MEETING THE NEW NEIGHBOR

When you have a neighbor who has been nice to you, who has watched your house and fed your turtle while you were on vacation and who generally has not been a pain in the ass, it’s always sad when they pack up and move away. And once the good-byes are said and the obligatory promises to “keep-in-touch” are uttered the sadness is quickly replaced by a curious sort of excitement and anticipation. OK, they’re gone and they’re not coming back. So who is going to move in? Who is going to be my new neighbor?

“Maybe a crew of flight attendants will move in!” I joked to Spike.
“And maybe they’ll be men,” Spike joked back, failing to understand that some things simply aren’t funny and therefore should not be joked about.

I received my first hints regarding the new neighbor on Wednesday afternoon of last week. I had walked out front (Because really, what else have I got to do?) and saw the moving van parked next door. Something was definitely happening.

Not being the nosy sort, at least not to any extraordinary or illegal degree, I came into the house and sat at the computer. It was about an hour later when I heard it.

“Yip!”

Dear Jesus, no! I thought to myself. But the prayer, like all prayers, was an exercise in futility and I immediately heard the irritating noise again.

“Yip!”

This yip was followed by another and another, and then a veritable torrent of them was unleashed, as well as a cacophony of other hellish and inhuman sounds besides. And so I was forced to face the truth: The only thing that I knew for sure about my new neighbors was that they had brought with them one of nature’s most annoying and aggravating of creatures: the yappy little dog.

The yapping continued throughout most of the day as the dark clouds gathered over my head. I tried to read, I tried to write but always, always it was the piercing yip, yip, yip that dominated my consciousness like the relentless beating of a heart in some ancient tale by Poe.

Let me tell you one thing that you already know about the difference between owning a home and renting a home: When somebody rents the house or apartment next to you and they possess a disagreeable trait such as say, oh, being a terrorist or worse, owning a yappy little dog, there is a chance that you can grin and bear it. You might be able to ride out the situation, as they may very well move out in several months.

But when somebody buys the house next to you and they own a yappy little dog, you only have one hope and that is that the rat-sized mutt is already sixteen or seventeen years old, or extremely accident-prone, and you’ll only have to listen to him for a short time. I’m no dog expert, but I could tell by the frequency of the yips and the energy behind them that what we were dealing with here wasn’t much older than a pup; a pup who might very well be around long enough to happily yip on my grave. Despite a life filled with experiences that should have taught me otherwise, I was still somehow surprised by how cruel the fates can be.

The next day I was sitting at the computer when I heard someone moving things around in the yard at the house next door. I decided it was time to do the polite thing and introduce myself to the new neighbor. I went into the backyard and heard noises that confirmed someone was indeed there. (I also heard other, more irritating noises that confirmed that the yappy little dog was there as well.)

I looked through a crack in the tall redwood fence and saw only a patch of skin. Human presence now confirmed, I climbed onto a horizontal board and said in my most neighborly voice, “Hi, how ya doing?” (What a wit. And you wonder why I communicate more through writing than speaking?) I had yet to clearly see anybody, but I was able to discern that I had startled the person and immediately began to apologize. Meanwhile I got my footing steadied on the fence and so was better able to take in the vision that was to be my new neighbor.

It took my usually agile brain more than a moment to register what i saw..why before my very eyes was the most handsomest guy i have ever seen, mowing away happily as a cow..i was content.

That’s the trouble with the world today. People only care about themselves and very little about the happiness of their neighbors, whether they live in the house next door or half a planet away. We are all one big family on this big blue marble, boys and girls, and if we can’t even make the effort to tolerate, even welcome, a yappy little dog, then really what does this say about us as human beings?