The People Next Door

The house on my right has been empty since October. According to the previous occupants, who returned home to Sweden, a nice young couple with a small child supposedly bought the place. But nobody ever moved in. Somebody hung up some curtains and put a flower in the window. Since spring a guy with a mower does the lawn, but other than that, the only evidence of people is a white panel truck that backs into the driveway on the weekends for about half an hour and then leaves.

I found out that the water hasn't been turned on, which usually means a tear down or they're going to pee on the lawn, but then again, no building permits have been requested either, which you need for construction.

This week I saw a forty-ish woman drive a small gray car into the driveway, get out and go in. A few minutes later she left. The last two nights the panel truck has arrived around midnight and left in the morning. The guy driving it is in his twenties. He's the same guy who mows the lawn. I haven't seen a little kid at all. I wonder if the water has been turned on.

I'm about to look into the windows to see if they're growing marijuana or using the place to store dead bodies. Supposedly they live in another part of town and they're making repairs before they move in. That's B.S. from what I can see.

On the left side of my house, the new neighbors moved in last week. They're more like regular people. For example, THEY ACTUALLY LIVE THERE. I stopped by to say hello, mainly so they wouldn't think I was a recluse who hasn't been seen in months because I'm busy spying on the other neighbors. They have a little kid named Logan. Along with Cooper, Cody and Hunter, I think Logan is the new Mike or Joe.

I suppose I should bake a cake or something to welcome them to the neighborhood. Or buy a cake. Or send them a coupon for a cake. Or tell them there's a bakery where they can buy a cake.

The contractor for one of the new houses going up across the street has tried to be nice to me. But he's an idiot about it.

Once I got out of my car and didn't close the door all the way. I left it because I was just going in the house for a second. He comes running from all the way across the street to ask if I want him to close it tight. Like I couldn't do it myself. It wasn't like the door was wide open or anything. So I looked at him and said, No. And my expression said, Go away, you annoy me.

The other day he saw me backing out of my driveway slowly because there are so many trucks to dodge, thanks to his ugly new house going up. He comes running over like I'm going to hit something, so I stop to keep from running him down. Be careful he says. I don't want you to hit MY car. I have been dodging construction traffic successfully since last fall without his help, so I looked at him and said, Give me a break. To which he says, I'm just trying to be nice. To which I say, Huh? You come running over because you don't want me to hit YOUR car and you're trying to be nice? The problem is that English is his second language -- the first being something Polish or Russian. So he screwed up his pronouns. He didn't want me to scratch MY car. Too late. He pissed me off.

But after all these pretend moments of concern he showed his true colors the other day. He saw that I had a flat tire when he showed up to supervise the work on his house. No doubt thanks to something metallic his people probably dropped on the street. Instead of running over to offer to change it, he turned around and walked the other way. I should have yelled out to him to ask if he wanted to be nice to me. And change my tire. The best part was that he saw me see him see my flat tire.

I'll mention it the next time he makes a fake attempt to be neighborly.

Now I have to pick up that Italian dinner I had to forego the other night when my tire went flat. Think it's still warm?