fucking mail notice that I have to go sign for at the cambridge post office and figuring it's of some importance i pick the fucking thing up, sign for it with my license and whatnot.

turns out the goddamn thing is from "Gexxx world headquarters" chastising me for potentially stealing their mail with a list of dates exactly matching when i returned their goddamn postage.

the story with these people is the guy used to be on the math dept. faculty at mit, and evidently sold some idea 2 decades ago and has been living somewhat cut off from humanity since and have reached their mid-70's.

one morning, the guy's backing out of his driveway and his brakes fail. instead of thinking "maybe I should take my foot of the accelerator that's in reverse, i seem to be unable to stop and turn onto the street" the guy casually never de-accelerates and ends up crashed into a tree on the house next to me some 200 yards later. math people are weird, i think he was banking that some instantly-figured vector of speed and angle would bring him to a stop sooner. but he ended up with his car in a tree at 745am with tire tracks all over my next-door neighbor's lawn, denying all responsibility for this bizarre stunt. comedy bearded gold.