As a kid, I assumed that everyone’s neighbors hated them. To the left of us, our neighbors’ sons played endless rounds of basketball, resting between games on the railroad ties that cordoned off my mother’s flowers. In an attempt to keep them out of the flowers, my folks slicked the ties with oil, warning the boys not to sit there anymore. Several ruined pairs of pants later, the boys finally got the message, but their mother regularly ignored us on her daily walk to her car.
Across from us lived a mom, teenage girl, and a boy a year younger than I. The girl, Sissy, kicked me in the nose (I was eight at the time) when I tried to line up for the bus (our stop was at her house). The boy, Michael, regularly challenged my brother (two years my senior) to fights. When my brother finally consented to a round of fisticuffs, he pushed Michael to the ground after which Michael proceeded to cry and run home. Michael’s mother called my mother to complain about his ruined pants (apparently we were experts at it), and my Mom recommended bleach.
To our right lived a family whose father fancied himself a farmer. He built a barn in the backyard (about ¼ of an acre) and plowed much of the yard to grow organic produce. From inside, we enjoyed watching him endlessly roto-till his ¼ acre plot until we stepped outside and suffered the ill effects of his “natural” fertilizer that encouraged flies the size of our Chihuahua.
As neighbors, we were no picnic either. I practiced piano in the early morning (about 7am) and my brother practiced his drums daily. Our aforementioned Chihuahua, Tuffy, was a champion yipper/bayer/biter of strangers. He often refused to come in when called, so I’m sure the neighbors were less than thrilled at our nightly shouts at Tuffy to get inside.
Since then, I’ve tried to be cognizant of my own noise pollution as a neighbor and apartment dweller. As I’ve grown more conscious of the effects of my living space on others, I’ve become less tolerant of people who are clueless about living in shared space.
For instance, if I were President, my first act would be to make it illegal to cook liver and onions in an apartment building. The same law would apply for people who leave alarm clocks on over a holiday weekend when they’re gone. There would be a special jail for those who leave their howling dogs in the backyard all day while their owners are at work.
With a miniscule amount of tolerance left, I entered this holiday season with trepidation. Our new neighbors (whose yard our living room overlooks) had installed a particularly obnoxious Halloween display. In their postage stamp-sized yard, they had erected not one but two large inflatables (one in the shape of a haunted house, the other a Grim Reaper, hovering over the fence). Both featured lights that stayed on all night. Despite their already over-packed yard, the neighbors added several tombstones that glowed fiendishly and several carved pumpkins, one of which was vomiting his own guts.
For a solid month, Peter and I looked on this tableau and feared for Christmas. And we were right to be afraid. A few weeks before Christmas, the neighbors erected another large inflatable, this one featuring Santa, his sled, a few reindeer, and some elves. This, in and of itself, wasn’t too bad, but a few days later came the light display. Our neighbor draped lights over the fences and trees as well as the balcony and awning of his house. But these weren’t ordinary lights. These were, what my friend Jill called, “seizure-inducing merriment.” The lights flashed and blinked furiously in time to….wait for it….. electronic holiday music blasted for everyone within a ten mile radius to hear. And this went on well after 10pm.
I lasted three days before I anonymously submitted the following note to our neighbors’ mailbox:
The Great Assumption of 2011
And lo, it came to pass that in the town of Dillon, there was a house swaddled in lights, enveloped by music, and the neighbors, they were sore afraid…
- Assumption 1: Everyone within listening and viewing distance of your display celebrates Christmas.
- Assumption 2: Everyone within listening and viewing distance of your display who celebrates Christmas enjoys flashing lights and accompanying music.
- Assumption 3: Everyone within listening distance of your display is hearing impaired, hence, the extreme volume of the display’s audio component.
- Assumption 4: Everyone within listening distance of your display does not work in the evenings and should therefore not be disturbed by the volume of your display’s audio component.
- Assumption 5: Everyone within listening distance of your display enjoys electronic mash-ups of the same handful of songs repetitively for at least five hours each evening.
My assumption: You will read these assumptions and crumple them up.
My hope: You will turn the volume down on your display so that only residents at your home can hear it.
Now, I know the note is snarky and not at all in keeping with the “holiday spirit,” and I should have just put on my big-girl panties and knocked on their door to ask them to turn down the music, but as I round the corner of 40, I’ve become less and less concerned about letting my bitch flag fly.
So it was with great satisfaction when, that evening, the music was noticeably less loud and the display discontinued at around 9pm.
I felt pretty good about myself. For about a day. Then, the following afternoon, the doorbell rang, and there stood my neighbor, handing out holiday cards.
“Hi!” he exclaimed. “I’m Phil, from next door. My family and I just moved to town, and I’m giving out Christmas cards to the neighbors as a way to apologize for my yard decorations. We got a note about them and we felt bad for disturbing the neighbors. You see, I served in the military for several years, and I’m deaf in one ear.”
Yup. I had that one coming.
Not only was this guy classy enough to come to our door with a card and a heartfelt apology but also he actually was hearing impaired. After serving our country.
He continued, “Yeah, so since I can’t hear out of this ear and my kids weren’t going to tell me how loud the music was, I didn’t know how loud it had gotten. We just moved here from California and we want to fit in with the neighbors. We love living here, away from the bustle of the big city. We decided to move here after I retired as an ultimate fighting champion.”
Gulp.
I smiled, nodded, and absolutely, positively did NOT own up to the fact that I was the one who had written the note. I admit, it was hard to speak with my foot so firmly lodged in my mouth, but even more difficult was digesting the notion that this guy could rearrange my face without trying too hard.
I said goodbye to Phil and crawled under the bed like the snake that I am.
And this is why I should live in the country. Not because I deserve to be free of annoying neighbors but because they deserve to be free of me.
Happy Holidays, everyone! Be as loud as you like. I’m not leaving the house until school starts.
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