Neighborly-Schmeighborly

Here we are. A seemingly nice, young couple with a hyper dog that recently moved into the neighborhood. We are polite, cordial, we keep our yard tidy and we don’t leave our trashcans out for weeks at a time. To me, that’s being a good neighbor.

I met our neighbors the day we moved in. For the purposes of being discrete, we will call them Schmave and Schmancy. I had just convinced Steve that we didn’t need to keep a decade-old recliner our dog tore the seat out of or the beer pong table from college, so he left to take the chair, table, and some other crap I had to beg him to part with, to the dump. I was elbow-deep in bubble wrap, unpacking broken plates and cursing like a sailor when I heard a knock on the door.

Before I could even make it around the corner to see who it was, I heard the door open and someone shout, “Hello!” Um, hello, strange old man who is now standing in my house because apparently waiting for me to let you in wasn’t necessary…

“Hi there, neighbor! I’m Schmave. My wife Schmancy and I live next door,” he said.

“Well, it’s, uh, nice to meet you. My name is Quinn, my boyfriend Steve and I just moved in,” I said.

“Yep, this is a good house," he said as he walked through the living room I didn’t invite him into. He seemed to be inspecting the molding and the walls as if he would find a fault to make him retract that statement.

“Yes, we are pretty excited,” I said, unsure if I was about to get raped or killed or both because that’s what would happen next if this was a horror movie.

“Your boyfriend, you said? That fellow’s not your husband?”

“That’s right,” I said. This is the kind of question that usually prompts me to make a joke about living in sin but I wanted to reframe from anything that could potentially be interpreted as camaraderie or taking pleasure in this experience.

“Well, that’s all right…” Thanks for your approval, dude. “Okay, well, I brought these beers over because I saw some sweaty men moving big boxes in.” I hadn’t even noticed the beer. Sweaty men? That’s a weird thing to say, I thought.

“Oh, that’s so nice of you! Here, let me put these plates down and I’ll take them from you,” I said. I suddenly hated him less for letting himself into my home unannounced and uninvited. Beer is a peace offering. I like peace offerings.

“No, it’s okay. I’ll just go put them in the fridge.” He walked past me and around the corner. I heard bubble wrap popping between his steps and heavy breathing. I decided to stay at the door, seeing as how I didn’t invite him in, I would at least see him out.

“Okay, uh, thanks,” I said, flipping my hate switch back on—fuck the peace offering.

“All right. Well you let me know how those guys like the beer,” he said as he walked out of my kitchen. Does he think women don’t like beer?

“Well we’ve never met a beer we didn’t like!” I said, gesturing him towards the door.

“Good. Hey, if you guys need anything, just knock on our door. We’re always around!”

“Yes, I will be sure to knock.”

“Nice to meet you!” he said and showed himself out.

“You too, Schmave! Thanks for the beer!” I closed the door behind him and locked it.

I stood there, wondering what had just happened. Strange old man walks into my house through the guise of a half-knock and proceeds to walk around inside without even the slightest inclination from me that such a thing was welcome…weird. When Steve returned I relayed the story.

“Great. Well I guess we’re going to have to keep the door locked,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s like that. I think it’s more like…we need to be mean to them so they’ll leave us alone,” I said.

“But they’re old!”

“Wait a minute…You’ve already met them, haven’t you? You’ve already talked to them and made friends with them and oh god—”

“Relax. I didn’t make friends with anyone. I just talked to them a little about the fence we want to put in and other stuff—you know, neighbor-talk,” he said.

“DAMNIT, STEVE! That’s why Schmave just walked into our house—because he probably thought you were his new bestie after whatever conversation you had!”

The problem is, Steve and I have a very different philosophy about neighbor relationships. I believe that living within a few feet of each other does not mean we need to be best friends or even talk to each other, ever. Steve, however, is Mister freaking Rogers and always happy to strike up a conversation about the weather or how good so and so’s hostas look. It’s not that I’m unfriendly or mean, I just believe that befriending your neighbor is a way of condoning their nosiness, and keeping them at arms-length is best, at least at first.

“No way! I mean, he seemed a little weird, but he’s, like, 60-something. And his wife is really nice,” Steve said.

“His wife? So you met both of them?”

“Yeah, Schmave and Schmancy. They’ve lived here for 25 years and they have two cats and they just bought a new car and they like to vacation in Santa Fe and—”

“Wow, what’s left to know about them? Their bowel movements?” I opened a beer and threw it back in a single gulp.

“Hey! Did you buy beer?”

“No, Schmave brought it over for ‘all the sweaty men moving big boxes.’ And he put it in the fridge while I stood at the front door wondering why the hell he was in my house,” I said.

“Wait, he actually said ‘sweaty men’? That’s weird.”

“I KNOW! You can’t be so nice,” I said.

“But you’re so mean. We balance each other out! Besides, we have to be nice to them, at least for now…after all, we are putting that fence in,” he said.

A few weeks after Schmave’s home intrusion, we got a survey done – a necessary step any good homeowner takes prior to putting in something that defines property lines, such as a fence. Turns out, Schmave and Schmancy had stolen about eight feet of our property.

“They didn’t steal it, Quinn. They were just…taking care of it,” Steve said.

“Sure, that’s why they put down that row of bricks, as if that would be the new property line, and then invested in a bunch of expensive landscaping.”

“I can see you’re angry about this, so why don’t you let me handle it.”

“Well, it all makes sense now. Schmave’s intrusion, the forced friendliness, Schmancy’s constant questions about when a fence would be going in and what kind of fence it would be…”

“I know. We will work it out. I’ll talk to them.”

“No. I’m going to talk to them.”

I calmly explained to Schmancy that property lines were property lines and that I was very sorry about her garden, which was about to have a four-foot fence running through it, but we have a dog, and even though she’s losing some of the property she stole, at least our dog wouldn’t dig up her plants and shit on her patio. Things seemed to go okay. Then she attacked Steve.

“So Schmancy just said she was going to call a lawyer about the survey we had done,” Steve said.

“That’s adorable. Let her do it.”

“Stop. We don’t need enemies.”

“Seriously? It’s not our problem. The fencers are coming tomorrow.”

“Yeah, about that...I called them and rescheduled for next weekend.”

“WHAT?”

“Well, we had to compromise. I told Schmancy we’d give her another week to move her plants…”

“She’s already had a week!”

“…and I told her we would help her.”

“!@#$%^&**&^%$#@!”

So we helped Schmancy move her stupid plants. We put the fence in. And we haven’t heard much from either of them save for the occasional Saturday when we’re doing yardwork and Schmave will stumble over with gin and tonics in hand to tell us the latest horribly offensive joke he’s heard. Everything is good. And even though Steve’s neighborliness is annoying, it makes me less…what’s that word…bitchy? We do balance each other out. I run into the house with my head down as fast as I possibly can to avoid interaction, and he saunters over to say hello, strike up conversation about road conditions and tell them that we’re getting married.

Yeah.

Like how I saved that for the very end?

MARRIED!

I’m so lucky.