When our children were young -- not infants, but in their teens by then - there was a television program that we would all gather around to watch, anxious not to miss one single episode of a series that utterly fascinated us, as entertainment and a send-up of human nature although the creatures used as proxies looked nothing like humans. Fraggle Rock was a treat for us, one that made us laugh and feel good about everything. The characters were priceless, and their predicaments amusing beyond imagination, just as much as their solutions.

This isn't about Fraggle Rock, actually, it's about a family, or more particularly a woman whom I became familiar with just after we'd moved to our-then new house, and we were still in the workforce. So, bear with me, because it's an interesting look at human nature. No one, I imagine, would argue that humans are not complex creatures, motivated by many things in their past experience and their future aspirations, along with inherently-bred characteristics.

The woman to whom I make such allusion was younger than me by several decades; an earlier generation, and she was then in her mid-30s, mother of an emerging teen, married to a second husband, step-father to her son, and they lived directly across from us on this street of new homes. We gradually began to recognize and become familiar with our neighbours, but they eluded contact, keeping to themselves. Until one day I saw them walking together, husband and wife, up the street. Walking in the opposite direction, I greeted them, and they responded.

After that first tentative contact I used to, on occasion, speak with her. Increasingly so as I retired, and then she did as well. I imagine that they had opted to remain distant from their neighbours save for those living directly beside them with whom they would exchange light and casual bare acknowledgements because she felt herself to be an object of derision. And this is where Fraggle Rock comes in because the woman of whom I speak resembles one of its characters.

liftingfaces.com -- Marjorie the Trash Heap

Let me explain: this couple keeps abreast of all the latest trends, particularly in food and its preparation. They consider themselves gourmet cooks, and occasionally indulge in intricate preparations of elaborate dishes. Yet at least twice a week there are fast-food deliveries to their house. Which isn't too remarkable in and of itself, but for the fact that my friend's size is such that she is incapable of walking the distance from her home to the group mailbox.

When he was in high school her son's size intimidated the other boys who both feared and tormented him. In adulthood he grew into his size having learned not to lash back physically, unfamiliar with his own strength, able to pulverize a slighter boy for his insolent provocation, and himself serving the penalty for so doing.

His mother always doted on him and nothing she could do for him was enough; like shovelling money at  him when he was unemployed, enabling him to live extremely well, even without a steady income resulting from his own labours. He could always find employment; he had difficulties keeping a job. He was a skilled IT worker cursed with the inability to get along with others in the workplace. Understandably.

His step-father and mother had both worked for a software industry giant. But this is about the woman of the house whose son has long left for independence, living in  his own home, courtesy of his mother. Their own is a two-story-house, and it's hard to imagine this woman being capable of hauling herself up a set of stairs. She can barely haul herself up the two broad steps leading to her front porch. She is beyond corpulent, utterly, morbidly obese, perfectly rotund.

She is a pretty woman, with nice, regular facial features and once-blond hair. She has a friendly, attractive manner to those she becomes familiar with, which includes my own next-door neighbour. She has a sharp intelligence and considers herself an adept student of human nature. She is a cat lover and devotes much attention to her three cats, permitting two of them to wander the neighbourhood while the third is permitted outside only on a tie-leash.

Her aesthetic taste is impeccable. Her home carefully decorated and furnished with distinction and flair. Needless to say, she is limited in what she is able to wear, since it is difficult to find ready-made garments useful for something of her immense girth. She stands about five feet, two inches in height, and her weight, one might venture to guess, hovers slightly above three hundred pounds. Her husband is devoted to her and often in the mild months when she sits outside on her porch, brings her cups of tea.

Needless to say, she is extremely sensitive to offhand remarks that might hint on the improvidence of people not attending to their health through unwise lifestyle choices. She has been prescribed anti-depressant medication. She will not permit photographs of herself to be taken, even while she makes casual use of digital cameras to capture the images of others. Because of her immense size it is quite possible for her to appear on occasion as slovenly.

One might go to many lengths not to enter her home. Years ago, when her son brought home a young woman he had met who had at the time been homeless and whom he had taken into his own house to live with him, she informed me that the young woman's family had lived on welfare for generations. It was the best thing that could ever have happened to her, she said, that her son had given her haven. She herself was busy, she said, 'teaching' the young woman how to peform household tasks.

Starting with instructing her to clean out her boyfriend's mother's own house on a regular basis, on week-ends. The young woman had succeeded in finding a service job and week-ends were when she was available. Obviously, my neighbour felt she was being charitable, and 'doing the right thing' by 'training' the woman her son was living with, by having her work for her as a char. One treats such confidences with uncertain respect.

Her husband is still working when he can get contract jobs, his employment with their past employer having been down-sized, as popular vernacular would have it. They have no financial problems, as there was a sizeable inheritance she came into possession of about ten years ago, and even before then they were fairly high earners and had doubtless banked well. But she is resistant to hiring a professional house-cleaner, unwilling to pay for the task of maintaining a hygienic household.

The result of that is a well-appointed house full of expensive furniture, crystal stemware and porcelain dinnerware, all layered in the effluent of living sans scrupulous and necessary regular cleaning. There is a heavily nauseating, musty odour that emanates from the interior. Feline messes that never seem to be cleaned up leave their own distastefully wretched and lingering foul odours.

Little wonder that when I view her and think of her, what leaps to mind is that long-ago fascination with that Fraggle Rock character, Marjorie the Trash Heap.

Marjory and her sidekicks Philo (pink), and Gunge (gray) -- MuppetWiki