~Alone?

I hear that a lot. People saying that they're alone. I want to slap the shit out of them. Of course I can't do it for real, because these days, the only contact I have with people is via phone or Internet.

If I died, because of my best friend, who lives in another State, it'd be about 2 or 3 days before they'd break the door down. She'd probably worry after a day, but really worry after two, get in touch with the friend I have nearby (I only talk with her once a month, at the most), and then my friend nearby would deal with gaining access. Without those 2, it'd probably be more like a couple of weeks. My brother would start wondering why I hadn't been online, and get past the point of being insecure and thinking I didn't want to talk to him, after a week or 2. Too, my shrink would wonder why I didn't make my appointment, I suppose.

I don't know, it could be as little as 2 or 3 days, I'd say a week tops. It is good to have someone who cares enough to check on you when you go silent for too long. I do appreciate that caring, no matter how "alone" I feel.

So, to a degree, I'm alone. Alone enough to want to smack the shit out of those "I know that I have a family, but I feel so alone" people, enough to rip the intestines out of the mouths of those assholes who feel that their kids don't count as people, and enough to rip the heads off of those whiney little shits that think "alone" means not having a boyfriend or girlfriend. People think nothing of thier familes, friends, coworkers, or classmates. Then there are the ones with the "I'm surrounded by people, but I feel so alone!" folk. I wish all those people they're surrounded by would give them a kick or two. Those people need to learn a new word. "Alone" doesn't cut it.

I'm alone... but not that alone. The 'a week so before having the door busted in' alone is nothing. This is alone:


Police sealed off a unit in the Yorktown Village Condominiums in Warminster after its new owner discovered a body inside.

Robert Barnett died in much the same way he lived - all alone.

A man who bought Barnett's Warminster house at a recent sheriff's auction found the former owner's corpse when he entered the property for the first time Saturday morning.

The badly decomposed body was on the living room floor of the Yorktown Village condominium unit. An enormous pile of mail sat beneath a slot in the front door.

Authorities said Barnett, who would have been 49 in July, probably died three years ago. Bucks County medical examiners identified the body in an autopsy yesterday.

Police said there were no signs of foul play and the door of the house had been locked.

"It's a sad statement I suppose," Warminster police Chief James Gorczynski said. "But from everybody we've talked to, the gentleman was a loner and didn't have much contact with the outside world."

Neighbors at the condo complex off York Road described Barnett as a recluse who kept his shades drawn tight and rarely left the home. Police had been there several times before October 1998 to check on his well-being at the request of family members.

In October 1998, police returned to the house after a neighbor complained of a foul smell and said Barnett hadn't been seen for a long time. But when officers got to the scene they didn't smell anything, Gorczynski said.

He said the officers looked through a mail slot in the front door and didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. A mailbox outside had two days' worth of mail in it, the chief said.

Police returned at least once more, in January 1999, when a family lawyer asked them to contact Barnett to let him know his grandmother had recently died.

Gorczynski said an officer tacked a note to the front door after there was no answer.

"He had a habit of not coming to the door," Gorczynski said of Barnett. But, he added, police officers never had enough reason to force their way inside.

Later that year, the block's postal carrier noticed Barnett wasn't picking up his mail and caught a whiff of something pungent coming from the mail slot, according to Warminster Postmaster Dennis Huston. Huston said the carrier told a supervisor, who called police, although the chief said he wasn't aware of such a report.

In any case, the Warminster Post Office kept delivering Barnett's mail even as his tax bills and condo fees went unpaid.

Steve Pullara, a longtime member of the condo association board, lives right behind Barnett's unit. Pullara said Barnett stopped paying his fees more than two years ago.

Condo officials had exhausted "all legal means" trying to track him down, Pullara said. But he said they couldn't enter the unit because the act would violate trespassing laws.

"I'm just glad this is over," Pullara said yesterday. "We've done everything we could to find out what the heck was going on here."

County officials tried to find Barnett, too. After he hadn't paid two year's worth of property taxes - about $400 - the sheriff's office mailed him a notice that his home would be put up for tax sale if he didn't respond.

The notice, sent in April, went unanswered. A sheriff's deputy later visited the home and posted a notice of foreclosure on the door, Bucks County spokesman Ron Watson said.

Robert Milner, a Bristol area resident, won the property at an auction last week. He agreed to pay $18,770 for the condo, including outstanding taxes.

But now the ownership of the home is in doubt. Watson said sheriff's sales aren't final until a judge approves them in December. Barnett's heirs, if there are any, could have a claim to the property, "but Milner certainly has some rights as well," Watson said.

County records show that Barnett bought the house in 1990 and apparently didn't owe anything on it. Milner couldn't be reached for comment.

(Tuesday, November 27, 2001 By ROBERT ARMENGOL (Bucks County) Courier Times)


I think of Mr. Barnett often. (I saved this article for as long as I have because of that.) I only wish that more people had while he was alive. Even if a person is a miserable, cranky human being, they still deserve to be noticed... and cared about.

The grass is always greener... and sometimes, people, it's your grass.