Boy Ryan and I have had some shitty luck with neighbors over the past few years. We’ve lived under a bat shit crazy women who would knock on our door for talking too loudly, had a neighbor contact the home owners association for a suspected “dog dumping and not picking it up “incident and a run in with the neighborhood “violation” board for not weeding our patio. It’s been a rough and exhausting couple of years living in the world of renting which finally gave us the motivation to buy a house.
I moved to my house almost two years ago and at the time had no idea what I was getting into. Boy Ryan and I bought our house from two suspected lesbians. I say suspected because it was never confirmed, however one lady was super butch and the other wouldn’t stop staring at me during the closing, so I feel my evidence is strong for this theory. Plus my neighbors nicknamed our house, the “lesbian house”.
My house sits about 100 feet from a neighborhood lake. We have a club house, a beach and A LOT of “lake” parties. The usual attendees who participate in lake parties are interesting characters. The first few times I went to a lake party two things always happened; 1. I stumble home and 2. I would be told by the residents that living in this neighborhood is, ” A LITTLE PIECE OF PARADISE”.
Everyone who lives here is very close, eerily close and I’m thinking this neighborhood might be a huge community of swingers. While I haven’t seen any keys being exchanged, it’s a definite possibility. Hopefully I won’t get lured into any odd situations after a heavy night of lake drinking, if I do, you all will be the first to hear about it.
The Lake People are all in their mid to late 50’s. They will drink you under the table and tell you about things you have never even considered. For example, 10 reasons baseball can cure erectile dysfunction. Again, never crossed my mind before, yet highly informative.
Basically on a weirdness scale, my neighbors fall somewhere between Lady Gaga and Weird Al Yankovic.
Here is a diagram of my street. Each and every neighbor have a corresponding nickname given by myself and Boy Ryan based on the encounters we have had with each one.
A. The Mean Old Lady
Mean old lady is probably a hoarder. I haven’t been in her house but I’ve watched hoarders enough to know the personality traits of a hoarder. She never leaves her house unless to yell at someone and rarely takes out the trash. I spend a lot of time staring out my window and have observed her the most because she sits at her window doing the same. Long story short, she hates us, I’m not sure why, but its probably for one of the following reasons:
1. Boy Ryan accidentally blew 3 leaves onto her lawn last fall. She came outside like a bat out of hell ready to shove that blower down his throat.
2. She is severely constipated and blames us.
3. Or she’s offended that Addison asked her if she was a, “legit” witch while trick or treating at her house last Halloween.
B. The Crazy Cat Lady and her emotional abused husband
I’ve written an entire post about the Crazy Cat Lady a while back. Basically my “angelic” dog attempted to eat her cat not once, not twice but three times. The point is, he never succeeded in eating her cat and the thing is still alive. We have done our neighborly duties by training our dog (through shock therapy) so he can’t leave his own yard and that should have been the end of the situation. However, that hasn’t stopped her from starting a dog-hating revolution on our street. She makes sure to stand at her glass door each and every Saturday morning holding her cat as if to remind me that she is the alpha female on the street. In a true passively-aggressively way, I make sure she knows how much I respect her by never helping her shovel out her car when it snows. The only thing that disturbs me about her is her husband. This is a man who Is truly scared of his wife. He doesn’t speak unless spoken to and only chats with us when his wife is not home. One time he and I were having a conversation and when her car turned down the street, this man literally ran back into the house before she pulled into the driveway. I wonder if he got a beating for that?
C. The Pirates
Our favorite neighbors are the Pirates. This couple is wild and borderline trashy. The husband has a ton of tattoos and walks with a slight limp which prompted our daughter to call him a pirate; the name stuck. He loves to drink and can only remember your name when he is past the legal alcohol limit. The first time we met him, he showed up at our door with a case of beer; really he’s a great guy. He brings his own hookah to parties and will kick your ass in corn-hole. The couple has around 45 animals; at least 4 dogs and a ton of cats that run wild around the neighborhood. One of the cats is the size of a small lion and beat the shit out of our dog who, no surprise, tried to eat him.
D. The invisibles
The invisbles live directly next to us. We never seem them come in or out of their house and are not really sure they exist at all. I thought I saw them once but I might have been hallucinating.
