Won't you be my neighbor?
My neighbor is stalking me.
Her name is MaryEllen. I don't like neighbors; they are like roommates that you never asked to live with you. I prefer not to talk to neighbors, they tell you things you don't want to know. At least, they tell me things I don't want clouding my head. It could be that people just download disturbing information onto me, but I think it is the state of the world. There are just creepy things happening and dumping them onto strangers is a release. I think the blogging phenomenon is proof-positive of that. At least you are voluntary listeners, at least I didn't catch you in the mall while your head is full of happy anniversary thoughts and pollute it with gross tales of my cat, and at least you can log off if I start going to a place that makes you feel like taking a shower. No, I don't like neighbors and I don't like their inappropriate sense of comradery due to circumstance.
Anyway, back to MaryEllen, who nearly ran me over in the parking lot of Von's trying to get my attention. I don't know anyone here, so when the car honked. I thought I needed to get out of the way and I started doing that pathetic, half-run while dragging Gabriel by the hand and balancing Phoebe on my hip cursing the woman. Then she kept at it, I looked and I decided to flap my elbow in her direction like a wild turkey. I had no hand and she was persistent. I don't know why she needed my attention so badly, but I guess the elbow-wag didn't do it for her. I got home and while I was getting the kids down for a nap, the doorbell rang.
"You must be kidding me!"
There is MaryEllen (she is an elder travel agent with a giant RV parked in her driveway, if that paints a picture) wearing a white poufy sweatsuit holding her white poodle. She is starting her excercise program, today is her first day. How thrilling? She wanted to let me know it was her in Von's parking lot, she didn't know if I recognized her with her glasses on. Honestly, in what universe does it matter if I knew it was her? How does that fact change anything? Is her beeping at me with a handful of children supposed to endear me to her? Does she have so few friends that she is fantasizing our future iced tea binges together? I don't know, but I need to get the kids to sleep. Thanks for running me down! Gotta go.
If she needs a neighbor to chat and relay the details of her exercise program to—she needs to ring the doorbell when Dave is home. He is our neighborhood ambassador; he is a gracious host to driveway gossip. He’ll drop what he’s doing and actually wave using his hands. MaryEllen, he’s your man.
Let me give you an example: We used to live on 57th Ave. in Oakland. In case you don’t know that particular area of Oakland, it wasn’t pretty. There were domestic arguments and gunshots flying throughout the night. Summer was especially heated or we maybe just heard more since the windows were open. Anyway, Jeff (best friend), Dave and I were driving up to our apartment in our sketchy neighborhood, and we see two people sunning themselves in the cracked cement driveway off of crack-alley. And Dave slows down, rolls down his window and in the most amiable fashion imaginable with a sweeping arm motion, he states, “That a nice piece of real estate you got there!” Jeff and I are doubled over with laughter and the couple on the sidewalk/driveway sit silently with a completely stunned look on their faces. This is Dave. God bless him. MaryEllen is a lucky woman.
I hope she gives up on me soon, because I will not hesitate to slap a restraining order on her.
posted by Unknown @ 9:14 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
I can relate. Our creepy, alcoholic landlord has recently been suspiciously pleasant to us lately.
He's seriously starting to give us the creeps. He waits in his garage for my female roommate at 6:00 in the morning, to try & chat her up. (Actually, we think the stupid phlot is going to try to sneak a rent increase in this month...it is the holidays, after all, & he needs someone to subsidise his drinking habit).
Now, I hope you'll forgive me if I'm clouding your blog space. You can always delete this, after all, but, coming across your web page has re-asserted to me that I'm really not being a snob, and that there are other people out there who really just want to go about their business without incident from nosy, creepy, or annoying people.
To wrap it up, I'll ask for your advice, as you've mentioned a restraining order. For two months in a row over the summer, we were late with our rent. Not past the legal 5 day grace period, mind you, but not submitted on the first, per the lease. By the first {late} day of the first month, the irritating little twat started slamming the doors, over and OVER again. Now, mind you, my room mate has a 10 year old boy who goes to school in the morning, and has a bed time, and, this guy has not done ANY of the rennovative work he promised when we signed the lease, we even caught him siphoning our air conditioning into the basement (he keeps a tool shop) AFTER we signed on with the electric company. In the second month, he came home at 3:00 in the morning, (presumably drunk...you'd have to see the beer cans in the summer to know why we jump to that conclusion) on the second day (and second time) we were late, turned his music up to the ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM volume...some classic rock Bullshit (No offense), and proceded to bang the walls or something. We were in such a state of shock, we just started laughing. By the time we had to wake up, though, it was not so funny, and we told him that if he did it again, for any reason, he'd be collecting his rent from the inside of a jail cell. I mean, you'd have to have been there, but it sounded like he was slamming a mack truck through his wall at 3:00 in the morning. Between the 'music' and the noise he generated, I'm suprised the neighbors didn't call the police. Trouble is, he's one of those guys who works the neighborhood over, and most of the people here seem to like him, or, at least tolerate him. We didn't want to come off as complete A-holes or anything, but...I'm at a loss for words...it was just totally unbelievable. He knows there's a ten year old in here, and he did that over a rent check that wasn't even illegally overdue. There was one other incident. It took place at 7:45 PM on a Saturday night. My Brother and his baby were over here, and my brother and my youngest brother's friend were playing around on the floor. Keep in mind that the guy downstairs has his own kid over on the weekends, and makes noise, blasts music, and is otherwise a general nuissance on any given weekend, but we don't complain about it. My brother and my other brother's friend dropped something on the floor, and the guy comes upstairs, banging on the door, screaming at my brother and getting in his face. My brother grabs this living, breathing anus by the wrists and shoves the f*ckwit out the door, and, I swear to god, I thought my brother was going to shove him down the stairs. Since then, he's been reasonably quiet, but he's taken up the habit of waiting in the garage for my Roomie. Any thoughts or advice here?
Allright...I guess I've babbled enough on your blogspace...maybe I ought to get my own, instead of polluting yours. I guess I just thought it might be nice to share the notion with someone who might understand, without involving people we know. I apologize in advance if I've offended, else clogged your space. Thanks for listening & don't worry, I won't do this to your blog again. :)
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