Love thy neighbor. Or some crap, I don't know.

We have new neighbors.

I don’t really know them yet. All I know is that they have numerous vehicles parked on their driveway, yard, and in the road. Oh and they have a smoke detector which needs to have the batteries replaced. Because it chirps ALL. THE. TIME. It drives me bananas and I don’t even live there so I cannot fathom how they tolerate it.

There are some small girls who live there or just visit a lot. On Sunday the Boy and the Girl were outside most of the afternoon and the small girls found their way over into our yard. Another boy from across the street came over and the children all played together in a fort made of sticks that the Boy and Girl had thoughtfully constructed in our side yard.

Jason, Ginger, and I sat together in the swing on our front porch. We were a few feet from the children and could hear them laughing and coming up with “code names” for their new, ultra top-secret club. (All the code names had to do with nature. One of the girls is named “Skye”. Code name: “Bunny”. Naturally)

After they had been playing for probably an hour, the front door swung open and a lady came barreling out. Jason and I both nodded at her and Jason said, “How are you doing?” or something equally polite because, apparently, the Southernosity of everyone around us is rubbing off on him.

The woman did not respond. Instead she began calling, loudly, for those girls.

They didn’t respond.

She started to look panicked and I told her, “I believe they are in our side yard”. I walked to the edge of our porch and told the girls “I think your mom is looking for you” and sheepishly, they climbed out and walked across our yard to theirs.

As they climbed the steps to their porch I heard the mother say,
“Don’t go out and play with kids without telling me! You don’t know those people! “

“They’re so nice,” I heard the little girl protest.

And THEN the mom said, and I’m not kidding,

“That man wasn’t even wearing a shirt!”

As I heard the door slam behind her I looked at my husband who was born and raised in Connecticut and has never used the word ain’t in his entire life and I said,

“Oh my GOD. We’re THOSE neighbors!”

And maybe he might have said something like, "We become what we fear most Stephanie!" I wasn't really listening to him.






We don’t ever park in our yard y’all. Not ever.