I've lived in many places over the years and it was always best to get along with the neighbors if at all possible, regardless if I lived way out in the country where the hoot owl's screw the roosters or in town where the dogs are fatter. My young bride and I lived in Maryland for 22 years and during that time, I had neighbors who were extremely intelligent and then I had those that needed to call tech support just to open a lawn chair. And by the way, there's an ample supply of rednecks/hillbillies up and down the entire east coast. They may not all wear bib-overalls, talk with a twang or only have two teeth in their entire head, but rest assured I've seen and talked with plenty of them where the sharing of chewing tobacco and snuff between husband and wife....
it's a marital thing ya'll.
My young bride and I bought our very first house in January 1984 and our new home was built in a brand spanking new subdivision. Our neighbors Lee and Sue were having their house built the same time as ours, so we certainly did some bonding during the seven years that we lived there. Lee was the type of person that no matter what you had done or was going to do....he did it first,faster, better and cheaper.
Oh yeah, that kind of person. One rainy summer night there was a knock on the door and there stood Lee soaking wet, mud on his pants and he wanted to know if I would like to have a full keg of beer? He had been playing beer softball for the past 6-hours and both teams had already killed one keg at the ball field, so when it started raining real hard they had to quit and he brought the extra keg home with him. I would
never turn down a full keg of beer, especially since it was not going to cost me anything and besides, we had out of town guests who enjoy drinking beer.
Off I go with Lee to get the keg from the deck in his backyard and I thought it was a little odd for all the lights down stairs to be turned off, but then again Lee was one strange duck to begin with, so I didn't give it another thought.
Free beer is free beer. A couple of days later Sue and my wife were talking out in the yard and my wife was told why I got the keg of beer. When Lee got home from the ball field, he
drug that muddy keg of beer through the middle of the living room, knocked over the coffee table, broke a large lamp and vase, put two holes in the wall and left a wide muddy streak down the middle of the white carpeting. He made enough noise to wake the dead getting that keg through the front door and it woke Sue out of a sound sleep, and
that's when the fight started. My wife said that Sue was still madder than a crazed peach orchard boar at Lee and the atmosphere in their house was a
little...bit...intense.
I'm fairly confident that even in Lee's drunken stupor, he was more than appreciative that his wife was
NOT a certified proctologist, because he would've discovered how a beer keg can be turned into a very large suppository. (
I would've paid good money to see that.) When Sue came downstairs and discovered the mess, she got all over him faster than a fat kid at a cake buffet and told him he had 5-minutes to get that nasty keg out of "
her house" or else she was going to slap him so hard that by the time his ass hit the ground his clothes were going to be out of style.
Yep, mamma Sue had a severe case of the red ass that night.
When my wife I moved to south Texas we discovered the city had a recycle program and they provided a green laundry basket size container to put our glass bottles, newspapers, magazines and small cardboard boxes in, with Tuesday being the pick-up day. One morning after my wife came home from working the graveyard shift at the hospital, I went out in the garage and carried our recycle container to the street for pick-up and then went back in the garage to begin putting a lawn fertilizer together. A few minutes later two of my elderly neighbors came walking towards my house on their way to the park where they went for a walk everyday that it's not raining. While I'm sitting on the garage floor putting this lawn fertilizer together, they stopped at my recycle basket and the woman said, "
Oh for heavens sake, just look at all those empty booze bottles. Leonard, I think our new neighbors are lushes and we certainly don't need to have anything to do with these drunks." From where I was sitting they didn't see me and had no clue I heard every word that woman said.
Well....it's show time.
Having never met these people before I could've: (
a) been very mature and adult about the nasty comment this woman had made about my wife and I and chalk it up as ignorance on her part, (
b) jump up and get into a screaming match with them and have the police called on me, or (
c) do what I do best --- embarrass them in public in a humorous fashion and create an event they'll never forget for as long as their breathing air. It was going to be a week before the next recycle pick-up, so I had ample time to formulate a plan that
would be fitting for an individual of my devious talents.
