Filipendulous- suspended by a thread
Ex: If you are a suburban homeowner, you may be familiar with the saying, “There goes the neighborhood!”. While this saying is commonly applied as a racist proclamation of the neighborhood’s decreasing value as a result of increased diversity amongst its residents, I argue that there are other, less problematic instances in which it may be employed. The following is a list of neighborhood occurrences which may result in your mental health declining to a filipendulous state, one that is hanging on for dear life by a thin piece of thread, and may just make you yell, “THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD!”
The Mailman Has Crohn’s Disease: How are you meant to live comfortably in your own home when on any given weekday between the hours of 11AM and 3PM, a mailman may pound on your door and demand to use your restroom because he has IBS and explosive diarrhea and its either your bathroom or the USPS van that will bear the brunt of his ass magma.
A Dickhead With An Industrial Smoker Just Moved In Next Door: This would have been great, life-changing even, if only he wasn’t a total douche. You could have been yucking it up, sipping ice-cold beers on his deck while he slices into a 14-hour brisket and asks you, “how’s that for a smoke ring?”. Instead, you just smell meat-- mouth-watering meat-- all-day, every-day, but he’ll never let you have any, and you’ll never even attempt to taste any, because the dude just flat-out sucks.
The Middle School Boy Posse Just Hit Their BMX Phase: You’re taking your ratty Shih Tzu on a long walk to break apart the monotony of your work from home schedule. Next thing you know, you’re enveloped by a swarm of hormonal locusts fueled by Monster Energy Drinks and the life-giving, yet delusional belief that one of them may just bag Sydney Sweeney. The hollering gets louder as they draw near, “Skibidi heard chu bro!”, “Type shit, twin!”, “Look at this fucking fogey walking his dog!”. The neighborhood is in shambles.
Your Last Ball Just Got Kicked Into The Neighborhood Witch’s Yard:
“You get it!”
“No, you get it!”
“Me? No way in hell am I getting it!”
“I heard the last kid to go over there got chopped up into little pieces and baked into a tuna casserole!”
“And the kid before that had to freeze the warts off of her feet before she let him go! My cousin said he saw him running out of her front door looking as pale as a ghost!”
“And the kid before that got chained up to a radiator and forced to listen to Jack Harlow’s “Vanilla Baby” on repeat until he lost his mind!”
“Which is exactly why neither of us can go over there!”
And so the ball was never recovered from the witch’s yard. And the boys never bothered to go to Dick’s Sporting Goods to get another one. And their days of ball playing faded. And their neighborhood became a cold and lonely island in the resource rich archipelago of suburbia. And their schoolyears were Neosporin in the hands of a hypochondriac-- gone too fast.