The Good Neighbor

That's me. I'm a fabulous person to live next door to today, apparently.

This morning, I was outside on my front porch, enjoying the warmer temps (and a nasty cigarette *hanging head in shame*), when the man who lives next door came home. He got out of his truck and smiled and waved and said "hello" and started to walk toward our yard, and I thought "oh, how nice... he's going to be friendly and talk to me!"

He talked to me alright.

"Hi. Ummm, I'm not trying to be a pain in the ass or anything... but, I don't HAVE a dog." (Said as he's pointing to a pile of dog poo in his yard. A monster pile, left by who else but MY dog, Comet the Moose.)

I smiled (trying to hide my fierce disappointment that he didn't want to engage his new neighbor in idle chit-chat) and sheepishly responded, "Oh, I'm sorry. We'll clean that up. Sorry. Yeah... dogs... mine... not yours. Sorry..." and then scurried back into my house and yelled at my husband that he needed to clean up after HIS dog. (He did. He's a good husband.)

Fast forward a few hours... I drove over to the bus stop to retrieve Damon this afternoon. On our way back down the street, there was another car coming in the opposite direction. He pulled over to let me by, but pulled over INTO the spot where I park. So, I went past my spot and decided to turn around in the driveway across the street, aim myself back UP the street, and pull into my spot.

Damon and I were chatting, and I was backing up... when BAM! I backed right into the mailbox that belongs to the little old lady who lives on the OTHER side of me. Good grief! Knocked the thing right over, snapped the wooden post right in half. I'm good.

Luckily, Nick was still home. So of course, I ran into the house screaming for him. (Nick fixes everything. He's a very good husband.) We walked outside and he went in search of some tools and told me that I had to go tell our neighbor what I'd just done to her mailbox. Darn it.

So, I knock on the sweet old lady's door... she answers with a smile on her face (she has NO clue who I am), and I say, "Hi!!! I'm your new neighbor... and I just hit your mailbox and knocked it down." I'm GREAT at making first impressions, what can I say?

Luckily, she was very nice. She giggled and said, "oh, you did?" I told her that Nick was going to get it to stand upright again and make it function until we could replace her post. She assured me that she wasn't upset and that "accidents happen, honey!" Then she invited me to sit down and chat with her for a while. I stood and chatted with her for a while (I only told her half of my life story), and then told her I had to go help Nick repair her pole. She thanked me for coming by to confess and said that most people wouldn't have even done that (yeah, well I didn't want to, but my mean husband made me!). Then she told me to come back and visit again sometime. How sweet! How... Mayberry.

I think I better get in the kitchen and bake some cookies for the neighborhood folk... try to redeem myself a little. My first impressions probably left a lot to be desired! There's always tomorrow...