There are few things in life worse than your next door neighbor hating you, and you hating him. It's not just a one day thing, it's every day. Whenever they drive by you have to feel that anxiety, and on and on for weeks, months and even years. I hope I never experience that but down my road there have been feuds for years. It started when the restaurant-owner told her manager not to hire her neighbor for a waitress job, probably aware that eventually she tires of and fires all of her workers. Her manager hired her neighbor anyway, good help is hard to find, and sure enough before the year was out the owner fired her. This made her husband put up a little sign in his pickup truck saying “Boycott The Waterwheel.”
That little conflict eventually calmed down, the restaurant-owner became a little old lady, and her neighbors should have realized you never really appreciate peace and tranquility until you lose it. She eventually sold the restaurant and moved out of town, selling her houses to obnoxious growers and dealers. Instead of a little old lady with a bit of an attitude across the street who maybe drove in and out a couple times a day the neighbors had traffic all day long with workers, trimmers, and buyers clogging up the few parking spaces between them. (And more dogs in the neighborhood now too, one more little paradise defiled.)
On one side of the street a middle-class household not into dope with a sullen son and regular jobs and on the other side the usual socially-retarded arrogant man-child full of himself and drunk on his power to grow in multiple locations and whatever else he wanted to do. (Let’s call these two Sullen and Arrogant.)
One day Sullen noticed a dent in his car, got the repair appraisal, and demanded that Arrogant pay him for the damages, though it was a cluster-fuck of haphazardly parked cars and trucks down there with no proof who was responsible. Arrogant refused and Sullen's father threatened to “Turn you in!” which seemed like a pretty empty threat as weed was almost legal anyway. Arrogant finally gave Sullen the $3200 just to get him off his back. (Months later he still complains about that payoff.)
The dogs kept getting out of the new neighbor's yard and coming over to mix it up with Sullen's dog so he went over to complain. Arrogant wasn't home but his girlfriend was, although she didn't seem to be cooperating up to the standards that Sullen expected.
“Bitch!” he said and went back home across the street. When Arrogant got home he encountered Sullen in the road and said, “You called my girlfriend a bitch!” and punched him in the face. The cops were called, Arrogant disappeared for a few weeks, and Sullen's parents filed for a temporary restraining order. They all met in court last week with dueling permanent restraining order requests. Everybody lied and the judge threw up his hands and dismissed the whole matter.
I am thankful I'm not involved with that neighborhood insanity.
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