We have some new neighbors, very exciting for me. ComfyTown’s neighborhood is relatively safe, very quiet and you would swear it was abandoned if you looked down our street at any
time of any day, buuut our neighbors are not exactly what one might call
neighborly. They are polite enough if you have good timing, but they are rarely
outside. Ever.
People do come
outside early in the morning to manicure the hell out of their lawns. Our cross
the street neighbor dons full riot gear, including a surgical mask. I’m hoping because
of allergies, but no way I'm going to find out. Our next-door neighbors said to avoid them at all costs. Once you talk to them,
they never leave you alone.
She told me some
stories, one about when The Mask first got his car, he kept asking them what shade of white they thought it was. I didn't even know that was a thing with cars. “Um, is that WHO CARES White?
Or I Don’t Give a Bird-Crap White?”
Something about sterling white vs. eggshell
white, I’m sure my mind wandered off to think about soup, but he was
sure the dealer tricked him, and he wound up taking it BACK. Over the difference in the
shade of white.
The only
exchange we ever had with The Masks (other
than waving and quickly walking away) was because of 2 car accidents. One was with
my niece’s boyfriend. The Mask backed into my niece’s car, parked on the
street. Her boyfriend went out to talk to him after he hit the car, and then
attempted to drive away without leaving a note. When my niece’s boyfriend
chased him and made him stop, he then proceeded to tell him that he parked too far from the curb.
Oh,
okay, then I’m pretty sure the law is you can just RAM any car with your
vehicle and drive away. I think our forefathers wanted to guarantee us that
freedom in the constitution. You b-hole.
The other accident,
he backed into a car while he was pulling out of his driveway, and another car
was backing out of my driveway. A weird neighbor from a few block over whose
bratty children I used to watch. That piece of work is a whole separate post. The accident could have been both of their
faults, or her fault, she always lied about all kinds of stupid things. They
were both backing out and hit in the middle of the street, but of course he
swears up and down it was her fault.
I refused to get
involved, and a pulled a “My name’s Paul, this is between y’all.” The accident
brought THREE police cars, nothing better to do I guess, so I explained to the other
neighbors what was happening. Between the 3 squad cars with flashing lights,
and a hunky police officer named Caliendo, which we called Officer
Caliente, I met more neighbors and got more scoop that day than all the other
days we have lived here combined.
I found out that
next door to The Mask is apparently some pastor that does some sort of service for
his church that requires strangers to continually come to his house, sit in
their cars in front of his house, our house and all over the street with their
engines running until it’s their turn, to have their souls white-washed or whatever
the frick they are doing over there.
The neighbor on
the other side of The Mask, in between shamelessy flirting with Officer Caliente, was
complaining to me about all the cars and strangers coming and going. I already
forget her name, because that’s how I am, but let’s call her Mama June. She is
quite a bit smaller, but it seems like an appropriate name, as in her side yard is a
TRAILER with a window shot out. She explained that the neighbors behind her (on
not a great street) are the ones that shot out the window, then wouldn’t do
anything about it and wound up moving out before they settled it.
 |
Mama June on her wedding day
from PerezHilton.com |
That house behind
hers seems to be a rental. When the Shooter Family moved out, in moved a family
with a large, scary dog that freaks out my kids when we walk past. Neither
family seems to care for yardwork, cleaning, vehicle maintenance or music that
wasn’t “louder than hell.” Quoting June.
The only other
time I have ever even SEEN June was during one of our street’s famous floods.
There is a side street right there, at the corner the sewer constantly fills up
and gets blocked, flooding the entire street. We tried pulling the leaves and
debris out during the last End-of-Times rain, even though it’s in front of our
neighbors house, but it didn’t help.
