Bleeding to Death? Don’t Knock on My Door.
Last week I got new neighbors. Their arrival nearly blindsided me. I literally came home from work one day and they were just there, practically fully moved in. Having neighbors is a part of life. If you aren’t lucky or wealthy enough to live on a large piece of property shielded from the surrounding populace, you’re probably going to have neighbors.
I live in the middle of town, so my neighbors are especially close; in fact we share a driveway.
To most people having neighbors at a house is apparently different than having neighbors in an apartment. In an apartment people tend to come and go quite often and the population density is exceedingly higher. In a house there seems to be a sense of permanence and you tend to only have 2 or maybe three immediate neighbors within spitting distance. This is opposed to the apartment situation where you literally have 6 or more families side by side and stacked on top of you, all within the distance that you can flip a booger. These phenomena results in the desire of most home owners to know thy neighbor.
Since having the new neighbors some of my friends and family have asked me questions like, “Have you introduced yourself?” or even lamer, “You should bake them a pie!” or even more lame, “You should have them over for dinner, or maybe cook out and invite them to the neighborhood!”
What do you people think this is? Life isn’t like a rerun of some feel good sitcom from the 1960′s. People don’t do that anymore, in fact I’d bet those shows were all anti-communist propaganda. That world never existed! Instead of having the new neighbors over, why don’t I just give them an inventory of everything in my house and put a sign on the front door that says “Please Rob Me!”
I’m so anti-neighbor; I don’t even want them to know my name. The more info they have, the easier it is for the neighbors to mooch off me. For example:
Scenario #1: Neighbor knows my name and has been to my house to eat dinner. Because the neighbor has this information they are quick to A. ask to borrow something. B. ask to eat my food and C. offer to play my video games for me.
“Hey Peavey, can I borrow your water hose? Oh, and the wife wants to know when you’re having another one of those awesome cookouts. She loves your wife’s potato salad! Wanna play some Wii or Playstation later?”
No! No! No! Don’t bother me. I have friends who I’ve hand picked to do these things with me.
Scenario #2: Neighbor knows my name but has never been to my house. Because they know my name, they still aren’t afraid to ask to borrow things.
“Hey Peavey, I feel horrible asking but we’re in a tight jam this week. Think I could borrow $50 until next Friday?”
No! No! No! If I had extra money to just give away, I’d live somewhere where I don’t have to share a driveway with assholes like you.
Scenario #3: Neighbor doesn’t know my name or anything about me but still gets the impression that I’m a nice guy because I wave at him occasionally. Even now, I still get bugged.
“Hey neighbor, wanna get a 12 pack of beer this weekend and hang out?”
Let me guess, I’m buying the beer. No! No! No! How about I buy my own 12 pack, you buy yours and we’ll get drunk alone on our own couches in our own houses.
Scenario #4: In this ideal scenario, I never look at my neighbor, I shoot their dog with the BB gun when it pisses and shits in my 5′ by 5′ patch of grass I call a yard and when I’m getting my mail and they attempt to say hello I pretended I don’t hear them and rush into the house.
“Hey neighbor… go to hell.”
Yes! Now that’s more like it.
Fact of the matter is, if someone is bleeding to death I want to be the last person whose door gets knocked on. My mom and mother-in-law both embrace the neighborly love idea and both annoy the hell out of me. All the women on both their streets have this system of borrowing and lending their stuff to each other. And they’re all always in each others business. I say to hell with that.
Leave me alone neighbor.