The ComfyTown Burbs

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 5^th and 6^th 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 3^rd or 4^th 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.