So, we all have that one neighbor that drives us nuts.
Maybe they put too many Christmas decorations up.
Maybe they mow their lawn at 6:30am.
Maybe they have raucous parties and don’t invite you.
Maybe they have loud sex and again…don’t invite you. Listen, I don’t judge. Oh wait, I do but don’t worry, I’m probably judging the neighbor for the lack of invite and not you. You do you.
Whatever it is, we all have them.
I have one that might actually be certifiably nuts. She has a yard compulsion. She rakes leaves when the first start to fall even though there’s a tree full of them. The part that bothers Ross is the raking of leaves on our side of the street. I don’t know why this bothers him but it’s like there’s an invisible line down the center of the street and she crosses that every fall to moves leaves on our side of the street. This really gets under his skin. I think she has this vision of what our neighborhood should look like and it resembles the Edward Scissorhands standard.
She shovels snow in the middle of a blizzard. It’s like the guy who waters his plants while it’s raining. I’ve seen one of those in our neighborhood too. I actually stopped my car to watch because I couldn’t quite comprehend the logic of that. He was out there with an umbrella in a pretty heavy rain…with a hose,,,watering his flowerbeds.
This woman, literally, shovels the street in front of her house. BY HAND. It’s not like she’s got a snow blower and is making passes. She’s clearly in her sixties or seventies and is using a shovel to clear the street. But only in front of her house. Which makes no sense because anyone driving is going to drive on more parts of the street than just in front of her fucking house.
So let’s bring this back around to why this crazy person matters. On Wednesday, here in Columbus, the temperature (in my neighborhood) was -3 outside with a windchill of around -22. These are temperatures that are unsafe to be outside. In fact, OSU canceled classes.
Let me repeat that because it’s worth noting since OSU didn’t even cancel classes the day after a terrorist attack. On Wednesday, due to unsafe weather conditions, OSU CANCELED CLASSES!
I stood in the large picture window and watched this woman…sweeping her driveway first…then the sidewalk…then THE STREET…with a broom. Because there was a dusting on the ground and not enough to justify a shovel. At some point, her husband opened the front door and yelled at her to get inside because she was being crazy. I assume that’s what he said by the hand gesturing that was going on. I didn’t open the door to find out because it was fucking cold yesterday.
She was out there for almost 30 minutes which in those temperatures was plenty of time for frostbite to set in. And here it is. This is me judging. I don’t care, though, that’s nuts.
I know you’ve got them. What are your crazy neighbor stories?
I have the same neighbor. But he’s a dude. He is out there every day walking through his lawn with a grocery bag picking up sticks and leaves that dared fall on his grass. He is out there with scissors trimming the ivy from the neighbors along a precision path on the property line – seriously. I think he uses a laser level. He yells at his neighbors for not raking because two leaves blow onto his precious invasive monoculture turf.
*eyeroll*