Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Meet the Neighbors!

Ever have one of those moments when you have the perfect thing to say; the wittiest, pithiest and most devastating comeback in the history of the world, but it doesn’t come to you until 30 minutes after it would have simply rocked to have said it?

Yeah me, too. All the time.

Except this evening, when I actually spat it out. (Though as usual, I kind of feel bad for having said it. I should be more mature.)

Sit back and let me spin my yarn…

Neighbor, let’s call him “Bob” (please note, his real name is a four letter name and I am studiously avoiding calling him by my preferred name for him, i.e., “Dick,” but “Bob” will do) is out mowing his lawn. I am driving myself and the kids home. He steps into the street to spin his mower around. There is an oncoming car with its blinding high beams on, so I can’t really see him. But I do see Bob in plenty of time, so I don’t smash into him. Not even close.

He stops his mower and turns and screams a few choice obscenities at me, telling me to slow down. (It’s the F-bomb, kids! And I don’t drop that, but take my word for it.) I have all my windows down, so I and my kids can hear every lovely syllable of his oath filled rant.

I stop the car and get out to tell Bob that “Hey, I’m sorry, but I didn’t see you because of the oncoming car. I’m sorry if it looked like I was going to hit you for a second there.”

I don’t have a chance to get that out my mouth, because Bob is yelling at me as I walk toward him.

“You need to slow the f. down. You are f-ing going to kill my dog.”

“I’m sorry, but your dog was nowhere near the street and I was pretty blinded by that car. And I wasn’t driving that fast.”

“You need to f-ing slow down on this street.”

This is my street, too, by the way.

“Well, I don’t think I drive too fast. I’ve never hit a dog, cat or child with my car in my whole life, but people can have different opinions about this kind of stuff and heck, everyone thinks they are excellent and safe drivers, so sure, I’ll try and slow down. No problem.”

Really. I was that reasonable. You’ll just have to believe me on that score.

But he’s still yelling at me about how I am the f-ing fastest driver on the street and that someday I’m going to f-ing kill his dog.

“Well, I disagree with your over generalization that I’m the fastest driver on the street, but fine, people can disagree about that kind of thing. I’m sorry.”

Apparently, my people skills worked their magic, because he admonished me a little more and then seemingly mollified, he introduced himself to me, “Anyway, my name is Bob.”

“My name is Jon. I live right up there.”

“I know where you live. You also need to do something about your backyard.”

I need to interrupt and explain something right here.
Our backyard? Until a couple weeks ago, it was a total mess. I hadn’t mowed all summer, weeds were everywhere and it was a disaster. Of epic proportions.
Really. A whole commune of hippies could have been back there practicing free love and burning a giant peace sign on the veritable forest the lawn had become and we would not have known. Our front yard is fine, by the way. The way our property is, we don’t have a front lawn, it’s all flower beds and walkways. But you can’t see into our backyard AT ALL from the road, so it’s not like it’s an eyesore or depreciating precious property values.
My only excuse is that I have a busy life and I kind of loathe yard work, so making the backyard acceptable is low on my priority list.
But it is on Reha’s list, so a couple weeks ago, I finally started working in the back and it’s in “OK” shape. It’s nowhere near great, but we’d at least know to evict any hippies.
And though technically the current condition of our backyard isn’t germane to the rest of this rant, I thought you should know that it’s WAY better now. Bob’s info about the state of our backyard is out of date.
Carry on.

Let me repeat him again and please note, the yelling about me and my awful driving was over.

“I know where you live. You also need to do something about your backyard.”

“I’m sorry, what?” I had thought once he formally introduced himself to me that we were moving into the congenial “I’ve said my piece, now we can be friendly” stage. He was pretty calm by this point and I’d apologized for the mere possibility that I could have killed his freely roaming dog in the street. (I also hadn’t brought up that his dog was A) sniffing my crotch constantly while all this went on, B) his dog is much more likely to get hit by any car if he lets it scoot around unleashed, but that’s because I didn’t want to argue with him. For I am Jon. The generally laid back and non-confrontational Peace-maker.)

He then goes on to tell me that he has dinner ALL THE TIME at our immediate neighbor’s house and they can see into our “ratty” backyard from the deck and that I should fix that. He’s detailing not only how bad it is and questioning not only my gardening skills (such as they are), but also my fitness as a human. And repeating that I obviously want to kill his unleashed dog with my car.

At this point? I got a wee bit annoyed. I hadn’t argued with him about his perception of my driving, I had apologized and said I would be more careful in the future. But holy mushrooms on a frozen banana, I could not let that pass.

So I popped off. To wit:

“OK, Bob. So we’ve established that you think I’m a Formula One driver out to kill or maim all domesticated animals on this street and possibly a few children, never mind that I live here, too. Fine. I disagree, but I can accept that. In your eyes, I’m a horrible driver. Check. But now, completely out of the blue, you’ve pointed out that I’m a terrible homeowner and a slovenly gardner. IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE? Is there anything else you feel the need to say about my person or character, now that we are meeting here on the street FOR THE FIRST TIME? Let me help you, I’m a little overweight. Maybe you could say something about that. You don’t like my beard? Let’s hear what you think of it! You don’t like my shirt, maybe? My kids are in the car, I could go get them and you could say crappy things about them, too. But I’ll tell you what, Bob, here is what I have learned about you in the past five minutes of your screaming and swearing at me. You never learned a fundamental lesson which I can only assume your parents either failed to teach you or you simply passed over as unimportant drivel: ‘You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.’ Just exactly what did you think was going to happen by your dropping that crack about my backyard into the discussion?”

“Um. I don’t know?”

“Did you think you were telling me something I didn’t know? That I’d be surprised about it? Or that I would suddenly drop everything else in my life and start cleaning up my backyard right this second, because, ‘Oh, there is a person named Bob down the street who disapproves of how I take care of my backyard?! Screw everything else I have on my plate, BOB IS UPSET about my unholy disaster of a backyard that can’t even be seen from the road. I better get cracking!’ Probably not going to happen, I have to be honest with you, Bob. But mostly, I just wonder why, once this thing about my driving seemed resolved that you felt it necessary to pile on like that and bring up the dilapidated state of my backyard?”

“I don’t know. I just said it.”

“Delightful.”

Anyway. I met Bob tonight.

Jon scribbled this mess on 08/12/08 at 11:27 PM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Regular Post Rants. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Meet the Neighbors!

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