Anyway, the
street flooded, and the village had bigger fish to fry than to fix it, or even send
Officer Caliente to put construction horses there to block people from driving
through it anyway, and as always, one car eventually got stuck. The person in
the car just SAT IN HIS CAR, for a really long time, not wanting to get out. I
went out to see if the driver was okay, he opened his window, barely spoke
English and basically mimed that he didn’t want to get out of his car. I guess
he didn’t want his pants to get wet, couldn’t tell you, I don’t speak whatever
language he was throwing down.
I held up my
phone, did he want to use it and he nodded “yes” but wouldn’t come out. Then he
just pointed to me, then the phone and rambled on. I called the police, long
story short they said they would come help him. Since I had 2 babies in the
house, I went back in. Mama June at one point came out of her house, went to
the edge of her lawn to TAKE A PICTURE OF THIS GUY IN HIS CAR, then she just
went back in her house. I am not making that up. I totally posted it to my
ComfyTown Facebook page, because it seemed like something you hear about and
think “WHO does that?” My neighbor does that.
Long story short, (TOO LATE) the mime in the
aqua car eventually did have to get out, he did get his pants wet, and the car
was towed.
The few other neighbors
I have met? Some are jerks, some are okay and a couple have some weird quirks, nothing
like driving their garbage down to the curb and beating it with a baseball bat like that movie with Tom Hanks and Princess
Leah.
 |
| The Burbs, great movie. from fanpop.com |
However, that
said, our back door neighbor did disappear quite suddenly. Just like his many
little yappy dogs that kept mysteriously disappearing, he just up and “moved
out” one day, leaving his family behind. Along with the many random loud power
tools he worked on IN HIS BACK YARD all day every day. I have no idea where he
went, the son just said he moved out, but according to a former neighbor he is
a (quoting) “big, stupid drunk who refuses to work” so I am a little curious
what his options were.
I hope he’s all
right or whatever, but I am over the moon
happy not to look at him constantly drinking beer, smoking a stoge and cutting
wood outside every day for “projects.” Now, I am the last person to judge another for day-drinking, I'm a big enthusiast as you may know, but when I met him I was pregnant, so: Jealousy.
If asked, all he would ever tell me about his wood-cutting is he was a "carpenter by trade." As opposed to "by night" I guess. My former next-door neighbor, before she moved, said he hadn’t held down a job in decades, and never even
finished his alleged projects, which seemed to be the only thing he ever worked
at, other than beer and constantly telling me I need to trim my trees that were
growing over in his yard.
He would always
tell me he was just trying to save me money, because if the branches fall and
damage anything in his yard, we would have to replace it. He kept saying trimming
the tree had to be cheaper than that. He also tried to get me to call ComEd, claiming they would trim the branches for free. As you may know, branches have to really be interfering with power lines. So, thanks for all the "advice" but we’ll take our chances, Beery. We’re
gamblers.
Unfortunately when
he left he also left their yappy dogs, the 5th and 6th dogs
they have had, and that is just since we
moved in. We have only lived here for 5 years. When the first and second
disappeared, he asked if I had seen his dogs. I was shocked that I didn’t notice
the lack of barking. He was concerned because they were “expensive” dogs.
 |
| from petsafe.com |
I don’t
know anything about small, loud dogs but you would have to find a deaf buyer
for these things.
Somewhere around
the 3rd or 4th dog that left home for a pack of smokes
and never came back, he mentioned the coyotes
they are always warning us about. I seriously get email alerts and “Breaking News”
emails from our town to Beware of Coyotes, secure garbage cans and pets. I do
see articles in the town newspaper about small pets being eaten by coyotes, which
begs the question, HOW do they know someone’s pet was eating by a coyote?
Did someone see
it? If so, why didn’t they stop it?
Are we paying
for coyote autopsies to examine the stomach content?
Did they get a
signed confession?
Are the coyotes gangs
taking credit like terrorists?
 |
Coyote Gang will F your dog UP, sucka. Step off.
from deviantart.com |
My money says
one of the neighbors got sick of the CONSTANT NEVER-ENDING ALL DAY, EVERY DAY yap-barking and took matters into their own hands. From the few encounters I had with Beery,
I would also bet whoever ‘took care’ of the many yippy dogs also took care of
Spuds McCarpenter. And I would really like to high five that person.