For the next six days I went to our friends homes, every dumpster and liquor store within five miles of my house to collect as many empty beer bottles, beer cans, and wine bottles I could get my hands on, and this was in addition to my own recyclables. As the volume of my scavenged booty began to increase, I went to my local grocery store and picked up a few cardboard boxes and filled them with everything I had collected. These two neighbors were as punctual as a German made clock and I knew that in order to pull this stunt off with stunning success, my timing had to be perfect or else I would loose that moment of surprise and shock. Just a few minutes before sundown Monday, I went to the tool shed and gathered up those items I had collected and took it inside my garage where it would stay until the next morning. At exactly 8am, my neighbors came out of their house en-route the park just like any other day and when they got within approximately 10' of my driveway, I opened my garage and came running towards them as fast as I could carrying my green recycle basket. They stopped and looked at me while I ran back inside the garage and came out
with my hand dolly that was stacked 8 boxes high of empty bottles and cans.
Standing with my booty in front of me I said, "
Blimy! What a blow out last night! All the hooch and half naked women running around the pool it looked like one of those pagan heathen rituals ya' read about in National Geographic. I sure hope we didn't disturb you fine peoples sleep. Why I was just sayin' to my wife Eunice the other day. Eunice I said, ya' know darlin' we sure need to invite some of our neighbors over for one of them meet and greet things I've heard so much about. And you know what my wife said to me? Eunice said 'it wouldn't be hospitable for us to force ourselves on our new neighbors so soon, it would look like we was being mighty uppity. We'll wait until summer and then have everyone over. You catch us a mess of possums and coons and filet them, I'll whip up a big batch of Grannie's red eye gravy from the drippings of the critters, make my dandelion salad with pecans and for dessert I'll make mama's special rhubarb brownies. Once they get a sniff of those vittles cookin', they'll be hungry enough to eat the hemorrhoids out of a dead gorilla's butt'." That was the first and last conversation I had with those people
- they moved to an assisted living
.
The neighborhood where we currently live reminds me of a fish aquarium in a weird sort of way. There's the
retired people on one side of the subdivision that walk their dogs or do the power walking routine in the mornings after all the kids have gone to school. Starting about 5:30pm is when the
younger working people start their routines of jogging down the street and taking their dogs for a walk. There's not a lot of activity taking place between 10am-5pm except for this one old woman that's crazier than a sack full of rabid weasels. She isn't very big to begin with and might weigh 100 pounds soaking wet. Come rain, sleet, freezing rain or sunshine, granny hits the bricks and does who knows how many power walking laps around the neighborhood before going home. And she walks the same route twice a day. To be perfectly honest, I don't know how the old woman keeps her jogging/yoga pants up ---
she ain't got no ass.
There is a universe's difference between our next door neighbors outdoor routine and ours. They're very sweet people, in their mid- to late 50's and give new meaning to the phrase '
gotta stay in shape'. Lisa and Charlie compete in triathlons, Iron Man competitions, marathons and thus far, the only exercise I've not seen them do is lift weights. Earlier this month I noticed a large white van parked in front of their house and when I asked Charlie about it he said,"
That's my van. I bought it so that 6 people can store all the cycle equipment, cycles, tools, extra space for suit cases and bags, and I'm putting in 6 captain's chairs. This way there won't be any need for everybody taking their own cars and we can all ride in the van." Glad to see my neighbor is thinking outside the box. I got only one question: are the other cyclists splitting the cost of the van or is Charlie footin' the entire bill?
I can't speak for anybody else, but I for one absolutely hate jogging. I'd rather sniff camel farts in a Saharan dust storm than go jogging. It hurts my feet and knees, and I get just as much exercise and produce as much sweat from working outside in the hot sun as I would pounding the pavement. So you can imagine my delight when I see my neighbors start doing their stretching exercises while I'm sitting in my folding chair in the drive-way drinking a cold 16oz Coors and listening to great tunes from my stereo. Obviously I'm not privy to how much $$$ they've got invested in their sport, but from what I've heard and seen in stores that sell this kind of equipment and clothing, it's not cheap. In addition, they've also got the entry fee's to pay and any travel expenses they may have incurred along the way. Since moving to my current neighborhood, I've come to an analytical conclusion that I'm certain will be proven by the brights minds in the nation.
The sole purpose for spandex, Speed-O's and yoga pants is to function as a push up bra for the butt.
