Just Say Nay To Neighbors

Next door to me lived a lovely retired couple.

She was in charge of groceries and gardening while he cut the grass and swept the driveway.

I loved them because they never engaged me in anything more taxing than a smile or hello. One day, they waved goodbye on their way to retiring to a condo.

The person who bought the house decided to turn it into a rental property.

A group of people of assorted shapes and sizes moved in. Their first act was to cover the front of the house with satellite dishes.

Then they began to use the grass median between our two driveways as a turning lane for their used car collection.

One particularly rainy day, I came home to find mud spattered all over the side of my house and deep tire ruts in the grass.

Rather than engage in direct warfare, I divided the grassy knoll by putting a fence down the middle.

Just when they were getting the hang of using just their driveway, they moved. Satellite dishes and all.

The next group to move in was a family of four. He drove a big truck and
was rarely home. She did more laundry than was possible for a family of four to have and hung it all out in the backyard to dry.

The back yard looked like an ad for a white sale that was never going to end. Rows and rows of sheets and the like. I come from a large family and we did not have this much laundry.

They had two small children. I’d occasionally see them over the fence playing in their backyard while I sat out on my deck. Thing 1, a girl, seemed shy and simply stared. Thing 2, the more outgoing boy, would jump up and down waving his arms yelling Hey Mister Hey Mister Hey Mister Hey Mister until I acknowledged him. Then he’d start yelling Hi Hi Hi Hi until I went back in the house or threw something at him.

One day, the white sale finally ended and they were gone.

My assessment of this latest group has been more meandering. It seems as though the main adult would be a very blonde former pole dancer who is still on the bottle. (Of peroxide)

A guy who looks like he might be a handyman who pulls up every now and then in a pick up truck and spends quality time deep tongue kissing her on the driveway, in the front window and sometimes in the back yard. She seems friendly.

There are occasionally two younger women who are exceedingly pleasant and always say hi. I say hi back.

There are also occasionally about five or six young men throwing a football or punches at each other in the back yard. A few weeks ago, they were having bare knuckle boxing matches and cheering each other on very quietly. I think they’re taking that first rule of Fight Club too literally.

I’m pretty sure either I’m on some sort of Truman Show reality thing or there's one being filmed all around me.

This post was a result of reading Berry's post on her neighbors. While she seems to have become something of an expert on taking out the trash, I just like to rush to judgement and comment on it.