Enough about
that Joker 1.5
When that next door neighbor moved, she and her daughter were replaced by a young guy last year. He’s maybe 24 and has already told me to keep my kids off his lawn. Literally. He lives on the corner, so the teenagers cut through to the side street. He claims they’re “wearing a path through his lawn.” They are not. They are teenagers, they can be loud, play annoying music, and a couple of them are um, let’s just say sketchy-looking.
More than that, I feel like he just doesn’t want anyone getting close to his house, because he is that one neighbor we will eventually be interviewed about.
"No, we had no idea. He was so quiet."
We are watching him, as much as we can from on our lawn of course. His lawn, his rules. He doesn’t really bother us other than that. He goes out of his way to avoid contact, the only time he’s outside is when he’s mowing and he’s wearing earbuds.
On the other side, our next door
neighbors with the daughter are about the least annoying of all. They are
quiet, well the parents are quiet. When they're not running a snowblower, leafblower, or lawnmower. Their
daughter, I call her Taz, has one of those county wide ex-screech-iating voices,
it makes my neighbor on the other side constantly close his window when she’s
outside.
She also has a never-ending enthusiastic, um, vitality that the
government should really be tapping into to solve the Earth’s energy crisis. I
know she could power at least our
block with her constant running, whipping stuff at full speed within inches of our
faces, heads and glass windows, and climbing all over everything. Or she should
at least be in a sport. Or pulling a rickshaw.
The dad does do
sporty things with her when he’s not running his leaf blower to remove every
single stray blade of grass from their property, but between her allergies, all
of the yardwork, and her ability to have immediate issues with any kids anywhere,
she doesn’t do team sports. The Mom explained they try to keep the yard trimmed
because of the girls allergies, but from talking to her, I think she is just a
neat freak. Which is fine, I don’t understand that, but there are certainly
worse habits. Other than a little more discipline, and a lot less germ phobe, we
can’t complain about them.
I feel like we would all get along much better if our houses weren't so damn close together. Our neighborhood's claim to fame is putting houses sideways on the lot, to jam more houses in a small area. I can literally see into each of my neighbors kitchens, one from my kitchen, and so vice versa for them, and the other neighbor? His kitchen window is just a few feet from our bedroom window. I should take a picture, it's like:
"Oh hi, making eggs? Yeah, I'm just changing. Yes, this is a new bra, thanks for noticing, neighbor!"
Mayhaps that is why he hates us. I am the kind of annoying person that forgets about that crap and walks around while changing, with the curtains open. And walks in front of our front door while it's open, and front room windows with the curtains open, etc. It's my own combination of Neighborhood Watch meets Scared Straight, as in
Kids: This is what having babies does to your body. Don't have the sex!
Soo anyway, here’s
hoping for the new neighbors. They moved in 4 houses down, next to the
Yellersons. I don’t really know much about the Yellersons except they are
at least 20 years older than we are, so no kids in the house with them, and they fight, a lot. One day
when we were walking, they were having quite a loud, heated discussion, and by that I mean screaming at each other, including a fun chase out the door and into the car.
Good luck new neighbors. They were having a driveway sale, a good way to get to know your new neighbors in my
neighborhood. No one is going to bring you cookies here, including me. I did
however, bring over a couple of brochures from good places to order pizza. My
husband thought that was tacky, but I thought it was a good idea.
They seemed to like it. She said not only did they have pizza for dinner yesterday, they had it for
breakfast this morning. So far, I like them.
They also have 2
boys, the SAME age as my girls, so I am glad about that. I also told her I
would definitely not remember her name the next time I saw her, I literally
forgot by the time we walked away, and she laughed and said same with her, so
no pressure when that totally happens.
I will keep
everyone posted if anything entertaining happens.
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