Neighbors

Today’s prompt:

Be Neighborly

Maybe you fell for the girl next door or considered building a fence to keep out the nosy neighbor. Tell us a story, draw us a map, or give us a hidden gem about your neighborhood, past or present.

I love my neighbors, but we don’t do a lot socially. We are all busy with our own lives, but it is nice to wave hello over the fence and to know that someone will grab the paper and the mail and feed the pets if we go out of town.  I often think I should have the neighbors over for dinner or something, but I’ve always been better on paper than in person. I would love to get to know my neighbors better, but it’s hard. Letters are easier—so maybe I’ll just get to know my neighbors via mail.  Yeah, that sounds good.

Dear Neighbors,

I had a good time the other night yelling, together, at our dogs as they chased each other around on their respective sides of the fence. Seems they’re really getting along now, don’t you think?

I hope you enjoyed the monster zucchinis we gave you last year. We meant to give you a basket full of the colorful and nutritious bounty from our garden, but the zucchini was the only thing the voles didn’t devour or destroy. We gave you the baseball bat sized zukes, because we thought you’d appreciate having some food storage. For the rest of your natural lives.

Please excuse my kids throwing three different frisbees onto your roof in as many hours and then climbing up there without your permission to retrieve them. The fourth frisbee fell off on it’s own.  I’ve confiscated the frisbees.

Oh, and helping your little girl look for her lost tortoise this fall was actually really fun, glad Squirtacious Ralph found his way home again. We made and stamped a passport for him in honor of his trip around the backyard berm.

Thanks for not killing our cats when they pooped in your flower beds and antagonized your dogs.

I’m really glad you laughed along with me as I “planted” 74 pink plastic flamingos in my yard, just to piss of the HOA. Oh, wait, you’re on the HOA board—guess the joke’s on me.  At any rate, thanks for not fining me.

Oh, hey, and if my four year old tells you that you have “jiggly big bum cheeks” it’s because her brother taught her to say “jiggly big bum cheeks” and we all laughed so hard when she said it the first time that now she thinks she’s telling a joke. It’s not a judgment on anyone’s size or level of fitness. Thanks for understanding, and if you have any suggestions for other, more entertaining phrases for her to parrot for days on end, we’d love to hear them.

Thanks for not calling CPS when my younger kids ran outside to play in their skivvies in 30 degree weather. It seems you and I share the same child-rearing philosophy: “If the little exhibitionsists want coats, they know where to find them.”

Also, I hope it was okay that we sugared up your kids that one time and send them home graffitied in glitter and paint and sidewalk chalk.  The kids keep talking about tagging the garage, but I told them they had to keep their artistic expressions on the up and up, in socially approved formats.

Good chatting with you, and I’ll have the husband bring you back your rake….could I borrow a couple of eggs?

Love, Marissa