We have lived in three different neighborhoods since we got married, and although each one was very different, they all have had certain types of people in common, like"The Welcome Wagon".
In our first neighborhood, it was a very nice couple who showed up at our door at 6:30 one morning with a gift. Flowers? Nope. Casserole? Uh uh. Bottle of wine? No chance. Dead critter? Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner! And the Oscar for the most bizarre gift goes to...
Seems they were hunters and had shot some kind of game bird and generously decided to share. Personally, I would have preferred the flowers. Even dead flowers. Dead flowers that had been cooked into a casserole.
"Be careful when you eat it though," they warned, "there might still be some buckshot in it."
Oh goody. Something with a face and crunchy texture. Alert the Food Network.
Now, I am a carnivore. I know where meat comes from. I just don't like it looking back at me from my dinner plate with an accusing stare, "I could'a been a contenda...but if I complement that bottle of wine, then, hey, my life was not given in vain."
So while inside my head I was chanting, "Eww, eww, eww. Dead Tweety bird." Outside, I plastered a smile on my face that I hoped was at least half as convincing as the fake vaseline-on-the-teeth-Miss- America-smile and gingerly took the gory little baggie with the tips of nails that I wished were twelve inches long and gave it to Tim who I hoped gave it a proper burial. I still don't want to know for sure what he did with it.
The welcome wagon lady in our second neighborhood stood at the fence watching the whole moving-in process with complete and utter fascination. As the truck finally pulled away, Tim and I walked over to introduce ourselves. With a sniff, she looked us up and down and pronounced: "We do not have loud parties in this neighborhood."
Well, allrighty then. Nice to meet you too. And if that's the case, you are really going to hate us. Yeah. You see, on the nights that we don't have Hell's Angels over for a cookout and beer fest, we invite our really good friends who are all in heavy metal bands and encourage them to bring speakers the size of Stonehenge which we place strategically around the yard so that people in South America can hear them. Thanks for the warm welcome.
In our current neighborhood, we were welcomed the very day we closed on the house by the guy across the street. The builder had come over to see to a few last minute things and I was just pulling out to go get my sixth carload of stuff when the guy comes strolling up the driveway. Thinking he was coming over to say hello, I stopped and rolled down my window.
"Hello," I said. "I'm Ann."
"Yeah." He barely slowed down. "I'm just going in."
"Actually, I'm your new neighbor. We closed on the house this morning," I informed him.
"Uh huh. The builder knows me. I'll just let myself in."
Oh, you will? Well, in that case, don't mind me. Just make yourself right at home; my home. And if the boxes of my stuff are in your way, just shove them into a corner. Can't wait to meet the rest of the neighbors based on this encounter.
Which brings me to person number two: The Enforcer.
In our first house, it was the guy across the street who was bothered by he fact that we had put a white sheet over our floor to ceiling bedroom windows for privacy. I suspect he ran the concession stand for the nightly show the previous owners must have put on and missed the extra funds.
We explained that we had to special order a shade and it would take 3-6 weeks. Apparently, he was the only person on the planet to never have ordered anything because he didn't seem to understand that when they say 3-6 weeks, they actually mean anywhere between 6 weeks and the time you appear on Willard Scott's 100th birthday celebration Smucker's jar.
He nagged and prodded us as though we actually could control delivery. Either that or he thought we would use one of our three magic wishes to get it made faster. Fortunately for him, it was delivered before I felt compelled to put up something even more offensive like neon lights and Mardi Gras beads.
In our last two neighborhoods, it has been parking issues that assumed the importance of breathing to the enforcers.
The one woman was obsessed with the property lines denoting the two parking spaces for her one car in front of her house. God forbid someone actually crossed the line! It was like declaring war. Napoleon did not encounter such adversity at Waterloo! And if someone actually parked in front of her house? Well, she conducted a door to door search for culprit that would have mad Dawg the Bounty Hunter look like a rank amateur, and deliver a lecture designed to make the person wish for a cyanide pill.
Here in our current neighborhood, it is a guy who has taken it upon himself to ensure that nobody, but nobody parks on the strip of dirt across the street from his house. Offenders find their cars plastered with fliers warning of the dangers of parking there.
His reasoning goes something like this: cars=riff-raff=drug dealers=anarchy=the fall of civilization= people parking wherever they please. It's jut a vicious cycle waiting to strike at the heart of democracy. I can only imagine how the missive would read if someone had the temerity to actually park on his side of the street!
Which brings me to the final person: The Informer.
Neighborhood one, two or three. It doesn't matter. There is always someone who, like the Great and Powerful Oz knows all.
Near as I can figure, they grill anyone who has the misfortune to be outside when they are passing by, which is somewhere between fifty-six and four thousand times a day. They are generally wise to evasive tactical maneuvers, so it is almost impossible to escape them more than once or twice a month. The CIA could use these people.
They know all about marriages, births, divorces, new cars, new hairstyles; preferences in food, drink and toilet paper; friends, friends of friends, people who are thinking of becoming friends, former friends and the friendless. The informer can tell you what you had for dinner last Tuesday night, and what color the people eight blocks west and four blocks north are thinking of painting their kitchen.
They can tell you about the very first inhabitants of the neighborhood, why they lived there and where their final resting place is. They do more research into their neighbor's lives than Ed Bradley does for a 60 Minutes expose on a corrupt politician.
And so I've decided that our next move will be to a desert island, just Tim and myself. Well, maybe just myself. That way I can be assured of avoiding any annoying neighbors.
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