Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Love Thy Neighbor…Expect For That Ass Next Door

My Wife, Moonshot and I like most of our neighbors. I would go so far as to say we really lucked out by moving into their midst here in the Lindenwood University area of Saint Charles. When I first moved in, five years ago, I was concerned about Tom across the street. He admitted to being an avid neighborhood watcher and said that since he often works out of his home during the day, we was able to keep an eye on the kids going to and from the local high school about a block down the road. I inwardly groaned when I heard this…a busy body. However, time has brought me around to Tom’s side. He and his wife, Sabrina give us friendly hellos and chat with us only when we show interest in conversation. Sabrina even came over and fed our canine friend, Arlo, once. And Tom’s neighborhood watching has made him the go-to-guy to keep en eye on our house when we leave for a weekend. Case in point. Two years ago, a storm brought our old front-yard oak tree crashing into the street. We were down at the Lake of the Ozarks with my family for the Fourth of July and so would have had no way of knowing that this tree had snapped the power lines that ran directly over our cars parked along the street. No major damage to the cars, but the power line whipped out the rear windows of my work vehicle and my old Avenger. It was Tom who rushed into the storm with tarps and bungie-cords to save my vehicles. So, while I have no doubt that Tom knows more about my comings and goings than I’m totally comfortable with…I wouldn’t trade his eagle eye for anything.

However, on the other side of our house lives a different set of neighbors. I don’t even know their last name and I can’t recall the wife’s names. But his name is Don. And Don strikes me as an ass. I’ll admit that this would be a better story if I had stunningly horrible actions in his part to report…but I don’t. He just rubs me the wrong way and continually annoys me…just a little. Just enough to snowball my annoyance into a mean-spirited blog. It may be the fact that he’s the only neighbor close enough to see into our windows. We live on a corner lot with a service alley in the back, which means his is the only property that actually adjoins ours. So, it’s his fault I have to put on a robe to traipse across my bedroom. It’s his family who sees us in our morning finest while we eat our breakfast. It’s his daughter and her friends who cut across our back yard so they can smoke on his back patio just outside our breakfast nook. And it’s his 6-foot by 12-foot Budweiser channel sign that rusts against his back shed, so close to our property that everyone thinks it’s mine. So, maybe I would dislike him no matter what he did…but I don’t think so. I think he’s just an ass.

For a while, Moonshot was sure he had killed his wife. I’m not sure how this thought entered her head, other than the fact that it’s just a lot of fun to play Michael Keaton and convince yourself that your annoying neighbor is a psycho. Basically, Mrs. Don Ass suddenly disappeared. The window ledge over their kitchen sink, which stares directly into our kitchen, had always been filled with vibrant plants, basking in the sunshine. In the woman’s absence they died a slow and waterless death, yet were left there for weeks, as if their new brown coloration was just a pleasant to the now solo Don as the previous green had been. But, as depressing as the plant carcasses were, what replaced them was worse…horridly tacky ceramic frogs surrounding a small television set. Personally, I think tacky ceramic frogs are a sin against decorate taste…but anyone who would fill the only window in their kitchen with a television…I…well…there’s just something wrong with that person! But, it wasn’t Don who had brought the TV…it was a mysterious new woman who chain-smoked on the back patio where the Ass daughter used to smoke. My brother figured she was just a rebound woman to help Don get over his wife’s leaving. Oh sure…it’s logical. But it’s no fun. And besides…rebound women are supposed to be better looking than your wife. It’s the rule. And this lady was nasty. There was only one story that we wanted to believe, and that was that Don and this cruel looking woman had clearly killed Mrs. Ass for the life insurance. See, this way, Chain-Smoker doesn’t need to be hot…she’s just the evil genius who talked him into killing his wife. Made sense to Moonshot and me.

Sadly, our fun story came to an end when the Mrs came back about six months later. She had gained so much weight that I didn’t even recognize her at first, thinking instead that Don had killed Chain-Smoker and moved on to a new victim. But alas…it was merely the long absent Mrs. Don Ass.

It was shortly after their reconciliation that the Asses decided to start work on a major remodel of their house. I was thrilled. Any neighbor who wants to put money into their house is a friend of mine. Moonshot and I live in one of the nicer houses on our street; so our property value increases as those around us bring their spaces up to snuff. However, Don owns his own construction company…so he planned on doing the work with his staff during slow times. This has lead to excruciatingly slow progress. Last March, the construction dumpster moved onto the street, taking up all the parking in front of the Ass home. This meant they had to park in front of our place. It wasn’t normally a big deal since we have a corner lot and lots of parking. But by October it was getting really annoying as the leaves piled around the huge dumpster and created an even bigger eyesore of the thirty-foot monstrosity. And when Halloween came and fewer parents seemed willing to walk their kids down the sidewalk past the shadowy leviathan, Moonshot was deprived of the joy of children in costumes. Now that Mr. Asses construction had cut into her favorite holiday, we started to become less forgiving.

It was around January that they brought in the heavy equipment. Knocked down the shed in the back yard and tore away the back half of their house. The back yard is a muddy disaster filled with loose trash and tools. The high winds we’ve been experiencing lately have turned the unattended items in his yard into projectiles bashing against our house to be found strewn about our yard in the morning. And the tarp covering the house keeps coming loose in the wind. The first night it happened, I went out in the rain and reattached it to his house. I figured I owed the neighborhood some karmic balance since Tom had covered my cars. I set aside my dislike for Mr. Ass and sludged through the mud to protect his stuff. But when it just kept happening night after night and the trash just kept blowing into our yard…I have to admit that I stopped caring. So the sound of wind at my house is now augmented by his flapping tarp and the sound of trash rolling into our yard. This morning there was a twenty-foot by two-foot piece of twisted sheet metal that had clearly been hurling toward our house. Luckily, it merely wrapped itself around his patio furniture (conveniently laying on its side along our property line) and continued to rattle obnoxiously in the wind through our breakfast. And sadly, I can’t even hold out hope that Don will get annoyed with this situation because he isn’t living there. He packed up and moved out for the duration of the construction so the only one who has to suffer through the mess and noise, and flying debris is my wife and I. And even all this I could deal with if they were making progress…if the end was in sight. But they’re not…it’s not. I haven’t seen anyone over there for over a week.

Sorry, I’m usually a very patient neighbor. I don’t typically speak ill of the people I share space with. And Don has never done anything actively antagonistic toward me. He just seems to be one of those people who is oblivious to the impact his activities have on those around him. And maybe, if I could read HIS blog, I would find that he is just as annoyed with me for some transgression. But this is my blog…so in my story, I’m the fine upstanding citizen doing my best to deal with the retched behavior of a horrible neighbor. And to add credence to my side of the story…I reiterate that I really do love our neighborhood. But every neighborhood has a high point and a low point. Tom and Sabrina are our shining examples of excellence and Don is…well…Don is an Ass.

No comments: