love thy neighbor

they say you gotta love thy neighbors, but sometimes, what i really want to do is beat them and bury them in my backyard.

if it didn't keep on happening, i would think maybe i'm being overly sensitive. sort of like the old poker adage: if you when look around the table and can't pick out the sucker, then the sucker is probably you.

well, in this case, i can identify the sucker, and it ain't me. but i think i am the asshole-attracting magnet.

right now, as i write this, my neighbor is playing the drums. loudly. even with the windows shut, it's a pounding thump-thump-thump like a broken metronome. if my neighbor played the drums with any skill, it wouldn't be half as bad. when i lived in my condo before we moved here, we had a neighbor across the hall that knew the opening chords to smoke on the water.

but that's all he knew. day and night, it's all we would hear: dduuuhhnnn, dduuhhnnnn, dduuhhhnnnn, dun, dun, dun, ddduuuhhhnnnnn. thankfully though, it was loudest before we ventured into our front door, and once shut, it was barely imperceptible until you opened the front door and waited for someone to scream "play free bird."

but my neighbor is either still learning how to play or he is calling the spirits of hades to rise up against me. it's not like we live that closely to one another. my house is not attached to his and furthermore his house is easily the width of a south philadelphia street from my house. although we do share a driveway, the driveway is wide enough to fit four car widths.

the driveway! that reminds me, two summers ago, he bought his children little crotch rockets motor bikes. (this is not to be confused with pocket rockets. that's just creepy.) because his spermatazoa are now about 10 years old, they can't exactly go far on their suuuu-zoo-keys. instead, all summer long, they would ride these gas guzzling bikes up and down the shared driveway. they could accelerate just enough in either direction to drive me crazy.

then one day, the bikes were gone. i danced a little happy dance. only to stop when it was replaced by a hot tub and a boat.

now, let's set the record straight -- these folks are not the rockefellers. they are industrious trash pickers. resourceful, even. but still trash pickers.

the boat was bought for a song from another neighbor who, if i ever track down exactly who it sold it to him, will be getting a flaming bag of poo left on the doorstep from me because i have a rusty, stinky barge-like thing taking up space in my driveway. (yes, it's mine. all mine.)

the hot tub is the scariest of all. situated against the back of their house, and steeped in darkness away from the stream of lights shone from either of our garages, the hot tub provides them with entertainment at all hours of the night.

i'll let the dogs out for a final pee and hear giggling in the dark. the dogs go wild looking for the source of the laughter. i'm just horrified once my brain wraps itself around where its coming from. one night as i was coming home late, i parked the car when i heard someone else coming, too. ewwwww.

so i guess for now, i should be relieved it's only the sound of drums being played. when the weather warms up in the next few weeks, my neighbors will be finding other ways to drive me crazy.