My Stupid Neighbour

As I was leaving the house at a little after 6:00 AM this morning, I glanced at our neighbour’s car which was parked across the street with all the windows rolled down. I simply shook my head.

Sure, it’s annoying that my neighbours are irresponsible, spoiled by rich parents and relatives, and are experts at anything that is conceived and done half-assed.

(No, I’m not talking about the neighbours on our left -- quite the opposite is true with them. Chad and Trish are the kind of neighbours one always hopes to have but very rarely finds. Good people, easy going, friendly, trustworthy, reliable, courteous and a lot of fun to hang out with. They’re good parents, their kids are smart and adorable. And besides, Chad and I share an affinity for the important "big kid" things: hanging out on the back deck with friends and beer, challenging each other with hot and spicy foods and taking turns hosting video game nights)

No, I’m moaning about the boneheads who live on the other side of us. I could possibly start up a website much one I remember seeing a few years ago called “My Stupid Neighbor” in which this guy continually posts stories and pictures of the sitcom-like antics of the guy next door. I could do that, but I’m sure people would just think I was making stuff up to be funny. (Besides, do a search on the term (or US spelling) and you'll see it's a pretty common theme already)

But, let’s get on with today’s rant: On the morning of my birthday this past weekend, we woke up to find that someone had stolen a large potted plant off of our front step in the middle of the night. Budgeting is tight, so Francine was delighted to be able to find the money to buy the plant which added to the beauty of our front lawn. And within 24 hours of the plant arriving at our home, it was stolen. Argh. The weekend before, Alexander and I had been playing/working in the front yard. We took an extended break so I could go login and work on some weekend IT duties -- and in the space of about three hours, someone had stolen his ball out of the front yard. Every Halloween someone ends up stealing one or more of the items off of our beautifully decorated lawn (okay, that I can chalk up to the impetuousness of youth, and while I’m not happy about it, I can handle that type of thing). Several years ago (on my birthday again), someone had stolen CD’s and a cell phone from a car parked in our driveway overnight. The list of theft violations, though small, goes on and on.

Though it might not sound like it, we actually live in a pretty decent neighbourhood. No, it’s nothing like the place I grew up in where you could leave the keys in the ignition in your car on the street overnight and nobody touched it, or go away for the weekend and leave your door unlocked so the neighbours could go and water your plants for you. But it’s pretty decent, relatively speaking.

So what really burns my ass (besides three foot high flames) is that Francine and I are relatively responsible when it comes to taking care of the things we’ve acquired. And our yahoo neighbours are the type of people who muddle through life, get everything handed to them on a silver platter and either piss it away or leave it abandoned to the elements of snow, rain, dog shit, etc. They barely look after anything. They constantly leave their car unlocked with the windows rolled down, even during rainstorms, their front yard is strewn with expensive kid and adult toys, bikes, roller blades, strollers, whatever -- yet not once has any of these items been stolen.

Yes, the low life petty shit-head scum-sucking degenerates who slither into our neighbourhood whisk right past the smorgasbord of goodies laying in plain sight next door and do their pickings at our house.

Though I'm far from being goody goody, I sometimes feel like Ned Flanders living next door to Homer Simpson.