Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen Things I've witnessed a neighbor doing (a.k.a. Things that make you go "Hmmm.") 1. I heard a little girl screaming in the adjoining yard of our first home. I looked out my second floor window to see a troubled 4 year old, "Little Larry" (pronounced Lurr-uh with a heavy dose of southern draw by my neighbors), chasing his 5 year old sister through the back yard with a huge pair of very rusty shears. I, rather firmly, "Larry!!! You. Stop. That. This. Instance. Take those scissors to your grandpa before I come over there and tell him what I just saw you doing." It was then that I realized how special I was to Little Lurrah. I mean, when someone shoots you the "Number One" sign, you've gotta be tops, right? (yes, a FIVE year old did this. And yes, I give full credit to Big Doofus for teaching me that Little Lurrah only meant to show me "number one" love.) And he immediately showed respect for my authority as well because he did ditch those reckless scissors. By burying them in the dirt under the house. And the thought of him returning to fetch his weapon scissors to chase after his sister again was disturbing. But when he turned and looked at me like Jack Nicholson, I couldn't sleep for days. 2. Our camping neighbor, "B", built himself a beautiful blazing fire. Thing is, he had quite a potential "spark" to light it, what with all the major lightning bolts striking nearby at the time. 3. Country neighbor Michelle was afraid of her lawn tractor. She did have to live up to the tractor skills of Julie (my other country neighbor) and myself. We were John Deere darlings who LOVED to mow our 3.5 acre lawns. But Michelle, well...wimp! One day, I heard hysterical screaming. I looked out back and you'da thought she was riding her first horse. She was banschee screaming, legs were flyin', and she was (of all things) worried she would run over her foo-foo dog during her maiden ride. Yep, she finally joined the ranks of country wives on riding tractors. I'd like to think Julie and I pressured her taught her how, lol. 4. Little Aaron Michael snuck up ever so quietly on flighty neighbor Steve and and then abruptly inquired, "What'cha doin'?" Scared the daylights out of Steve, which is significant seeing as he had a spinning circular saw in hand at the time (and, after all, little Aaron Michael was the neighborhood pest). 5.Neighbor Sherri came over to chat with us in our back yard. At the time, Carl and I had no children and our "baby" was our Chocolate Lab, Duchess. She was as sweet a could be, but she regularly turned our backyard into a field of fertilizer. And neighbor Sherri was unaware of this fact when she decided to make a game of "run with the big dogs" through our landmine of mud biscuits. Carl and I both said later that it was like watching a movie in SUPER. SLOW. MOTION. "No-o-o-o-o-o-o-oooo!" As we yelled in freeze frame slow motion, Sherri jumped, hopped and screamed her way through the obstacle course of dog piles. And then it happened as we soooo knew it would. Duchess pulled her classic tangle maneuver and cut Sherri off on the back nine, sending her air bound to avoid the collision. Talk about your slow motion, it seemed like an eternity before any part of her body made contact with the ground again. Like a linebacker on a football field, she went UP and then DOwn. BAMM! She landed on her back in the middle of log land. I didn't know if to burst out laughing (believing she just landed in a pile or two) or crying (knowing she was going to be soooo mad when she found herself covered in poo). And I didn't DARE look at Carl, nor he at I. Now you tell me. Just exactly how does one keep a straight face when the neighbor lady just ran through your dog doo, FELL on her back in the middle of it, and is now seriously inquiring, "Do I have dog (expletive) on my back?" BAHAHAHAHAHA! Carl and I cried tears of funny for days over that one And no, she didn't encounter a single bomb. What were the chances? 6. Dave (who dated Sherri of dog doo) had issues. One time, a lady came up our drive and told us her 85yo mother's house had been broken into. Grannie lived 2 doors down from us, with Dave in the middle. She said the burglars had ransacked her house, stole coins and all her moose meat from the basement (yes sirree, you read that right. Say it. It's fun! Moose meat.) The daughter wanted Dave to know since it happened right next door to him, but he wasn't home so she asked us to relay the message. Dh told Dave that evening when he got home. "Dave, there's been a break in. Grannie's been robbed and the moose meat is A.W.O.L." "I know. My kid did it." GULP! (pause) Alrighty then. You have yourself a good evening now." 7. Dave (of Sherri poo and missing moose meat) also liked to hang out in his shorts. His gray shorts. His "don't wish to see those" gray shorts. His "I used to be white but now I'm dingy gray" shorts. I went to close the blinds in our window one night and there he was, in all his beer belly splendor (ick, ick, iiiiick). 8. This one is something I witnessed a neighbor doing, thanks to something my little brother did. Neighbor's house was on fire. It was 4am. My little brother always went to bed early and slept hard. So he wasn't the best candidate to answer a strange knock at the door at 4am. "Mom, there's a naked man at our front door." My parents verified that, yes, Mr. H was there in his undies, screaming that his house was on fire. My mom directed my brother to get Mr. H a blanket to cover with, while she called the fire department and my dad tried to find out of Mr. H's wife was home. A few minutes later, we all huddled on the drive in front of Mr. H's house waiting for the fire department to arrive. It was then that I realized he was standing there in a Mickey Mouse blanket, courtesy of my little brother. 9. Our Asian neighbors just held a wedding at their house. It was sooo neat to see how their culture did this. 10. My 13yo neighbor (who had some "issues") broke our vinyl fence by using it as a backdrop to wildly kick his soccer ball into. He didn't try to do this discreetly or anonymously. He simply had no sense of wrong or respect. However, this same neighbor showed up and offered to help me shovel my drive after a major snowfall (then again too, I witnessed him scrubbing and power spraying another neighbor's sidewalk after he used spray paint to deface the sidewalk in front of their home.) I'd be lying if I said I was sad he moved this past Spring. 11. I'm all for cleaning up after Rover. But "L" routinely walked through her yard with a plastic grocery bag and a hand held trowel. Um,...I don't think so! 12. Is there a sound regularly heard in your neighborhood? You know, like a bus that passes through the same time each morning or a guy who always mows his grass on Saturday morning at 8:00am? Well, in my childhood home we had such a sound. It was delightfully tacky yet incredibly smooth in delivery. It was the sound of Bob (think Elvis, the later years) whistling for his six chillins. And I mean he knew how to play a mean 4-fingered bagpipe. That sound made dogs cry. It scared the be jibbies out of me. Bob scared the bejibbies out of me for that matter. 13. Every morning at 7:45am, I get to witness a carpooler pulling into my Asian neighbor's drive and beeping the horn. Let's count those beeps, shall we? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9....intermission,....10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and occasionally another 2 or 3 for good measure. In rapid succession. Relentless. I'm gonna pop!

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Toni