E. The Partridge Family
This couple has 4? maybe 5 children who each have outdoor chores on Saturday morning. Mowing the lawn, raking the yard, weeding the plants…they are always doing chores. At night, the children sit outside on the porch and sing while their parents play the guitar. I’m pretty sure they write and produce their own music which is beyond impressive. The children sing in different octaves like something you see right out of The Sound Of Music. When it’s raining out, they leave their front door open and you can find them around the fireplace jamming out.
I might want to be adopted by them.
F.The Lake Ladies
These 5-6 women are the shit. They “cast” off to the center of the lake on lounging floats with floating coolers filled with wine each Sunday at 3pm. I know this because I patiently wait on the beach for an invitation. Sometimes, they call their husbands to row out on the lake and replenish their wine bottles. When I grow up, I want to be a lake lady.
G. Packs of Children
For some reason there are always pack of children running around the lake. I don’t know who they belong to, they might be feral children. These kids keep to themselves while the adults drink, like all children should do. Occasionally I will drop off my own child so they can teach her how to occupy herself while I drink wine but I always pick her up before she gets the urge to run free with them. These children are basically free babysitters with an aversion to wearing clothes and shoes.
Hey, beggars can’t be choosers.
This neighborhood is slowly rubbing off on me. Who knows, by this time next year I could join the swingers club and really get into this little piece of paradise.
Part of Finish the Sentence Friday!
That Girl Ryan 
I think every neighborhood has a bunch of crazies and for sure we are one of them, but we just don’t know it. I think our “reputation” in the neighborhood is the free babysitting neighbors. Any kid between the age of 5 and 13 comes to our house and jumps on the trampoline without asking us, because our son is so accomidating to all the neighbors at our expense of course. I’m the bitter old man always telling them to go home and get water and food at your own house and “you dumb kids get out of my yard.” I hope they fear me.
What did you expect getting the only trampoline in the neighborhood? Those things are a hot commodity. Maybe next time you tell them to go home, you should do so with a chainsaw, I bet they will listen.
There are other families that have trampolines too. It’s just we are actually responsible parents is the problem. We actually want to know where our kids are and don’t just want them randomly wandering the neighborhood.
Well responsibility has consequences. See, you could get rid of them for a couple of hours but you choose not to- shame on you. 🙂
I hate being responsible…:(
Hahahah! Oh you and I could be neighbors. My family and I have nicknames for everyone on the block! Hmmm… do they have one for us?
My thought exactly….I always wonder what our nickname would be…prob something about our cat eating dog lol
I want to be a lake lady! But I don’t think you should be adopted by the Partridge Family they seem too goody-goody. Get adopted by the pirate, he has beer.
Everybody wants to be a lake lady, life of luxury. Hahha ok you have a point, pirate has beer. Plus I’m sure the partridge family have skeletons in their closets. Ppl like that sing for a reason I guess.
I want to be a lake lady, too! How cool that they make their husbands row more wine out to them. Your neighborhood sounds awesome actually. Way better than mine. I am also quite jealous of the feral kids/free babysitters. Our sitter recently quit and I need something like that. I also need a neighbor who brings me beer.
Kristi you are welcome to come any time. The feral children have been a god send, they should implement those in every neighborhood In America.
Hahaha, the lake ladies are my favorite. I bet they were never part of the cool crowd when they were younger, so now that they have their own cool crowd, they’re very picky about who gets in. I imagine they refer to you as that young bitch or something similar when they see you longing on the beach all pathetic like. They’re just jealous though. I like the sound of this street. My own street is okay, but it’s part of a larger suburban neighborhood that sort of can suck ass.
Don I think you would fit in well on this street. You and the pirate would prob start a band and drink beer together. Maybe he would convince you to get some tattoos. I think you should move.
You can totally be a Lake Lady. Buy your own float and cooler, launch at 2:30 PM on a Sunday, and say (all cool and casual-like) to the LL when they launch at 3 PM: “oh, nice to see you ladies, wontcha please join me?” I bet they completely dig that!
Ballsy, I like it. I’m going to try this and let you know how it goes! My LL float is ready to go!
I loved that drawing of different homes and nicknaming them…so creative 🙂
loved reading about your neighbors and their characteristics..lol
Haha thank you. I spend way too much time analyzing these ppl, they are that quirky.
I definitely agree with the ambition of being a Lake Lady. It could be an official club where you get a sword, name it Excalibur… On Halloween, you can do a ghostly lady lake thing for the feral children.
A sword, wine glass and personalized float! I think this idea could be my way in…