~Poop On Jelly~

Our Family's Bitter/Sweet Life



Saturday, November 29, 2008

Open Letter to the Neighbors

Dear Neighbors,

We are sorry that we still have leaves on our lawn. We know that we often wait too long between mows. We know that the leaves fall every autumn and, yet, it is always a surprise to us and we often take too much time to rake them up. You see, we do a good job of keeping the inside of our house clean because it is Mrs. Nurse Boy's domain. We do a poor job of keeping the outside of our house clean because it is Mr. Nurse Boy's domain. Mr. Nurse Boy hates to do yard work. It is not so bad once he gets started, but it is hard to get him started.

How does Mr. Nurse Boy know that it irritates you, poor neighbors?

Because when you rake, you rake a perfect line at the property line. I couldn't draw such a straight line on paper with a ruler. I think you use a laser line or something. When I do the leaves, I rake the bulky stuff, then mulch the rest with my mower. I tend to stray over the property line a few feet.

Not you.

Perfect line.

Oh, and those times when a stick from our tree falls in your yard, thanks for throwing it back in my yard. I've seen that a couple of times. Maybe I should try to charge you for the energy saving you get from my tree from the shade in the summer. Oh, I digress.

Maybe it is the stubbornness in me, but it makes me want to wait until we have had a day of high winds blowing in your direction before I will mow again. Today I was planning on raking/mowing, but there is a rain snow mix going on out there, so I figured I would blog instead.

As long as I am apologizing, I would like to apologize to the neighbors across the street. I am sorry that we annoy you by saying hello and waving every now and then. I know that it is annoying to see people try to be friendly. Please, keep ignoring us when we display such terrible behavior.

To the neighbors behind us, I am sorry that my kids play with balls. You see they are boys, and balls are fascinating to them. I am sorry that when a ball goes over the fence they climb the fence to retrieve it. We have instructed them to let the ball lay if it goes over the fence, but sometimes they really want to continue with their game and they try to sneak over the fence to get it. Please, keep reminding them they annoy you by banging on the kitchen window and screaming when they do it. That is very helpful. It makes us want to encourage our boys to mow your yard when you get too old to do so. I don't think that will be long. It will probably happen right when they are prime mowing ages.

To the neighbors on the other side, I am sorry that my roof damaged your tree when it blew over on it. Thank you for not offering to do anything when this happened. Thank you for telling us how you make a lot of money. It may not have been good timing to mention this during the same conversation that you told us your insurance company said you legally were not liable for anything. I am sorry for feeling like maybe you should have been concerned. It was a nice touch though when you came over to ask the name of our roofer, when you needed to get some roof work done. Well played.

Mrs. Nurse Boy and I have mentioned this before, but if every one of your neighbors are weird, does that make you the weird one? We seem to function well in society, but that is a matter of opinion, I suppose.

5 comments:

Sir Nottaguy-Imadad said...

Some of your neighbors sound like my neighbors. Are you sure that you don't live in central Ohio?

Anonymous said...

That's it....we're never moving. Between your neighbor posts and Chaos' neighbor posts, I want to go kiss my neighbors. Oh we have some fruity ones, but none of our neighbors are mean or rude.

The neighbor immediately to our west shovels our driveway for us nearly every time it snows (he started when AM came home from the hospital and just never stopped). The neighbor behind us chuckles when he has to toss balls, airplanes, frisbees, etc... back over the fence. The neighbor behind the guy that shovels for us occasionally offers us fresh produce from his large garden (which sort of makes up for his foul mouthed teenagers that like to have pool parties....almost).

It would seem that we lucked out when God handed out neighbors.

Chaos-Jamie said...

I TOLD you that you should have bought the house next door to me. Sure, they get political, but compared to YOUR neighbors, WE look pretty stinkin' good don't we?

Boy Mom said...

Love it, we've been in many neighborhoods and found many personalities. We currently love, love, love, most of neighbors, though I think we may qualify for the foul mouth teenager title that Imperfect Mom mentioned, I'll remember that fresh produce is not enough and include baked goods. There is a house for sale just down the block...we'd love more friends and boys in our lives.

Jewel said...

When we lived in town, our neighbors were great, but out here in the country.....well, we've had our fair share of problems BUT we've endeavored to "return good for evil", "be not overcome with evil", "love your neighbor as yourself"....it is not always easy, but it does seem to temper the situation somewhat. One thing, I don't understand, is people, like your one neighbor, not even wanting to wave or say hello or good morning or somethin!